英语专业毕业论文-自主学习理论在中学英语教学中的应用.doc

毕业设计（论文） Title: A Practice of Encouraging Learner Autonomy in a Middle School题目：自主学习理论在中学英语教学中的应用学生姓名：X X X专 业：英 语班 级：030613指导老师：X X X 二零零七年六月AbstractSince 1980s, with the rise of meta-cognition, “self-autonomy” becomes popular with the pedagogues. The “self-autonomy” learners is the person who has the ability of supervising his or her learning behavior, setting up goals according to his or her practical conditions, making out studying plans, choosing learning strategies, monitoring learning process and making self-assessment and self-evaluation in time. The author conducted an experiment study in view of two classes, an experimental class and a control class, in order to know that whether the project of constructing a learner profile can encourage middle-school learners self-access learning ability fostering. After a careful analysis of the questionnaires, learner profiles they handed in and the exam results, the author found that the experimental class have made progress while compared with the control class. And the students in the experimental class had paid more attention to their learning process and were more active to learn. The experiment tells us that in the middle school of the countryside, it is absolutely possible to encourage learners senses of responsibility, develop the self-access learning ability preliminarily and help them to learn effectively in their future learningKey words：learner profiles；self-access learning ability；learning strategy摘 要20世纪80年代，随着元认知策略研究的兴起，自主学习开始受到广大教育者的注意。具有自主学习能力的学习者能够管理好自己的学习行为，根据自己的实际情况制定目标、学习计划、学习方式、监控学习过程以及及时进行自我评估。为了探讨在农村中学实行建立“自主学习档案”这个方案是否对于农村中学生自主学习能力的培养有积极作用，笔者在广州市花都区清布中学选取两个班级作为实验班和控制班进行实证研究。经过对问卷，上交的“自主学习档案”和考试成绩结果的认真对比分析，笔者发现经过一段时间的实验后，实验班相对于控制班取得了进步。实验班的学生更注意自己的学习过程和更主动的学习。实验结果表明，在农村中学建立“自主学习档案”对于提高学习者责任感，初步促进自主学习能力并帮助他们在将来的学习当中更有效地学习是完全有可能的。关键词：自主学习档案；自主学习能力；学习策略CONTENTSChapter 1 Introduction1Chapter 2 Theory on Self- Autonomy4 2.1 Definition4 2.2 Characteristics4 1.2.1 Initiative5 1.2.2Independence.5 1.2.3 Learners Self-Choice.5 2.3 Influences on Self-Access Learners Attitudes towards Self-Access Learning in the Middle School.6Chapter 3 Main Factors to Promote Self-Access Learning and Learner Profile Establishment.8 3.1 Main Factors to Promote Self-Access Learning8 3.1.1 Changing of the Traditional Beliefs8 3.1.2 Learners Needs and Wants Analysis9 3.1.3 Self-Monitoring9 3.1.4 Assessment10 3.1.5 Teacher Support11 3.1.6 Group Support /Peer Support12 3.2 Establishment of the Learner Profile and Matters about It12 3.2.1The Reason Why the Learner Profile (LP) is Set up12 3.2.2 Matters about the Learner Profile13Chapter 4 Quasi-experiment on Constructing a Learner Profile in a Middle School.15 4.1 Quasi-Experiment15 4.2 Pre-Experiment Description.15 4.2.1 The Subjects of the Quasi-Experiment15 4.2.2 The Method16 4.2.3 Assumption17 Chapter 5 Analysis of the Statistics and Learner Profiles18 5.1 Analysis of the Two Questionnaires18 5.1.1 Analysis of Questionnaire One18 5.1.2 Analysis of Questionnaire Two.19 5.2 Analysis of the Learner Profiles the Students Handed in21 5.3 Analysis of the Results of the Final Exam of Last Term and the Mid-Term Exam of this Term22 5.3.1 Analysis of the Results of the Final Exam of the Two Classes 225.3.2 Analysis on the Results Classes .235.3.3 Comparison of the Results of the Two Exams of Each Class Respectively.24Chapter 6 Findings and Suggestions after the Quasi-Experiment.27 6.1 Findings276.2 Suggestions after the Quasi-Experiment.27 6.2.1 Good Language Learning Habits Fostering.27 6.2.2 Logs Taking28 6.2.3 More Task Assignations28 6.2.4 SAC (Self-Access Center) Establishment.29 Conclusion30Reference.31东华理工大学毕业设计（论文） Chapter 1 IntroductionA Practice of Encouraging Learner Autonomy in a Middle SchoolChapter 1 IntroductionIn the traditional teaching activity, the teacher was the central part, while the students play the passive role. The teachers task was giving the students lessons while the students was just listening to the teacher. The teacher acted as the possessor and disseminator of the knowledge, so the students considered the teacher as a learned person, a treasure house of the information, and even a walking dictionary, who can always give satisfying answers like a knowledge machine. They learnt for leanings sake. They thought that the teacher was the authority. They even didnt know what they should do without the teachers help. As a result, with the traditional teaching approach, the students became duller and duller and they learnt passively. At the same time, the Chinese traditional system, which prefers the excellent students to the poor ones, has produced a lot of students of high score but low ability, who are so fragile that they would be thrown out of the society easily. With the development of the society, capable people become more and more preferable. Cultivating excellent students with all kind of skills becomes the urgent affair in todays educational process. Then, an idea about teaching and learning emerges as the times require. It is the “self-autonomy”. Though “the concept of autonomous learning stemmed from debates about the development of life-long learning skills and the development of independent thinkers both of which originated in the 1960s” (Gardner & Miller, 2002:6), it didnt develop very rapidly. However, with the rise of the meta-cognition in 1980s, “self-autonomy” becomes more and more popular with people of different fields. Since 1990s, foreign researchers made great progress on the fundamental problems of “self-autonomy”, such as Zimmermans views on “the essential of self-autonomy”; Winne and Butlers “self-autonomy” learning mode; Ablard and Lipschultzs views on the relations between “marks and self-autonomy learning”; Winnes views on the “self-autonomy” skills obtaining.