英语教育毕业论文3.doc

08级英语专业毕业论文i. introductionthe traditional teacher-centered approach to english language teaching, to a large extent, constrains learners potentials for their english learning. teachers take control over goals, contents, materials, management, strategies to be used and outcomes that are related to both learning and teaching. this results in teachers less concern for learners attitudes towards language learning, their motivation, and their learning strategies. learners largely depend on teachers for their learning, becoming passive recipients of knowledge instead of using their abilities for judging and deciding to take on more responsibility for their own learning. as a result, they have little incentive to accept responsibility for their own learning both inside and outside the classroom, and tend to limit their work to what is taught on the course. many learners are convinced that all that have to do learn english is to sit in the classroom, write down what the teacher says and learning will take place. language learning, as thomson puts, is a life-long endeavor (lee, 1998: 282).therefore, it is of the utmost importance to help learners become aware of the value of autonomous learning both inside and outside the classroom, so that they can acquire the habit of learning continuously, and maintain it after they have completed their formal studies. but in the classrooms, learners do not have much opportunity to take responsibility for their own english learning. their dependence on the teacher is bad to their english learning when success so much depends on the individual pursuit of opportunities for language use both inside and outside the classroom. therefore, learners dependence on the teacher gradually results in their unawareness of the importance of autonomy in their english learning.given the deviating from the teacher-centered approach to english teaching, we should carry out great innovations to take into full consideration of learners real learning goals, attitudes, motivation and use of strategies. learner autonomy is one of the prime goals of modern education (benson 2001:15, boud, 1988: 18, dickinson 1987: 27&wenden, 2002: 36). the autonomous learning mode lays emphasis on involving learners in taking responsibility for their own learning. it also requires learners to change their roles and to become own teacher. during the process of autonomous learning, learners may become more aware of their attitudes, motivation, metacognitive knowledge and strategies in their english learning. in fact, it challenges teachers to make great shifts in teachers roles from classroom controllers to autonomous facilitators, counselors and resource. teachers should provide learners useful information about english learning, give them advice, enhance their autonomous learning awareness instead of making decisions for learners, instruct them what to do, regulate their learning process and evaluate their learning outcomes. therefore, fostering learner autonomy will be of the utmost importance in the teaching of english.five chapters are involved in this thesis. chapter one serves as an introduction in which the set backs of the traditional teacher-centered approach to english teaching. chapter two makes a detailed introduction to the concept of autonomy. chapter three elaborates on three conditions for learner autonomy: attitudes, motivation and metacognitive knowledge. the first part in this chapter discusses the definitions of attitudes and two learner attitudes towards learner autonomy. the second part focuses on the definitions of motivation and types of motivation and their links with learner autonomy. the third part illustrates the definitions of metacognitive knowledge and its relationship with learner autonomy. chapter four, base on the theory, the thesis discusses the senior middle school english autonomous methods. the authors believe that students autonomy, the key is to convert teacher role in creating a positive learning atmosphere and relaxed systematic training in english language learning strategies.with all the work done, the thesis will come to a conclusion in chapter five. fostering learner autonomy in the teaching of english will greatly help learners accept responsibility for their own learning. moreover, fostering learner autonomy should take into full consideration the three conditions for learner autonomy: learners attitudes, motivation and metacognitive knowledge, these conditions of will influence the degree of autonomy. both learners and teachers will benefit greatly from learner autonomy, they all make great efforts to explore efficient ways to facilitate their learning and teaching in senior middle school english teaching.ii. current situation of english learning and necessity of learner autonomysenior middle school english teaching in china is still focusing on teachers teaching rather than students learning. it ignores students individual variables and thus produces passive learners. recently, with the boom in curriculum reform, more and more teachers have begun to accept new educational concepts and try new teaching methods, but influenced by traditional educational theory and exam-oriented education, chinas education reform still has a long way to go. some existing problems need to be addressed.teacher-centered classroom teaching is a traditional teaching style in which teaching is carried out by the teacher who is the focus of the classroom, and students only listen to him or her. in chinas efl context, teacher-centered approaches and spoon-fed methods have been prevalent for a long time. teachers are regarded as authority, knowledge-givers and error correctors, while students tend to limit their work to what is taught in class. classes are usually driven by “teacher-talk” and depend heavily on textbooks. instruction in the classroom is based on the misconception that there is a fixed body of