论文部分内容阅读
Abstract:Recent English teaching reform in China has emphasized a promotion of autonomous approaches to language teaching and learning. With the definitions of the learner autonomy, this paper will view three external barriers to promoting English learner autonomy in China and finally provide some suggestions on cultivation of Chinese non-English majors’ autonomy in English learning.
Key words:learner autonomy, present problems, barriers and cultivation
1.Introduction
For a long time in China, English teachers at all levels have been expected to refer to the curriculum developed by China Education Ministry to teach their students. Based on this centralized curriculum, almost all English textbooks designed in China pay more attention on grammar, reading and writing, with less emphasis on listening and speaking. Such a teacher- centered classroom teaching and grammar-dominated textbooks in China lead to the fact that English teaching in China has adopted a teacher-centered, book-centered and grammar-translation method that all students have strong reliance on their teachers in English learning.
Evidently, this passive way of teaching and learning greatly prohibits most Chinese students from learning English efficiently. After the brief introduction of definitions of learner autonomy, this paper views three external barriers to promoting learner autonomy and finally provides some suggestions on cultivation of Chinese non-English majors’ autonomy in English learning.
2.Definitions of Learner Autonomy
The concept of “learning autonomy” originated from debates about the development of life-long learning skills in the 1960s. Dickinson (1987) defined learning autonomy as “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) saw learner autonomy as “essentially a matter of the learner’s psychological relation to the process and content of learning.” It was defined by Thomson (1996) as “learning situations in which the learners themselves take responsibility for their own learning.” These definitions imply that an autonomous learner is capable of setting goals and objectives, choosing materials and learning strategies, carrying out and evaluating his/her work/learning. Learners are able to make decisions about what is to be learned, as well as how and when to learn it.
3.External Barriers to Promoting Learner Autonomy
Learner autonomy is a complex and active process needing high ability, which is achieved through recognizing how to make decisions about self, to take charge of one’s own objectives, contents, strategies and techniques of language learning, and to be responsible for carrying out the self-assessment of the learning process. This section will view three external barriers to promoting learner autonomy. External barriers refer to what learner himself can’t decide or choose.
3.1 Teaching Modes
The teaching of English in China has been dominated by a teacher-centered, book-centered and grammar translation method, as well as an emphasis on rote memory. As there is only one right answer, what students want to do in class is to guess the answer the teacher expects. In the classroom, students sit in traditional desks in rows centered on the teacher. Activities are centered on teacher-directed whole-class activities such as correcting grammar exercises. Communicative language teaching is downplayed in favor of knowledge transfer. Under this tradition teaching mode, students in China are not able to exercise genuine choice such as objectives, contents, process of learning and so on according to their needs and interests.
3.2Examination System
The examination system in China is usually a heavily constraining factor, and examinations are gatekeepers to higher education or good employment prospect. Present schools, colleges and universities in China are still predominated by tests and by emphasizing academic achievements. Language learners in the classroom often expect to be told what to do in order to get high scores in their examination. As a result, some learners have become teacher-dependent and often feel that it is the teacher who is responsible for learning success or failure.
3.3 Family Education
As to the Chinese family education, the biggest barrier is obedience. The children have been taught to obey: obey the parents and obey the teachers. They have no chance to make their own decisions. They have been accustomed to following the other’s direction. It’s true that some students show a strong desire for freedom and autonomy, but when they are really asked to make decisions or take actions, they somewhat feel lost and put up a tendency of asking for support and relying on others.
4.Implications for Cultivation of Chinese Non-English Majors’ Autonomy in English Learning
The above sections have analyzed present problems in English teaching and learning and some barriers to promoting learner autonomy. With regard to these problems and barriers, this section will put forward some implications to foster Chinese learners’ autonomy in English learning.
4.1Teaching Students’ Learning Strategies
Learning strategies are special actions taken by learners to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable to new situations. They consist of cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies in general. Through the cultivation of cognitive strategies, students can master skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. Through cultivating meta-cognitive strategies, students can set goals, make plans, select learning modes, monitor learning process and evaluate themselves. There is a famous Chinese saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. Learning strategies have learning facilitation as a goal and are intentional on the part of the learner. Therefore, it is of great importance for English teachers to teach their students’ learning strategies, besides teaching them knowledge.
