An Investigation Of English Autonomous Learning Strategies Used By Senior High School Students

Autonomous learning is very important for senior high school students' learning.The students' academic performance depends on their autonomous learning level to a large extent,especially for senior high school students who already have a certain English foundation.The new curriculum reform advocates actively cultivating and improving students' autonomous learning consciousness and ability.Therefore,autonomous learning strategies play an important role in senior high school students' English autonomous learning.Based on constructivism and humanism,this study conducted an investigation of English autonomous learning strategies used by senior high school students.Three research questions are proposed as follows: 1.What is the overall level of English autonomous learning strategies used by senior high school students? 2.What are the differences of English autonomous learning strategies used by senior high school students at different levels? 3.What are the factors influencing English autonomous learning strategies used by senior high school students?To answer the three research questions,190 senior high school students are selected randomly from grade two in Yantai No.3 middle school as participants.Then,two research instruments — questionnaire and interview — are adopted in this study.The number of valid questionnaires collected is 173.The data of the questionnaire is analyzed by SPSS 22.0 for descriptive analysis,correlation and variance analysis.At the same time,9 students at different English levels and 4 English teachers are interviewed.The interview contents are recorded and transcribed into words,and the results are presented in English.The conclusions of the study are preliminarily drawn as follows: to begin with,the overall level of English autonomous learning strategies used by senior high school students is general,which is in the lower-middle level.Then,there are significant differences of English autonomous learning strategies used by students at different levels.The better the students' English performance is,the higher the frequency of using autonomous learning strategies.Furthermore,there are two aspects of factors influencing English autonomous learning strategies used by senior high school students.On the one hand,for students,they lack interest in English learning.Their awareness of autonomous learning is weak and learning motivation is mainly for examinations and getting into the university.On the other hand,for teachers,the traditional foreign language teaching has put emphasis upon the teacher-centered pattern and teachers just pay more attention to imparting knowledge itself with students accepting knowledge passively,which makes students rely too much on teachers and therefore neglect the cultivation of students' autonomous learning.Teachers cannot provide students with opportunities to learn autonomously in the limited teaching time,which cannot improve their autonomous learning ability.Finally,the corresponding suggestions are put forward based on the research results of this study.