knowledge that students must know. there is little or no room for student-initiated questions, independent thought or interaction between students. teachers often tend to focus on teaching the target language by carefully designed steps. as a result, many learners are accustomed to depending on teachers feeding. without teachers timely and adequate help, students will feel disoriented, lose confidence and fail to pinpoint their goals in learning. such situation is getting worse and worse with the expansion of senior high school enrolment, too many students in a class and inadequate teaching staff, who find it hard to take every students need into consideration. this teaching style focuses on knowledge delivery, instead of language skill training. it prevents learners from exploring their learning potentiality and developing the abilities to manage their learning effectively. so there is a need for a shift in english language studies from focusing on how to teach language to how to learn it, with a consequent change of perspective from the teacher to the learneriii. the concept of autonomyas autonomy is a relatively new concept to efl teachers and learners in china, it is necessary to cast light on the concept of autonomy. this chapter highlights the following aspects of autonomy: the definitions of autonomy, and the characteristics of autonomous learners.a. understanding autonomythe term autonomy is being used more and more frequently in educational discussion. it is said that in the 20 to 25 years following the second world war, the ideas of autonomy became the subject of intense scrutiny, analysis and debate (gremmo&riley, 1995: 152). the concept of autonomy can be traced back to the development of life-long learning skills and the development of independent ways of thinking both of which originated in the 1960s. since the publication of henri holecs autonomy and foreign language learning in 1980, this concept has become part of the mainstream of research and practice in the field of education. over the last two decades, scholars such as dickinson (1987), little (1995), wenden (1991), benson&voller (1997), boud (1988), etc. have carried out detailed studies on learner autonomy, yielding many fruitful results. their findings oblige both theoreticians and teachers to recast their basic tenets and traditional methods, for the concept of autonomy just arises from the need to cater for language teaching in situations where a traditional classroom-based approach is not feasible (tudor, 1993: 23). in order to have a better understanding of autonomy, it is necessary to cast light on this concept first.1. defining autonomythe term autonomy can be applied to many fields, such as politics, general education and language education as well. as a result, its definitions are as varied as the fields it can be applied to. holec, the major influence in discussions about autonomy in language learning, defines autonomy as the ability to take charge of ones own learning (gardner&miller, 2002: 6). little (1995: 175) takes the position that the basis of autonomy is that the learner accepts responsibility for his learning. this acceptance of responsibility entailsa positive attitude to learning and the development of a capacity to reflect on the content and process of learning with a view to bringing them as far as possible under conscious control. cotterall (1995:195) stakes a claim that autonomy is the extent to which learners demonstrate the ability to use a set of tactics for taking control of their learning. an example of viewing autonomy as an approach to learning rather than teaching is found in the work of boud (1988: 23) who holds that the main characteristic of autonomyis that students take some significant responsibility for their own learning over and above responding to instruction.these definitions share one thing in common. that is, autonomy is generally defined as the capacity to take charge of, or responsibility for, ones own learning. if we mean autonomy is “self governing free” (oxford advanced learners englishchinese dictionary 4th edition 1994), then no learning can be called truly autonomous, depending as it does on some external agentstext book, teacher, experience, etc. it is our view that a clear picture of what is meant by autonomy in the learning context emerges when we focus not on the process (reading) but the students. in the domain of language learning various approaches emphasize the centrality of the students such as selfdirection，and flexible learning . all of this can be regarded as study autonomy. few teachers will deny this as a desirable education goal.2. characteristics of autonomous learnersautonomous learners are those who have an independent ability and are willing to make decisions and choices which govern their actions and then to carry out them. autonomous learners take active roles in the learning process, make creative ideas and take advantage of learning opportunities, rather than regarding the teacher as a god who empowers them to master the language and thus simply reacting to various stimuli of the teacher. according to boud (1988: 23) and hedge (2002: 76), several key characteristics of autonomous learners are: 1) setting goals; 2) finding resources needed for learning; 3) working collaboratively with others; 4) choosing where and when they will learn; 5) adjusting their learning strategies when necessary to improve learning; 6)reflecting on their learning processes; 7) engaging in self-evaluating their learning outcomes; 8) using teachers as guides and counselors rather than instructors. thus we can see that autonomous learners are active agents in their own learning process. they have clear ideas of what they want to learn. moreover, they have positive attitudes toward their learning. they not only receive knowledge from teachers, but more importantly they search for knowledge in their own preferred