Developing Learner Autonomy to Promote Senior Students’ Reading Ability 运用自主学习理论促进中学生英语阅读能力的培养（硕士论文）.doc

运用自主学习理论促进中学生英语阅读能力的培养Developing Learner Autonomy to Promote Senior Students Reading AbilityAbstract: Learner autonomy has been a catchword in the world of foreign language teaching and learning in the recent twenty years, especially in western context. This indicates that concern with teaching and learning has shifted from the teachers teaching to the students learning. In China, Education Ministry has set the main goal of English teaching and learning as “developing the students autonomous English learning” in the New English Course Standard for the Basic Education Stage. Thus the English teachers responsibility should concentrate on cultivating students ability of learning autonomy, and helping students become conscious of how to learn effectively. With teachers help, students can form appropriate learning habits, grasp adequate learning abilities by themselves and lay solid base for their lifelong learning. However, the status quo of teaching and learning in China is “time-consuming with low effectiveness producing”, which results from lack of competent teachers, and relevant efficient teaching context. Many teachers teach as what was taught. New ideas arent brought forth when teachers try their best to teach students under a non-productive teaching conception and in their own self-centered style. Not only students and their parents but also the teachers themselves overemphasize the results of examinations but neglect actual development in English ability on the part of students. In middle school, English teaching still focus on teachers teaching rather than students learning. It ignores the students individual differences and thus produces only passive learners, and ineffective teaching and learning. To better this situation, the best way available is to focus on students learning since the students themselves can in any case carry out all learning. This means that students should be the major concern in classroom teaching and learning and the focus of English teaching should shift from the teachers to themselves. Autonomy refers to the ability to take charge of ones own learning. Littlewood (1999) comments, “If we define autonomy in educational term as involving students capacity to use their learning independently of teachers, then autonomy would appear to be an incontrovertible goal for learners everywhere, since it is obvious that no students will have their teachers to accompany them through life”. So language learning is a lifelong endeavor. Therefore our students autonomy should be seen as an essential goal of English teaching. Cognitive psychology deals with the study of the nature and learning of systems of knowledge, particularly those processes involved in thought, perception, comprehension, memory, and learning. The constructivists view involves two principles: (1) The learner, not passively receives from the environment, but actively constructs knowledge; (2) Coming to know is a process of adaptation based on and constantly modified by a learners experience of the world. According to the above theories, we have much to gain from the understanding of learning principles. As English teachers, we should promote learner autonomy, which means transferring responsibility for aspects of the language learning process (such as setting goals, selecting learning strategies, and evaluating process) from the teacher to the learner. Unfortunately, insightful as these considerations on learning are, few words are mentioned with regard to the ways to develop students listening, speaking, reading and writing skills, which are prescribed specially in the New English Course Standard. Nor do they mention any method with which to develop these skills of students in class and after class, which is what broad English teachers and students need badly in reality. This study investigates reading situations for senior middle school students in an autonomous learning context in order to use autonomous theories to promote students reading ability. This paper was done mainly in quantitative approach to test the relationship between the academic achievement and autonomous reading. Meanwhile a qualitative approach was also used, i.e., through literature review and questionnaire to discuss and describe the research situation of learners autonomous reading, discuss the significance of autonomous reading and the way of promoting learner autonomy in middle school English learning. The subjects included 2 classes of Senior One of the No.1 Middle School in Fugu County, Shaanxi Province. The total number of the students is 112. 