Contents
摘要................................................................................................................................ 2
Abstract: ..................................................................................................................... 3
Introduction .................................................................................................................... 4
1. Research Purposes .............................................................................................. 4
2. Research Significance ......................................................................................... 4
3. Statement of the problems ..................................................................................................... 4
ChapterⅠ Literature Review .......................................................................................................... 7
1.1 Theoretical Bases of Autonomous Learning in English ................................... 7
1.1.1 Definition of autonomous learning ......................................................... 7
1.1.2 Features of autonomous learning .......................... 错误！未定义书签。
1.1.3 Current research of autonomous learning and the educational theory错误！未定义书签。
1.2 The Repositioning of Teachers and Students in Autonomous Learning ........... 8
1.2.1 Teachers in autonomous learning ............................................................ 8
(1)Teachers should help students to set up the concept of learning autonomy 8
(2)Changes of teacher's roles in English teaching ........................................... 8
1.2.2 Students in autonomous learning ............................................................ 9
(1)Students should have the sense of participation .......................................... 9
(2)Students should have the spirit of cooperation ............................................ 9
ChapterⅡ Specific Implementary Methods Of Cultivating Students' Autonomous
Learning Ability In English ........................................................................................... 9
2.1 Cultivating learning interests and intensifying learning motivation ............... 11
2.2 Teaching students to set learning targets and plan .......................................... 12
2.3 Instructing students to arrange time reasonably.............................................. 13
2.4 Training students to master autonomous learning strategies .......................... 13
2.4.1 Learning contents--to learn by students themselves ............................. 14
2.4.2 Problems in study----to realize and solve by students themselves ....... 15
2.5 Instructing students to do self-evaluation ....................................................... 15
2.5.1 Training students to evaluate their learning attitude ............................. 15
2.5.2 Training students to evaluate their learning methods ........................... 16
Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 17
Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 19 Acknowledgement ....................................................................... 错误！未定义书签。
摘要
我国教育部2007年颁布的初中英语新课程标准明确提出，“我们应该引导学生调整学习方式，提高他们的自主学习和合作学习的能力，使他们具有终身学习的能力；要着眼于学生的自主发展、全面发展和可持续发展，倡导以学生为主体、以学生为中心的教学模式，促进学生的创新能力和实践能力的发展”。尤其随着当今教育事业的不断深入发展，语言教学的重点从侧重语言知识的教学转为以学生为中心的技能和能力训练，培养学习者的自主性显得尤为重要。
自主学习是一种以人本主义心理学和认知心理学为基础的现代学习理念，它强调学生在学习中的主体性。自主学习的主要目标是培养学生自主学习的自信和情趣，树立积极、独立思考的学习态度，提高自力、自我调适能力，形成自主学习的良好习惯和品质，促成学生的自主发展。人本主义教学思想家罗杰斯主张以学生为中心组织教学；认知建构理论主要是指学生在自己已有的知识结构的基础上，通过意义建构的方式获得知识的过程；前苏联教育家维果斯基所提出的最近发展区理论实际上是对介于学习者凭借自己实力所能达到的水平（如学业成就）和经别人给予协助后所可能达到的水平作以划分，两种水平之间有一段差距即为最近发展区，把握“最近发展区”，能加速学生的自我发展。
关键词
初中英语教学；自主学习；学习动机；学习策略
Abstract: China's Ministry of Education issued a new junior high school English curriculum standards which clearly states,” We should guide students to adjust their learning styles, improve their self-learning and cooperative learning ability so that they can foster a life-long ability to learn. We must focus on students' autonomous development, all-round development and sustainable development, taking students as the main body and advocating the student-centered teaching mode, so as to promote the development of students' innovation ability and practice ability." Especially with the unceasing development and perfection of education, the emphasis on language teaching has transformed from the language knowledge teaching into student-centered skills and ability training, namely to develop learners' autonomy, so it seems to be particularly important to cultivate students' autonomy.