4.2 Using Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is a powerful approach for learner autonomy. Its aim is to establish an environment in which students are able to ask questions and discuss ideas freely with the teacher and their peers. Cooperative learning consists of five elements: positive interdependence, face-to–face promotive interaction, individual accountability and personal responsibility, interpersonal and small group skills and group processing. Through this approach, students often play teaching roles in helping other students learn and take responsibility for their own learning. So cooperative learning is a natural way for learners to become more autonomous or independent. By applying cooperative learning in our EFL classroom, learner autonomy can be fostered.
4.3Transferring Roles
To the students, transferring roles requires a considerable change in classroom management and so it may be the most demanding work for the teacher, especially the Chinese teachers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, the process of transferring roles should be carried out step by step. The first step may be an easy one, which aims to motivate the students, for example, to analyze their own strength, weaknesses and needs independently. Then the teacher can encourage independent learning inside and outside of classroom. In the third step, the teacher can use activities to involve students in decision about the learning process, for example, which part of the text the teacher should explain and which part the students can do by themselves. Through the method of transferring roles, the students will gradually take responsibilities for their learning.
5.Conclusions
Learner autonomy is an effective way to improve the efficiency of language learning and it takes a long time to develop learner autonomy because it’s hard to break away from old habits or old ways of thinking even if one has already known the new ones. Promoting learner autonomy does not mean that the teacher becomes redundant. In fact learners need the teacher’s help in a variety of ways. Students will need more direction from their teachers. Teachers have a key role to play in the process of promoting learner autonomy. In addition, learners will not achieve autonomy by being told to. Learning autonomy is achieved slowly, through struggling towards it, through careful training and careful preparation on the teacher’s part as well as on the learner’s. In order to promote learner autonomy, efforts must be made by individual learners as well as their teachers. This paper is hoped to be helpful for English teachers and learners in China to cultivate students’ autonomy in English learning.
References:
[1]Dickinson, L. (1987). Self-instruction in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[2]Little, D. (1990). Autonomy in Language Learning. In Ian Gathercole (Ed.), Autonomy and language learning. London: CILT
[3]Thomson, C.K.(1996). Self-assessment in Self–directed Learning: issues of learner diversity. In Pemberton H.D. et al. (Eds.), Taking control: autonomy in language learning. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
Key words:learner autonomy, present problems, barriers and cultivation
1.Introduction
For a long time in China, English teachers at all levels have been expected to refer to the curriculum developed by China Education Ministry to teach their students. Based on this centralized curriculum, almost all English textbooks designed in China pay more attention on grammar, reading and writing, with less emphasis on listening and speaking. Such a teacher- centered classroom teaching and grammar-dominated textbooks in China lead to the fact that English teaching in China has adopted a teacher-centered, book-centered and grammar-translation method that all students have strong reliance on their teachers in English learning.
Evidently, this passive way of teaching and learning greatly prohibits most Chinese students from learning English efficiently. After the brief introduction of definitions of learner autonomy, this paper views three external barriers to promoting learner autonomy and finally provides some suggestions on cultivation of Chinese non-English majors’ autonomy in English learning.
2.Definitions of Learner Autonomy
The concept of “learning autonomy” originated from debates about the development of life-long learning skills in the 1960s. Dickinson (1987) defined learning autonomy as “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) saw learner autonomy as “essentially a matter of the learner’s psychological relation to the process and content of learning.” It was defined by Thomson (1996) as “learning situations in which the learners themselves take responsibility for their own learning.” These definitions imply that an autonomous learner is capable of setting goals and objectives, choosing materials and learning strategies, carrying out and evaluating his/her work/learning. Learners are able to make decisions about what is to be learned, as well as how and when to learn it.
3.External Barriers to Promoting Learner Autonomy
Learner autonomy is a complex and active process needing high ability, which is achieved through recognizing how to make decisions about self, to take charge of one’s own objectives, contents, strategies and techniques of language learning, and to be responsible for carrying out the self-assessment of the learning process. This section will view three external barriers to promoting learner autonomy. External barriers refer to what learner himself can’t decide or choose.