(Pang,2000:12-16) In fact, in ancient China, the meaning of “self-autonomy” had been mentioned in XianQin. “Mencius said that”(Pang,2001:59)It means that the crucial factor for one to be a well-known man is his initiative in learning. Nowadays, many essays on “self-autonomy” come out like the bamboo shoots after a spring rain. Pang Weiguo wrote that “Self-autonomy” is “the very thing that both pedagogy and psychology focus on. Pedagogics considers self-autonomy as an important educational goal. And psychology focuses on the factors that influence self-autonomy.” (Pang, 2001:78). Yu wensen wrote in his essay that “traditional teaching approach overemphasized the importance of the reason factor like definition, estimation, consequence, and logical recognition, but neglected the existence of the non-reason factors like sensibility, volition, inspiration, needs and information. The old thinking led to the separation of the will and the personality, so that it was bad for the building of learners principal part.” (Yu, 2001:33) In recent years, the New Curriculum Standards has been made out. It brings about elementary educational revolutionary. It contradicts to the old traditional thinking but emphasizes the education for all-round development. Also, it puts forward new requirements for English teaching in middle schools. Teachers are no longer the host of the knowledge but the students (hereinafter we call the students the learners); the knowledge is not just given by the teachers any more, it also needs to be discovered by the learners. Only when the learners have developed their abilities can they do well in their future learning, especially in the “self-taught” learning. They are no longer dull boys and dull girls; they become more enthusiastic and will find it interesting to learn. However, after the teacher lose their central role, can the learners still get high score and further develop their skills? Though it is a problem to make the learners to adapt the “self autonomy” within a very short time, teachers can help them to understand the importance of mastering skills for “self autonomy”, which is the tool for the future learning. However, if the learners themselves cannot realize their own responsibilities for it, or they separate “learning” from life, growth and development, this kind of learning is not the real “self autonomy”. In this essay, the author tries to encourage the learners sense of responsibility and to promote learner autonomy for learning by letting them construct learner profile. The project is assigned to a certain experimental class. The purpose of writing this essay is trying to show whether “self autonomy” learning strategy is suitable for the learners in one middle school in the countryside, hoping to help them to change the traditional belief of learning, make them clearer about their learning process and develop the abilities of “self-autonomy” and “self-taught”, which prepare for their future learning.31东华理工大学毕业设计（论文） Chapter 2 Theory on Self-AutonomyChapter 2 Theory on Self- AutonomyThis chapter provides issues concerning self-autonomy theory, including definition, characteristics and influences on the attitudes of the middle school learners towards it. The following will be a detail explanation about them.2.1 Definition“In western countries in early 1960s, fostering the learners responsibility was considered the ultimate aim of education.”(Wei, 2002:8) “By 1981Holec (1981:3) had defined autonomy as the ability to take charge of ones own learning. Dickinson (1987:11) accepts the definition of autonomy as a situation in which the learner is totally responsible for all of the decisions concerned with his or her learning and the implementation of those decisions. Little 1990:7 sees learner autonomy as essentially a matter of the learners psychological relation to the process and content of learning. Kenny (1993:436) states that autonomy is not only the freedom to learn but also the opportunity to become a person. Dam et al. (1990:102) defined autonomy learners as an active participant in the social processor of classroom learning, a readiness to take charge of ones own learning.”(Gardner& Miller, 2002:6) The author prefers the thinking of Holec, that “self-autonomy” is “the ability to take charge of ones own learning.” Meanwhile the learners thinks that self-monitoring is essentially the promotion of the cognitive and meta-cognitive level. While “self-access” is probably the widely used and recognized term for an approach to encourage “self autonomy” and “Sheerin (1991:144) refers to self-access as a means of promoting learner autonomy.”