Autonomous learning is a school of education which sees learners as individuals who can and should be autonomous. Autonomous education helps students develop their self-consciousness, vision, practicality and freedom of discussion. These attributes serve to aid the students in their independent learning.
Keywords: Junior High School English Teaching Autonomous learning Learning motivation Learning strategies
Introduction
1. Research Purposes
The aim of this research is to integrate the cultivation of the students' learning autonomy and English teaching through independent study of the autonomous learning theory, and to explore ways of training students' self-study ability in the process of teaching so as to help students to improve their learning strategies and English learning ability. At the same time, teachers should propose their own views that are related to the problems appeared in the process of teaching
2. Research Significance
Full-time compulsory education ordinary junior middle school English curriculum standards (2007) states that the key point of the curriculum reform is to initiate the learning mode of experience, practice, participation, cooperation and communication, and to advocate ask-based teaching approach so as to develop students' integrated language skills; to make students cultivate a positive emotion attitudes toward study, thinking actively and being bold in practice; to improve students' consciousness of culture and to form autonomous learning ability.
3. Statement of the problems
At present, the traditional teacher-centered approach is generally used in English language teaching, which pays too much attention to the accumulation of students' knowledge. There is imbalance in the research of cultivating students' autonomous learning ability in different eras, especially for the middle school English language teaching, it is almost a blank space and need to be studied intensively. Students at different ages have great diversity in the aspects of metacognition knowledge and metacognition control, especially for the middle school students, their self-control and self-management ability is not strong. Ordinarily, they just receive the knowledge from the teachers mechanically, and seldom analyses and settle the knowledge by themselves. Furthermore, different courses have their own characteristic, then diversified ways and measures should be used to cultivate students' autonomous learning ability. English is a special course, and we must cultivate students' self-awareness of autonomous learning, raise their interest in English, and then make them obtain the ability of self-learning. So the research of cultivating students' autonomous learning ability should be carried out in stages and subjects, but there are very few middle school teachers to do the research according to the practical situation, such as different years of age, different courses, students from different places, and different teaching environment, by combining the process of deep theory study and practice.
There are just more theory studies done by the experts in colleges and universities.
Herein, the author carries out the research below of cultivating students' autonomous learning ability in junior middle school English teaching from the standpoint of instructing:
（1What's the current situation about autonomous learning of junior high school students?
（2What's the main problems of junior high school students' autonomous learning?
（3How should the teachers instruct students to cultivate autonomous learning ability ?
ChapterⅠ Literature Review
1.1 Theoretical Bases of Autonomous Learning in English
1.1.1 Definition of autonomous learning
Behaviorist psychologists think that autonomous learning includes three parts: self-control, self-instruction, and self-strengthening. But modern learning theorists propose that autonomous learning should be defined in eight dimensions: learning motivation, learning contents, learning methods, learning time, learning process, learning results, learning environment, and the sociality of learning . If the students can make autonomous choices and control themselves in the eight dimensions, then they are thought to be autonomous.
Zimmerman in City University of New York (1994), a famous American expert of autonomous learning, puts forward a systematic research framework of autonomous learning. He thinks students' study is autonomous when they are in good condition in all the three aspects of matacognition, motivation, and behavior. That is to say that in the aspect of matacognition, the students with autonomous learning ability can plan and organize the different tasks in different stages during the process of learning, and they can conduct self-construction, self-control and self-evaluation; in the aspect of motivation they regard themselves as
capable, effective, and self-control people and they have adequate confidence to accomplish learning tasks. What's more their learning motivation could be strengthened by experiencing the efficiency of success; in the aspect of behavior they can choose, organize, change, and innovate their ways of study so as to reach the maximum learning efficiency.
1.2 The Repositioning of Teachers and Students in Autonomous Learning
1.2.1 Teachers in autonomous learning
(1)Teachers should help students to set up the concept of learning autonomy
In teaching independent study, teachers should hold the people-oriented and student-centered concept , respect students' main body position and put the ideas into the planning and organizing of the daily teaching activities, cultivating and improving students' independent ability. In teaching contents and ways , teachers should use different and appropriate methods to treat the individual differences so as to make every student get the utmost care and progress.
