A Study Of Non-english Majors' Autonomous English Learning Ability From The Perspective Of Connectivism

The cultivation of students' autonomy has enjoyed much concern for a long time.Many researches with fruitful achievements,have been carried out in the field of emotion,cognition,motivation,learning content and learning strategies.At the same time,with the rapid development of science and technology represented by the network and the emergence of ideas like Web 2.0,new learning concepts such as Connectivism learning theory have been framed to satisfy the ages,and fundamentally changed the ways of teaching and learning.On the principle of Connectivism learning theory,the study of college students' autonomous English learning ability has practical significance on improving their autonomous learning ability and upgrading the levels of college English education and teaching.Based on the theory of Connectivism,this study takes the non-English majors of Xi'an Polytechnic University as research subjects,and focuses on their autonomous English learning ability.416 sophomores of the non-English major participated in the investigation,and 20 of them were interviewed.The collected data are processed by the tool of SPSS20.0 statistical software.Through the use of quantitative and qualitative analyses,the study aims at answering the three research questions:(1)What level is non-English majors' autonomous English learning ability at?(2)From the perspective of Connectivism,what are the main characteristics of non-English majors' autonomous English learning ability?(3)What are the differences of non-English majors' autonomous learning ability with high and low English levels?The results show that:(1)At present,non-English majors' autonomous English learning ability is overall at a medium level.(2)In the view of Connectivism,non-English majors' autonomous English learning ability has the following characteristics: as a whole,nodes have potential capacity of further development except that the node “learning strategies” is in a poor condition;connections among nodes are overall moderate;the interactivity and openness of the learning network need to be improved.(3)On the basis of Connectivism,the autonomous English learning abilities of non-English majors with high and low English levels are obviously different.The performance of high-level learners on each node is superior to that of the low-level learners;in the aspect of connecting,connections of low-level learners are significantly inferior to that of the high-level learners,especially the connection of the node "monitoring of learning" with the other four nodes.Besides,learners on the low English level perform worse in the internal and the external learning networks.In view of the current situation of the non-English majors' autonomous English learning ability,the study proposes to improve the ability through stimulating the nodes' potential,strengthening the connections,and promoting the interactivity and openness of the learning network.