56 students (30 boys, 26 girls) in Class6 were the experimental group (EG); 56 students (30 boys, 26 girls) in Class7 were the control group. The students are averaged 17 years old. They had completed three years of English learning in Junior Middle School. Their English levels varied a lot. Some of the students were very good at English, but some were very poor in English. The instruments used in this study involved a pre-test and a post-test on reading. After 4-month training of autonomous learning, the students achievements have been improved greatly. Finally, a list of educational implications is introduced to help students improve their reading abilities in the foreign language classroom context. These implications are an integration of the findings of the literature review and of the results of the present study. Key words: learner autonomy autonomous English reading classroom teaching middle school English study 摘要:近二十年来，自主学习一直是外语教学界的热门话题，在西方教育界教学的中心已经由关注教师的“教”转移到了学生的“学”。中国教育部在新颁布的基础教育阶段新英语课程标准中把“培养中学生自主学习英语的能力”作为英语教学的主要目标，因此教师更多的责任就是培养学生的学习自主性，教会他们如何进行有效学习，并逐步养成良好的学习习惯，掌握有效的学习策略，形成独立学习的能力，为终身学习奠定良好的基础。可是，“费时低效”被视为是我国外语教学的真实写照。造成这一结果的原因有很多，但“理论研究严重滞后是我国整体外语水平难以提高的重要原因之一”(束定芳，2004:2)，我国基础外语教学在很大程度上仍停留在教师凭自己的经验来实施教学需求的层次上，缺少建立在实证科学研究基础上的外语教学理论。学生、家长和教师都把重点放在终结性评价上，忽视了对学生的形成性评价。在中学大多数教师仍把重点放在教师的“教”上，而不是学生的“学”上，这种单调的教学风格满足不了学生个体不同的认知，导致了学生不能主动地进行学习，教学效果差，学习效率低。有鉴于此，西方研究者提出教师应“以学习者为中心”，把培养学习者的学习责任心作为教育的最终目标，让他们学会学习，对自自己的学习负责。本文作者介绍了自主学习发展的历程，回顾了自主学习的研究基础，阐释了自主发展的核心含义，探讨了培养中学生英语学习自主能力的必要性，自主学习属于教育哲学的范畴，其主要的理论基础是认知心理学和建构主义学习理论。在自主学习理论的指导下，许多教师和学者达成了这样的共识：学校教育的目标就是培养学生独立自主的学习能力，即不仅使学生学到知识，更重要的是使他们学会如何学习。本篇论文旨在运用自主学习理论来促进高中学生英语阅读能力的培养。阅读教学一直是英语教学的一个重要部分，阅读过程其实就是学生积累语言知识的过程，是顺利进行语言交际的基础，因而培养学习者的阅读自主能力是提高学习者习得效度的一个重要因素。本次研究采用的是定性和定量相结合的方法，实验前，本人利用调查问卷对陕西省府谷中学高一两个班112 名学生做了自主阅读情况调查，这两班具有代表性，因为府谷中学为省重点中学，根据学生的中考成绩，他们的水平相当，男女生比例相近，年龄相仿，调查结果显示，学生的自主学习能力和阅读情况都比较差。与此同时，作者对这两个班都进行了实验前测，结果证明他们的平均分和标准差没有显著性区别。为了尽快提高学生的英语阅读能力，作者对高一（6）班实行自主性阅读的教学方法；对于高一（7）班，仍使用传统的教学方法，四个月后，实验后测的结果显示了两个班的平均分和标准差有显著性区别，实验班的平均分和标准差高于对照班。这个结果说明培养学生自主性阅读能力对于提高英语教学的效率和培养学生英语基本能力来说，是行之有效的。但是由于实验时间短，这次实验也有不足之处，希望在以后的研究中能有所改进。关键词：自主性学习自主性英语阅读课堂教学中学英语学习 CONTENTSChapter 1 Introduction1 1.1 Background of the research.1 1.2 Inefficiency of English reading.2 1.3 Major concepts.3 1.3.1 Concept of Autonomous Learning.3 1.3.2 Concept of Reading Ability.4 1.4 Study plan.4 Chapter 2 Literature Review.6 2.1 Learning Theories and Language Teaching.6 2.1.1 Cognitivism6 2.1.2 Constructivism7 2.1.3 Autonomous Learning7 2.2 Relevant Studies of Reading.9 2.2.1 The Bottom-up Model9 2.2.2 The Top-down model10 2.2.3 The Interactive Model.11 2.3 Autonomous Reading12 Chapter 3 Research Design and Data Collection.14 3.1 Research questions.14 3.2 Subjects14 3.3 Instruments.14 3.4 Procedure.143.5 The Questionnaire.15 3.6 The Experimental Study.16 3.6.1 Pre-test.16 3.6.2 Design of cultivating senior students autonomous reading ability.16 3.6.3 Promoting the students motivation for English reading.26 3.6.4 Training students autonomous reading strategies27 3.6.5 Post-test.28 Chapter 4 Results and Discussion.30 4.1 Results.30 4.2 Discussion31 Chapter 5 Conclusion and Recommendations.34 5.1 Conclusion34 5.2 Recommendations35 5.3 Limitations36 Bibliography.37 Appendix A.41 Appendix B.43 攻读学位期间论文发表情况.45 Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Background of the research For a long time, the status quo of English teaching in China has always been centered on the teachers teaching, not the students learning because of many reasons. The most significant reason is that the lack of competent teachers and relevant efficient teaching context. Many teachers teach as what was taught. New ideas arent brought forth when teachers try their best to teach students under a non-productive teaching conception and in their own self-centered style. Not only students and their parents but also the teachers themselves overemphasize the results of examinations but neglect actual development in English ability on the part of students. In middle school, this phenomenon is particularly serious. So the pattern is teacher-centered, which ignores students individual differences and thus produces only passive learners, and ineffective teaching and learning. By studies, modern linguists discover: the process of language learning is actually a complex process. So in order to make English learning efficient, learners must learn actively and autonomously. Since the beginning of 1980s, autonomous learning has been a fascinating topic to researchers from western linguistic fields. By 1981 Holec (1981:3) had defined autonomy as “the ability to take charge of ones own learning”. He developed this definition further in 1985 by talking about autonomy as a conceptual tool. 