Volunteer Teachers' Beliefs About Learner Autonomy:an Ethnographic Study

The concept of life-long learning has filtered into people's minds in recent years.In the meantime,“learner autonomy” has been a topic of widespread discussion in the field of foreign language education.Scholars and researches have attempted to define the concept of “learner autonomy “and use empirical method to explain it.However,little has been found from the perspective of teachers' beliefs with the ethnographic research methods.Volunteer teachers,who teach on the frontline in rural area,always emphasize in-class learning while ignore after-class homework,and hold positive yet display contradictory attitude toward it.This study aims to reveal those volunteer teachers' beliefs about learner autonomy by adopting the method of school ethnography.Firstly,access to the spot of primary Z in rural area,and observe the homework about English vocabulary learning of Grade Five.Then,conduct in-depth interview and thick description among those special groups of teachers.This present study intends to answer the following questions: 1)What are the volunteer English teachers' beliefs about learner autonomy? 2)How is vocabulary homework assignment related to their beliefs about learner autonomy? 3)Why do they hold these beliefs in the local rural environment?To solve these problems,this study analyzes various soft data under the theoretical guidance of Bourdieu's theory of practice,and finds that: Those volunteer English teachers have inadequate understanding of learner autonomy and think primary students in rural area are lack of autonomy;they generally believe that teachers play an important role in the process of promoting learner autonomy,yet hold contradictory attitude towards decision-making and empowerment.The assignment of homework is also an embodiment of their beliefs about learnerautonomy.These are all take place in the rural area,factors such as farmers' dependence on their land,the pursuit of material wealth,deficiency of parents' role,inadequate of teaching research,and the lack of cultural capital have large effect on volunteer teachers' beliefs.In a certain field,the reconciliation between volunteer teachers' beliefs and the present dilemma has challenged those teachers' instruction and self-reflection.