(2)Changes of teacher's roles in English teaching
In autonomous teaching environment, teachers must change their
traditional way of thinking and realize their diversified roles objectively. They should help students to develop the following abilities: determining learning targets, choosing learning
contents and schedule, cultivating leaning methods and strategies, monitoring learning process and evaluating the results.
1.2.2 Students in autonomous learning
(1)Students should have the sense of participation
Dewey once put forward the idea of "learning by doing", and people always recommend "Nothing is more important than participation". Only by practice can we know whether we are capable or not, understanding their own advantages and disadvantages. Therefore participation is not only taking part in the procedure of learning activities but also the standards of inspecting our knowledge. By participating diverse activities, the students can feel different kinds of sentiment, which offer the practical opportunities of developing their psychological health. It is even more important for language learners to participate all kinds of different communicating activities to improve their ability to understand or use words, embodying the true values of language ultimately.
(2)Students should have the spirit of cooperation
Each person's knowledge is limited and their characteristics and
habits are different, which can be obviously reflected in the process of competition----still a king of cooperation. It is just these diversities that offer every member of cooperation the chance of learning, and in the process of cooperating, every member's advantages and disadvantages will be exposed and through mutual promotion every one will improve themselves well.
ChapterⅡ Specific Implementary Methods Of Cultivating Students' Autonomous Learning Ability In English
2.1 Cultivating learning interests and intensifying learning motivation
The extensive meaning of interest is the awareness of deeper understanding of the world, named understanding interest, while the thirst for knowledge is the awareness of acquiring knowledge. People with strong understanding interest and thirst for knowledge always forget and satisfy themselves in learning, so understanding interest is one of the most practical internal motivation to Facilitate Learning while the thirst for knowledge will provide us the new interest in higher understandig level. The author thinks the primary goal of English teaching in junior middle school is to cultivate students' learning interest and to arouse their passion. The following ones are the suggestions on cultivating students' interests in English learning:
(1)Making students love the teachers and the English classes
(2)Injecting emotion in class
(3Ttrying to create colorful class activities
(4)Letting students do outside English reading and write reactions
(5)Using multi-media to show students colorful English word
(6)Creating different kinds of situations and encouraging students to take
part in positively so as to build a harmonious, relaxed and happy learning atmosphere
(7)Letting students themselves to explain the papers or exercises and encourage them to find the answers by themselves
(8)Using the teaching model of diction and dividing students into groups to do mutual correcting so as to arouse their sense of competition
(9)Organizing some contest, such as explaining the knowledge points of the text , spelling and translating words, translating the passage,etc.
(10)Strengthening student's confidence of English learning , arousing their sense of achievement and giving some rewards to the students who are not good in study but get some progress
2.2 Teaching students to set learning targets and plan
Learning to learn, first the students should set their learning targets and plan, learning according to them and summarizing regularly so as to find the problems and adjust in time. Learning goal can be divided into short-term goal and long-term goal, the long-term goal is the level that the students should be reached when they are in junior middle school graduation while the short-term goal is the level they should be reached in every semester. The short-term goal should be included in every month, every week, and every day plans and they must be specific, such as how
many words should be recited and how many times should the text be read everyday ; how many exercises should be done every week; how to arrange everyday time; what way should be used in learning and what effects should be got, etc.
2.3 Instructing students to arrange time reasonably
Teachers should tell the students the importance of managing time well and let them know time is a very important resource which treat everyone fairly and whether they can use time effectively is important for their success in school. Teachers also can instruct students to control their time, for example, giving time limit in class activities so as to make them understand how to adjust their time in class. Teachers should put forward the request specifically and let the students to show their time-using results in the class such as reciting, performance, words and sentence remembering, examination,etc, leading them to do horizontal comparison so as to find the reasons of diversified time-using effect and adjust the learning strategies. When setting homework the teachers should tell the students how much time should be taken in finishing the work so that they can learn to control their time.
