Pedagogical Strategies For Fostering Chinese Efl Underachievers’Autonomous Learning Capability In Senior High School

How to foster students’creativity and practical competence has indisputably become a topical, eye-catching and yet demanding issue penetrating the basic education curriculum reform initiatives worldwide. Learner autonomy, or autonomous learning, which gives full play to both students’creativity and practicality, is generally viewed as an ir(?) tance of innovative education, which reflects the spirit of innovation in education and research. Learner autonomy inherently requires efforts to be made to forge an active and positive attitude and ability to learn on the part of the learners for the benefit of enhancing their problem awareness, knowledge expansion and self-inquiry and discovery capabilities; to foster an awareness and spirit of innovation and cooperation among learners themselves to the advantage of forming an independent, confident, tenacious and courageous personality and so on. Only when one possesses the awareness of and capacity for autonomous learning can one establish him-or herself in an invulnerable position in this fast-changing society where lifelong learning is considered a must. However, due to multiple reasons such as their lacking in, amongst other things, English learning interest, motivation, proper methods, et cetera, there exist a dishearteningly large number of EFL students plagued with learning difficulties in Chinese senior high schools, a phenomenon that brooks no neglect nowadays. Their passivity and low efficiency in English learning will cast a gloom over their academic performance and future prospects of personal development and will also to some extent impair their emotional state of being, self-confidence, initiative and productivity. In this regard, it has become an issue of increasing concern in the educational sphere to instruct and assist those students plagued with English learning difficulties in bringing out their potentialities into full play. Results of the present study indicate that learner autonomy can be forged by way of proper strategies and the plight of Chinese EFL underachievers in senior high schools can be alleviated. In view of the above facts and concepts, and by employing such research methods as empirical study, literature search, comparative study, questionnaire, et cetera, the present study attempts a preliminary discussion on the difficulties faced by Chinese senior high school EFL students in carrying out autonomous learning, the causes for these difficulties as well as the countermeasures that are available for overcoming such difficulties. It is thereby hoped that these research initiatives would benefit the enhancement of students’autonomous learning capacity and their academic performance at large.This thesis mainly consists of six chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces the problem to be dealt with in the thesis as well as the description of the purpose, significance and background of the thesis. The second chapter examines existing domestic and foreign literature on learner autonomy, its development trend and its enhancement strategies. The third chapter is chiefly concerned with the theoretical rationale of the study. With regard to the ensuing two chapters, Chapter Four probes into the pedagogical strategies for fostering the learner autonomy of Chinese senior high school EFL underachievers while Chapter Five dedicates an experimental study to validating those strategies as put forward in Chapter Four. In the experimental study, the present author presents an investigation into the current conditions of English learning of students from two classes in their grade three from Nanyang No.5Senior High School, of whom16students having difficulties in English learning while excelling at the other subjects are selected as the main subjects of the study. The focus is laid upon the identification of the difficulties facing these16underachievers and the causes for such difficulties, based on which relevant strategies for boosting their learner autonomy are proposed. The results of the experimental study show that the proposed strategies have positive influence, to some extent, on fostering the autonomous learning capability of senior high school EFL students with learning difficulties and thereby on improving their academic performances in English. Finally, the sixth chapter comes to the concluding part of the present study which summarizes the major findings of the study, points out its limitations and proposes suggestions for future research in this domain.