(Gardner & Miller, 2002:6) The author, for these reasons, uses “self-access” throughout the essay.2.2 Characteristics Self-access learning has three characteristics: initiative, independence and learners self-choice.2.2.1 InitiativeThe sense of initiative is the very soul of the self-access learning. That “I want to learn” is the main point of this characteristic. Initiative is the learners innate power and innate need for learning, which is related to learning interest and the learners recognition towards learning. That is to say, the learners innate need, on one hand, is shown by his or her interest. “The interest on learning is an individual psychological characteristic, which is demonstrated by their strong desire for learning knowledge. It is also the learners positive recognition tendency and emotional states towards individual learning activity”. (Yu, 2004:27-28) Once they have interest in it, they will set up a goal unconsciously. Learning is no longer a burden, but a pleasing experience. They become more and more devoted in learning, and even love it. On the other hand, the innate need is shown by their recognitions towards study goal and meaning of study, from which comes the confidence and positive attitude towards learning. Fostering high learning initiative is the prerequisite of self-access learning. Moreover, they must be very confident of themselves, teachers help to develop their sense of confidence becomes a very important step to promote their sense of initiative. 2.2.2 Independence The sense of being independent is the second important characteristics of the self-access learning. If initiative shows that “I want to learn”, the feature of independence shows that “I can learn”. Independence is one of the most important qualities of the self-access learners. The independent learners can deal with things properly; they do not only depend on their teachers, they think and do things on their own, and always try to find out which is right or wrong by themselves. They engage in discovering the knowledge with being aware of. More over, they can analyze not only the test results but also themselves objectively. In addition, they can manage learning activity successfully. During the self-access learning, teachers should not hold monopoly but value the learners sense of being independent. As for the learners who are always dependent on the teachers, teachers should try to create as many opportunities as possible for them to decide things and help them to become a real person on their own learning.2.2.3 Learners Self-ChoiceThe third important point of self-access learning is that learners can choose what they want to learn. Self-choice is a matter that involves with motivation. “Motivation can be divided into 2 kinds. They are intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation”. (Jia, 2003:20) They usually cooperate to drive a learner to learn. If “need and wants” is the source of motivation, that learners self-choice is the reinforcement of the motivation. The self-access learners, who have the high self-choosing right, are active to learn. By contraries, if the learner has no choice, or his choices are ignored by the teachers, the learner is led by the nose. The teachers should not stop them any more. Only when they regain the right to choose what they want to learn can it be possible for them to become self-access learners. Studies show that self-choice is the key point. “Cotterall (2000:11) points out that the cores of learners self-access is their choice. Lee (1998) points out that the learners who are forced to do the self-access learning get fewer benefits from it while compared with those who are willing to.” (Wei, 2002:10) Besides self-access learners have the right to choose what to learn, self-choosing right also entitle them to change their plans, adjust their learning speed, and change their learning strategies according to their learning objects and personal receptivity. To give the learners opportunity of choosing is to arouse their enthusiasm and creativeness and offer them a self-access learning space. 2.3 Influences on Self-Access Learners Attitudes towards Self-Access Learning in the Middle SchoolMiddle school learners attitudes towards self-access learning can be affected by 4 influences. They are teachers, school, peers and society.“Teachers are a most important influence because it is they who are most likely to first introduce learners to self-access.” (Gardner & Miller, 2002:12) If the teacher holds a positive idea about the self-access learning, middle school learners will be encouraged and more confident of self-access learning. On the contrary, if the teachers themselves think lowly of self-access learning, the learners have no interest in it.Schools attitude can be the second influence on middle school self-access learners. Whether setting up a good SAC (self-access center) or even introduce self-access to middle school is the policy issue of the school. In the middle school with highly-structured equipment, self-access activities can be carried out smoothly and successfully, while the poor one cannot provide such a great sum of money, and they can only set up a very small SAC with poor conditions and some of these schools can not even open one. Some schools which have no interest on self-access learning dont want to waste any time in doing such unnecessary things. The learners in this kind of middle schools will be frustrated though they have fervor hearts to do self-access learning.Peer is also an important influence on self-access learners. When a group of learners have successfully used self-access learning, “other learners are likely to want to try it.” (Gardner & Miller, 2002:12) Because the middle school students are a kind of people who like to succeed and to be praised, and naturally they learn from the good living example. Society can influence self-access learners, too. If the society canonizes the ability promotion of the individual, self-access learning will be popularized so that middle school self-access learners may recognize self-access learning is their rights. And also, parental pressure, culture can all potentially influence the introduction or inhibition of new appropriate of new approaches to learning. The adolescence is in an awkward and in - between