2.4 Training students to master autonomous learning strategies
The real symbol of students' autonomous ability is their initiative.
Teaching experience proves that only when the teachers play a leading role in arousing students' enthusiasm and initiative for learning can the students' potential be fully developed and their autonomous learning ability can be improved. So the following strategies should be used to advance students' autonomy:
2.4.1 Learning contents--to learn by students themselves
Modern education emphasizes students' main body sense body and the teachers should give the initiative back to students so as to change their negative and passive position. It is impossible to to built up students' main body position without autonomous choice, so some questions should be asked when students prepare the lessons before classes, such as:
What's the learning goal of the unit?
(1)How many parts are included in the unit around the goal?
(2)Am I interested in these contents? Or what are the contents I interested in ?
(3)To finish all the content of the unit, I would start from the part I am interested or leave them behind for later learning?
(4)What are my goals for the parts I choose to learn?
(5)To reach the goals, what steps I will take in the process of learning?
2.4.2 Problems in study----to realize and solve by students themselves The ancients said:” Doubt is key of knowledge." But who is the one supposed to explain the doubt? Obviously, it is the students themselves and the teachers should let students discuss and argue positively in classes, through positive thinking, mutual communication, and deep discuss to reach a better understanding. By "discussing" students intelligence can extensively developed and their thinking can be quickly diverged or centralized so as to expand information exchange and thinking capacity
2.5 Instructing students to do self-evaluation
Analyzing from the psychological point of view, people's way of looking at things is adjusted by themselves and students must learn to do self-evaluation and self-control if they want to develop well in their study, organizing their learning targets and decide their development direction according to their learning strategies. Teachers also should lead students to summarize their learning experience; the following ones are the good suggestions on training students' self-evaluation ability:
2.5.1 Training students to evaluate their learning attitude
From the educational psychology point of view, the learner's emotional control is one of the most effective factors that affect their
learning results in the process of study. The junior high school students' attitude toward things is marked by their requirement degree, so to know students' learning attitude, learning preference, and learning motivation can help the teachers to adjust their teaching so as to make a good learning effect. The students can evaluate themselves from the following aspects:
2.5.2 Training students to evaluate their learning methods
After setting the learning targets, students should choose the proper learning methods for good learning methods can bring better learning results. To help students form good learning habits, teachers should instruct students to build up their own learning files, require students to be familiar with their own learning methods and adjust them in time. In the beginning of every semester, teachers should tell students to set up their own files in which they can write down their thoughts about the general activities and record their problems appeared in the test and daily homework or the beautiful sentences they like. Through these recordings, the students can know their advantages and disadvantages, and then set their short-term and long-term learning targets.
Conclusion
According to the result of the research, the author advocates that junior middle school English teaching should be student-centred. Teachers should pay more attention to mobilize students' learning initiative and to train students' interest in English, attach more importance to the instruction of their learning strategies, the construction of their comprehensive ability of language, and the cultivation of self-learning ability, in facing with the present situation of the universal application of traditional inculcation model,which is uninteresting, inefficient, and go against to the cultivation of students' autonomous learning ability. Teachers should turn their roles of actors into directors, conducting a correct guidance and a target training in the process of students' autonomous learning so as to stimulate and perfect the formation of students autonomous learning ability efficiently.
In short, the author thinks that it is very necessary for teachers to change their concept and roles of teaching, and it is more important for them to improve their professional competence. To improve general teaching quality, cultivate students' autonomous learning ability and teach students to learn, on one hand teachers should strengthen their theory study, renew their educational idea, and apply advanced education theories to conduct teaching so as to improve their teaching methods
positively to satisfy different needs of the students; on the other hand, teachers should attach more importance to individual studies to know each students' learning style and personal characteristics, and to understand the disadvantages of their studies so that they can teach students in accordance with their aptitude and get an ideal teaching effect.
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