3.1 Teaching Modes
The teaching of English in China has been dominated by a teacher-centered, book-centered and grammar translation method, as well as an emphasis on rote memory. As there is only one right answer, what students want to do in class is to guess the answer the teacher expects. In the classroom, students sit in traditional desks in rows centered on the teacher. Activities are centered on teacher-directed whole-class activities such as correcting grammar exercises. Communicative language teaching is downplayed in favor of knowledge transfer. Under this tradition teaching mode, students in China are not able to exercise genuine choice such as objectives, contents, process of learning and so on according to their needs and interests.
3.2Examination System
The examination system in China is usually a heavily constraining factor, and examinations are gatekeepers to higher education or good employment prospect. Present schools, colleges and universities in China are still predominated by tests and by emphasizing academic achievements. Language learners in the classroom often expect to be told what to do in order to get high scores in their examination. As a result, some learners have become teacher-dependent and often feel that it is the teacher who is responsible for learning success or failure.
3.3 Family Education
As to the Chinese family education, the biggest barrier is obedience. The children have been taught to obey: obey the parents and obey the teachers. They have no chance to make their own decisions. They have been accustomed to following the other’s direction. It’s true that some students show a strong desire for freedom and autonomy, but when they are really asked to make decisions or take actions, they somewhat feel lost and put up a tendency of asking for support and relying on others.
4.Implications for Cultivation of Chinese Non-English Majors’ Autonomy in English Learning
The above sections have analyzed present problems in English teaching and learning and some barriers to promoting learner autonomy. With regard to these problems and barriers, this section will put forward some implications to foster Chinese learners’ autonomy in English learning.
4.1Teaching Students’ Learning Strategies
Learning strategies are special actions taken by learners to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable to new situations. They consist of cognitive strategies and meta-cognitive strategies in general. Through the cultivation of cognitive strategies, students can master skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing. Through cultivating meta-cognitive strategies, students can set goals, make plans, select learning modes, monitor learning process and evaluate themselves. There is a famous Chinese saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. Learning strategies have learning facilitation as a goal and are intentional on the part of the learner. Therefore, it is of great importance for English teachers to teach their students’ learning strategies, besides teaching them knowledge.
4.2 Using Cooperative Learning
Cooperative learning is a powerful approach for learner autonomy. Its aim is to establish an environment in which students are able to ask questions and discuss ideas freely with the teacher and their peers. Cooperative learning consists of five elements: positive interdependence, face-to–face promotive interaction, individual accountability and personal responsibility, interpersonal and small group skills and group processing. Through this approach, students often play teaching roles in helping other students learn and take responsibility for their own learning. So cooperative learning is a natural way for learners to become more autonomous or independent. By applying cooperative learning in our EFL classroom, learner autonomy can be fostered.
4.3Transferring Roles
To the students, transferring roles requires a considerable change in classroom management and so it may be the most demanding work for the teacher, especially the Chinese teachers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, the process of transferring roles should be carried out step by step. The first step may be an easy one, which aims to motivate the students, for example, to analyze their own strength, weaknesses and needs independently. Then the teacher can encourage independent learning inside and outside of classroom. In the third step, the teacher can use activities to involve students in decision about the learning process, for example, which part of the text the teacher should explain and which part the students can do by themselves. Through the method of transferring roles, the students will gradually take responsibilities for their learning.
5.Conclusions
Learner autonomy is an effective way to improve the efficiency of language learning and it takes a long time to develop learner autonomy because it’s hard to break away from old habits or old ways of thinking even if one has already known the new ones. Promoting learner autonomy does not mean that the teacher becomes redundant. In fact learners need the teacher’s help in a variety of ways. Students will need more direction from their teachers. Teachers have a key role to play in the process of promoting learner autonomy. In addition, learners will not achieve autonomy by being told to. Learning autonomy is achieved slowly, through struggling towards it, through careful training and careful preparation on the teacher’s part as well as on the learner’s. In order to promote learner autonomy, efforts must be made by individual learners as well as their teachers. This paper is hoped to be helpful for English teachers and learners in China to cultivate students’ autonomy in English learning.
References:
[1]Dickinson, L. (1987). Self-instruction in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[2]Little, D. (1990). Autonomy in Language Learning. In Ian Gathercole (Ed.), Autonomy and language learning. London: CILT
[3]Thomson, C.K.(1996). Self-assessment in Self–directed Learning: issues of learner diversity. In Pemberton H.D. et al. (Eds.), Taking control: autonomy in language learning. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.