An Investigation Of The Development Of Senior High School Students' Autonomous English Leaning Ability

In the process of education reform in China,cultivating students' autonomous learning ability has become a main theme.Up to now,many researchers and linguists have studied this respect and have come up with different kinds of theories about it.However,few front-line English teachers in senior high school have studied how to foster students' autonomous learning ability in the teaching process.In order to explore the current situation,the paper uses both qualitative research and quantitative research to explore the problems in the process of cultivating students' autonomous learning ability.The research tries to answer four questions.The first concerns the condition of senior high school students' English autonomous learning such as learning strategies.The second question is about the relationship between senior high school students' English autonomous learning ability and their English achievement.The next question is the role English teachers play in the development of students' autonomous learning ability.The last question is about the problems these teachers encounter in the training process.Questionnaire survey was conducted on 600 students of grade 2 from 3 senior high schools of Shanxi province.They are No.1 Middle School of Linfen(a provincial key senior high school),Xinjiang Middle School(a key senior high school in Yuncheng)and Jiangxian Middle School(an ordinary secondary school).Also,the researcher conducted teacher questionnaire survey to 30 English teachers of these schools.The results were analyzed by statistical software SPSS.In addition,30 senior high school students and 10 senior high school English teachers who participated in the study were interviewed at random.The contents involved the attitude and consciousness of senior high school English teachers towards the cultivation of students' autonomous ability,the methods used by senior high school English teachers in the cultivation process and the difficulties encountered in the process.In this way,we can further investigate the condition of cultivation of students' autonomous learning ability and come up with relevant suggestions.The study got the following results through data analysis and research.(1)Most senior high school students have the consciousness of autonomous learning,but their understanding of autonomous learning is indistinct.(2)The higher students' autonomous learning ability is,the higher their English achievement will be.(3)Senior high school English teachers are the conductors in the development of students' autonomous learning ability and to cultivatestudents' autonomous learning ability,they have used many effective ways.For example,they always ask students to set learning plannings and to make a stage summary according to the reality.(4)There are some problems these teachers encounter in the training process.For example,the view of students should be changed and hardware facilities need to be strengthened.And they require strong supports and from such respects as education government,teachers,guardians and students.