A Study Of The Application Of Autonomous Learning To English Vocabulary Instruction In Senior High Schools

Developing students’ autonomous learning ability is a significant issue for the educators both at home and abroad. It is also an effective approach to developing independent learners, the ultimate goal of education. Over a long period of time, due to pursuing high marks in the examinations, students’ autonomous learning ability has been ignored, and consequently, students’autonomous learning ability is relatively poor. Nevertheless, autonomous learning ability is a must for the good command of English, and for students’ lifelong development. As a result, it is very essential that student’s autonomous learning ability be trained. English vocabulary is the most basic element for English language, for nothing can be conveyed without vocabulary. So vocabulary plays key roles in students’use of English. However, lots of problems lie in China’s contemporary English teaching and learning:teachers teach mechanically, students use few strategies to study words, they study passively and they even can not use words properly in different contexts. According to what is mentioned above, this thesis intends to incorporate vocabulary learning strategies into vocabulary teaching and learning, help the students develop their autonomous learning abilities to improve their efficiency of vocabulary memory and their abilities to utilize words.This thesis starts with the introduction of the background and present situation of vocabulary teaching in China, the definition of autonomous learning and its theoretical basis. The writer uses a survey to check whether the students can use autonomous learning strategies to learn vocabulary and test the vocabulary level of the students before the experiment. In the next part, three factors of autonomous learning are specified. The experiment focuses on how to teach and learn English vocabulary under the environment of autonomous learning. Cognitive Strategies, control strategies, communicative strategies and resource strategies are used to do this research. At the later stage of the experiment, students of different levels are interviewed to talk about their benefits from vocabulary autonomous learning, how they feel about the experiment and their advice on the study.. After the experiment, the students are given another test to check whether the experiment works. The results of the experiment shows that vocabulary autonomous learning can be of great benefit to the students’abilities of vocabulary study...