A Study On Cultivating English Autonomous Learning Of Middle School Students Via Problem-based Learning

The21st century is an era of competition for talents, and modern society calls forlearners to develop independent learning ability, innovative awareness and criticalthinking, therefore learners’ autonomy seems more and more important. The presentsituation of English teaching in Chinese middle schools is far from satisfactory due toits exam-oriented focus. The chief aim of English teaching is to impart knowledge, sothe students’ creativeness and subjectivity have been ignored to some extent. In order tomeet the social needs and occupational development, it is more urgent to cultivate thestudents’ autonomous learning ability both in English teaching and English learning inmiddle school.This study aims to focus on cultivating the autonomous learning ability of middleschool students in English study via problem-based learning. PBL (problem-basedlearning) was first proposed by Jerome Seymour Bruner, the famous American educator,psychologist. This model aims to guide students to improve the theoretical study andproblem-solving skills. Based on the relevant researches on PBL and the concept oflearner autonomy, aiming to explore the relationship between them, a new teachingmodel based on PBL will be proposed and carried out in experimental class. Thepurpose of the study is to prove that PBL teaching has positive impact on learners’autonomy and it can promote learners’ academic achievements as well.Problem-based learning model is problem-oriented, which can guide the studentsto identify and solve the problem by themselves. The application of the PBL intoEnglish teaching with the view to cultivate the students’ autonomous learning ability canbring some fresh ideas about teaching and theory references to the research workers,enrich our educational teaching theory about PBL and autonomous learning. And it canhelp the teachers understand and grasp the analysis and usage of the teaching model,instruct the teachers’ teaching, change the students’ learning style, enable students tolearn how to learn and improve the students’ independent learning ability, innovation ability and creative thinking.There are two main research questions in this paper: Q1: Does PBL teaching helpcultivate English learners’ autonomous learning ability? Q2: Does PBL teaching helppromote learners’ achievements in their English study? In this paper, the author first getsa general understanding of the research background, objectives and significance throughstudying the overseas and domestic research on PBL and autonomous learning, and thenproposes the research questions. Based on the research questions, the author designs thequestionnaire and gives detailed analyses of the collected data. Lastly, the authorconstructs an English teaching model of self-learning on the basis of problem-basedlearning and conducts an experiment in teaching practice. The teaching practice will beconducted in the experimental class and control class, and the PBL teaching model willbe used in the experimental class to prove that the PBL teaching model can improve theautonomous learning ability of middle school students in English study. And there arefour main research methods during the research procedures: literature review method,theoretical analysis method, investigation method and experiment method.The main findings of this research are: the PBL teaching model can improve themiddle school students’ English academic achievements, autonomous learning ability,independent thinking ability and the ability of discovering, analyzing and solvingproblems. Even though this research has reached its basic objectives, there still aremany limitations in this study. The questionnaires to realize the present situation ofstudents’ English autonomous learning ability and the existing problems in middleschools are incomplete. So this research is not comprehensive enough, and has certainone-sidedness. In a word, the teacher should respect and develop the students’ subjectconsciousness, cultivate the students’ autonomous learning ability and help the studentsto be the master of English study.