way. autonomous learners have many characteristics which accord with the descriptions of the good language learner (in wenden, 1991:121)，such as an ability to set their own learning goals, awareness of the learning strategies they are employing and active development of these strategies, regular performance in monitoring the learning process and evaluating the learning outcomes. in a word, the behavior of an autonomous learner is characterized by responsibility for his or her own learning, a high level of independence in performing learning activities and solving problems which are associated with the learning task, active input to decision-making regarding the learning task, and use of the teacher as a resource person (higgs in boud, 1988: 41).the theories of autonomy mentioned above give us the implications that in order to foster learner autonomy in the teaching of english, teachers should help learners increase their willingness to take responsibility for their learning by means of cultivating their awareness of autonomous learning and enhancing their motivation and confidence.b. summarylearners willingness and ability to move from teacher-dependence to teacher-independence will enable learners to continue their life-long learning. however, leading learners towards autonomy in the teaching of english has a long way to go. as little (1995: 176, 177) puts it, in formal educational contexts learners do not automatically accept responsibility for their learningteachers must help them to do so; and they will not necessarily find it easy to reflect critically on the learning processteachers must first provide them with appropriate tools and with opportunities to practice using them. therefore, teachers should make tremendous efforts in learner training for fostering learner autonomy in the teaching of english. but before the training, we should pay special attention to the conditions for learner autonomy, for they will largely influence the degree of learners willingness and ability to take responsibility for their own learning. iv. conditions for learner autonomythe previous chapter presents an introduction to autonomy, including its definitions and major components, characteristics of autonomous learners, the theoretical support and practical significance of autonomy. all these facets of autonomy make it clear that autonomy is a perennial dynamic process, rather than a static product or a state which is reached once and for all. (thanasoulas, 2000) thus, it should be clarified that autonomous learning cannot be achieved without certain conditions. autonomy is germane to learners mental activities and psychological behaviors, such as learners attitudes towards autonomy, learners motivation and their metacognitive knowledge. these affective variables will influence how learners respond to any situation in their english language learning. benson and voller (1997: 134-136) hold that the success of a language learning activity is, to a large extent, contingent upon learners stance towards the world and the language learning activity in particular, their desire to learn and their mental conceptions about language learning. in order to gain deeper insights into learner autonomy and then pave the way for fostering learner autonomy in the teaching of english.a. attitudesaoki perceives that the core of learner autonomy is a psychological construct, and what this construct is put to use for is as important because this can greatly influence the feeling of autonomy. (arnold, 2000: 144) therefore, one crucial part in learner training for fostering learner autonomy is to prepare them for autonomy psychologically, which is related to their attitudes towards autonomy. 1. defining attitudesfreeman defines attitude as the stance one adopts towards oneself, the activity of teaching and learners. (clemente, 2001:48) jonas (1995: 2) holds that attitude may be defined as a psychological tendency to evaluate a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor. wenden (1991:52) summarizes that attitudes have been defined in different ways, such as learned motivations, valued beliefs, evaluation, what one believes is acceptable or responses oriented towards approaching or avoiding. in this thesis, attitudes refer to lasing positive or negative feelings about someone such as the teacher or something such as learner independence driven by ones beliefs and then the influence of these feelings on ones behavior. as we learn the characteristics of autonomous learners, willingness and ability are two components of autonomy. here, positive attitudes may be represented as willingness to take the responsibility, which to a large extent, will determine whether the learners head for autonomy or not in their english learning. on the contrary, negative attitudes may be represented as learners dependence on the teacher for their leaning and their reluctance to introduce flexibility to their learning and to take on more responsibility for their learning. learners positive attitudes may contribute to the development of their potentials for autonomy while their negative attitudes may impede their efforts in working towards autonomy.2. two learner attitudes towards learner autonomyas cotterall (1995: 196) says, all behavior is controlled by attitudes and experience. it follows that autonomous language learning behavior may be supported by a particular set of beliefs or behaviors. learners attitudes may either contribute to or hold back the development of their potentials for learner autonomy. dickinson (1995: 165) suggests that taking an active, independent attitude to learning and independently undertaking a learning task, is beneficial to learning; that somehow, personal involvement in decision making leads to more effective learning. therefore, learners need to know what it means to learn a language and how to do so to determine whether they should take on responsibility for t