A Study On Effects Of Self-efficacy On English Autonomous Learning Ability Of Junior High School Students

Autonomous learning plays an important role in the school education and life-long development of the students and it is a hot topic in the educational field. The cultivation of students’ autonomous learning ability is not only one of the centers in the process of English Curriculum Reform but also a crucial issue in the implementation of education for the all-around development. With the advancement of new curriculum reform, the autonomous learning has been gradually accepted as an effective learning method by the considerable educators and how to cultivate students’ autonomous learning ability is particularly significant.In addition, New Curriculum Standard also points out that the most important part of the new curriculum goal is to cultivate the students’ emotion, attitude and values, while the sense of self-efficacy is an important aspect of the emotion. Many internal affective factors affecting the autonomous learning ability, self-efficacy plays an important role. This thesis takes the junior high school students’ self-efficacy as the starting point and the focus, for in the learning process the related studies on the influence of self-efficacy on autonomous learning ability are relatively not enough.For this reason, based on the analysis and study of the relevant literature review, this study attempts to take self-efficacy as an important affective variable which influences English autonomous learning ability, to make a survey and analyze the current situation of autonomous learning and self-efficacy and the relationship between them, and profoundly to discuss the influence of junior high school students’ self-efficacy on English autonomous learning ability. This thesis aims to make the teachers consciously realize that enhancing students’ self-efficacy is an important method to improve the junior high school students’ English autonomous learning ability in the teaching process.This study took class observation, interview and three questionnaires--Self-efficacy Questionnaire and the Sources of Self-efficacy and English Autonomous Learning Questionnaire of junior high school students as the research instruments. Students in Class One and Class Two of Grade Eight in Du Langkou Middle School from Shandong Province were selected as the subjects. These two classes were divided into the control class and experimental class respectively. The self-efficacy training was applied in experimental class to explore the influence of self-efficacy on students’English autonomous learning ability. All the collected data were analyzed by the Microsoft Software Excel and Drawing Application Sigmaplot in detail.The results of research demonstrate that:(1) The junior high school students’ self-efficacy and autonomous learning ability have a significant positive relation; (2) By the self-efficacy training, the level of the four sorts of autonomous learning and the three sorts of self-efficacy of the experimental class are much higher in a different degree than that of the control class; (3) The self-efficacy training in the experiment is very feasible to raise junior high school students’ English autonomous learning ability.In conclusion, this research can provide theoretical guidance for teachers to guide the junior high school students to improve the ability of English autonomous learning and enhance their self-efficacy. Meanwhile, this study is well combined with the reality of education and English teaching, which makes for transforming the traditional passive cramming method of learning style as the active learning. In the course of English autonomous learning of students, teachers should attach much importance to the cultivation of students’ independence and self-efficacy. Only when junior high school students grasp the English learning skills and methods and learn "how to learn English" can they lay a solid foundation for their further development.