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.” Later on, there are varieties of opinions about autonomous learning, but the concern is the same. That is, the learner should be responsible for his or her own learning. Other theories such as cognitivism, which deals with the study of nature and learning of systems of knowledge, asks students to think rather than simply repeat; and constructivism, which can also be applied to learning theory to how people learn. Constructivists believe that knowledge is subjective. According to above theories, either for autonomous learning theory or for cognitivism and constructivism, their concern is that autonomous learning can produce efficient learning. In China, Education Ministry has set the main goal of English teaching and learning as “developing the students autonomous English learning” in the New English Course Standard for the Basic Education Stage. Thus the teachers responsibility should concentrate on cultivating the students learning autonomy, and helping the students become conscious of how to learn effectively. English reading teaching always takes an important place in English education as a whole because reading is an essential part of a persons ability of using English. A process of reading is in fact the process the student accumulates knowledge of the English language and using English. By reading students can also communicate with others efficiently. So cultivating the students learning necessary skills and techniques to reading ability in an autonomous learning context should be a valuable attempt to promote. English reading teaching aims to build the students ability of English reading to engage in purposeful reading, to adopt a range of reading styles necessary for interacting successfully with authentic texts, and to develop critical awareness. This suggests developing the English learners awareness of the structure of written texts, and knowledge about the world. It also implies developing his or her confidence in using these to create meaning from a text. Both awareness and confidence involve preparation and practice in the supportive environment of classroom and persuasion to carry on English reading outside the classroom. 1.2 Inefficiency of English reading As we all know, western China of the country are backward and undeveloped, where the quality of teaching is lower than that of eastern developed regions, especially the quality of English teaching. Although both teachers and students devote much time and energy to English teaching and learning, their efforts in learning English are always so poorly rewarded. On one hand, the reason is that reading teaching is greatly affected by the method of Grammar Translation, which relies heavily on teaching grammar and practicing translation as its main teaching and learning activities, but neglects the training of executive learning strategy. Moreover, this method gives little or no consideration to what students might do to promote their own learning. On the other hand, strategy instruction has been excluded from classroom teaching, including in English reading. Many teachers dont tend to include learning strategy instruction as part of their classroom curriculum (Durkin, 1978; Pressley and Woloshyn 1995). The reason for the neglect of strategy instruction is not entirely clear. Perhaps teachers are not aware of the importance of strategy instruction or focus on outcomes of learning instead of instruction to their students. Some teachers may feel that learning strategy is best acquired indirectly by engaging in challenging academic tasks, and that explicit instruction or about strategy use is not effective. Whatever the reasons, teachers seem to be missing an important opportunity to enhance students strategic-learning capabilities and academic achievement. In addition, the students are passive in reading and learning, and all they will do is to listen to the teacher and respond to the teachers questions; they have low motivation in English learning; they are largely confined