On Ecological Environment Of Web-based Autonomous Learning For College English

In 2004, College English Curriculum Requirements (trial implementation) promulgated by national Ministry of Education, put forward to establish a network-based autonomous learning mode. This was the first time for our country to confirm the important position of information in education. Hence web-based autonomous learning has become a hot research topic, but few are concerning ecological environment of network-based autonomous learning.Some scholars and researchers have done research on the imbalance of college English class. So this paper attempted to construct ecological environment of web-based autonomous learning to answer the following research questions:What is the status quo of ecological environment of web-based autonomous learning? Are there imbalances in learners'ecological environment of web-based autonomous learning? Which aspects are most imbalanced among the three sub-environments? What caused the imbalance of ecological environment of web-based autonomous learning? What are the suggestions provided by students to improve ecological environment of web-based autonomous learning?The study chose freshmen in Hunan University as subjects. Based on the data of eighteen-class-hour participant observation,421 valid questionnaire and semi-structured interview often subjects, the major findings are obtained as follows:Firstly, the ecological environment of web-based autonomous learning is not ideal. The imbalances are showed in physical environment, technical environment and psychological environment. Secondly, it is information infrastructure, interaction and collaboration, and attitude towards web-based autonomous learning environment that are the most imbalanced aspects in physical environment, technical environment and psychological environment. Thirdly, the causes that lead to the imbalances in the ecological environment are below: Contents of learning resources are obsolete and impractical for learners'daily life; It is the mechanical designed interface for exercises and the other learning resources that discourage learners' enthusiasm to carry out autonomous learning based on web; Neither learners nor teachers have realized the important role of online learning community. Seven suggestions are proposed:open extranet, improve the quality of equipment especially headset and microphone, upgrade performance of software for instance redesign the system's interface, allow learners to study in web-based autonomous learning environment at any time, train learners and teachers how to utilize the web-based autonomous learning platform effectively, develop varied autonomous learning to facilitate English learning for different levels of learners, and take measures to impel teachers use autonomous learning platform actively.This study provides a new research perspective for environment of web-based autonomous learning. But the subjects were selected only from Hunan University and the study employed the self-constructed ecological environment. The research has the limitations for survey subjects, and survey environment model, and survey inexperience.