教师中介作用对偏远城镇地区中学生英语自主学习能力 的影响 —对山西省吕梁市兴县东关中学的调查研究

发布时间：2016-12-09 15:15

Chapter Ⅰ Introduction

With the development of quality-oriented education which is aiming at developingstudents’ ability in an all-around way, our traditional English teaching is faced withchallenges. Mechanical drills and passive learning dominated in past years which are notpopular and they are opposite to quality-oriented education that stresses learning abilityand application ability. What’s more, students are cultivated to learn knowledge bythemselves and teaching pays more attention to students’ subjectivity. Therefore, the fieldsof foreign language and educational institution have reached a consensus on theimportance of developing students’ ability to learn autonomously and on the necessity toput the mode of learner autonomy into use of English teaching. Yet the present situation ofsenior high schools in remote towns is not so positive and the root reason is that they areshort of mediating guidance from teachers. Under this kind of background, teachers beginto rethink their personal teaching belief, to reconsider the relationship between studentsand themselves and to put the mode of autonomous learning into practice. There are moreand more relative researches appearing in this field, which promote the implement oflearner autonomy. 
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Chapter Ⅱ Literature Review

1. Definitions of Key Terms

The term of “autonomy” first entered the field of language education through theCouncil of Europe’s Modern Language Project, which established in 1971. The study oflearner autonomy of foreign language education has been explored for many years, butthere is not a uniform definition yet.In 1981, the term of “learner autonomy” was first proposed by Henri Holec who is thefather of learner autonomy. Holec defines “learner autonomy” as: “the ability to takecharge of one’s own learning” (Holec, 1981). In Holec’ opinion, “the basic methodologyfor learner training should be that of discovery; the learner should discover, with or withoutthe help of other learners or teachers. By proceeding largely by trial and error, he trainshimself progressively” (Benson, 2005: 12).Littlewood is another renowned scholar of learner autonomy in foreign languageeducation. He defines learner autonomy as learners’ ability and willingness to makechoices independently (Littlewood, 1996). His definition is complementary to Holec’s, butit adds a vital psychological dimension that is often absent in definitions of autonomy.Comparing and concluding the different definitions of scholars, the author gets ageneral definition of learner autonomy which refers to the ability to set learning goals,choose learning methods, monitor learning process and evaluate learning outcome byoneself.

2. Theoretical Foundations

Constructivism theory states that teaching should center around students because theyare the subjects in the process of cognition and they are the active constructors of meaning.Teachers often play stimulative role in students’ constructing process. In other words,pouring knowledge to students in class doesn’t mean that students have finished theconstruction ofmeaning actually. An effective learning process involves something morethan participation, namely, it is a dynamic constructing process in which students joinactively and positively.Scaffolding is a fundamental theory in Constructivism Theory, and it is a metaphorwhich is put forward by Wood, Bruner & Ross (1976). It is often used in constructionindustry. While in teaching area, it means a helper. Scaffolding is originated from the Zoneof Proximal Development Theory raised by Vygotsky. Bruner has ever used the scaffoldingtheory to describe young children’s oral language forming. In his opinion, when youngchildren first start learning to speak, they are provided with informal instructional forms bytheir parents within whom their learning is facilitated (Li Jiaxing, 2014). According to thelearning ability and learning level of the students, teachers establish reasonable scaffoldingalong with which the students can rise up.

Chapter Ⅲ Research Methodology.................14

1. Research Questions..............14
2. Research Subject............ 14
3. Research Instrument............15
4. Validity and Reliability..............16
5. Procedure and Data Collection.... 17
6. Data Analysis and Discussion.........17
7. Findings of Interview.............29
Chapter Ⅳ Pedagogical Suggestions on English Learner Autonomy......33
1. Suggestion to Local Educational Department and Schools......... 33
2. Suggestion to Teachers....... 34
3. Suggestion to Students...................37
Chapter Ⅴ Conclusion...........40
1. Findings of the Study..........40
2. Limitations of the Study....... 41
3. Suggestions for Further Study.............42

Chapter Ⅳ Pedagogical Suggestions on English LearnerAutonomy

1. Suggestion to Local Educational Department and Schools

Xing County is one of the poorest counties in Lvliang City and its educational qualitylags behind many other schools in some other counties. There are many students going toother schools outside this county for studying because of the poor educational conditionhere. Most of the parents choose some better schools for their children from junior highschool stage, even some of them put children outside from primary stage. Faced with aseries of problems, the local educational department and schools have responsibility to takesteps to improve the poor educational quality. More autonomy can be realized through manydifferent ways. In the first place,schools should allow teachers to have their own organizational form of teaching. Second,teachers can have own unique evaluation mechanism, such as combining the usualperformance with the final grade to evaluate a student. Third, teachers can get the right ofadding or cutting down some learning points according to the personal specific case.

2. Suggestion to Teachers

It is advised that teachers should change their roles firstly in the process of helpingstudents to learn autonomously according to the National English Curriculum Standard forsenior high school. Commonly, teachers are educators and supervisors in class which arethe basic function of teachers. However, they can become effective mediators when theypervade the delivery of the whole curriculum. They need to be able to take on some otherroles like advisers, organizers, consultants and facilitators, even change themselves tostudents’partners, co-communicators or joint problem-solvers. Students in remote towns often have less sense of competition so they seldom haveideas about autonomic learning. In most daily study, they learn what teachers said and doexercise inflexibly. The questionnaire and interview show that most students do not studyusing learning strategies, and they are eager to get some skills to learn English easily.The National English Curriculum Standard for senior high school points out thatteachers should give students more guidance on learning strategy to help them formautonomous learning ability; teachers should also build a new teaching belief whichconforms to new curriculum and should optimize their teaching approach (The NationalEnglish Curriculum Standard for senior high school, 2003). Learning strategies are goodways to help students comprehend, learn and acquire knowledge. They often cover threesub-strategies like cognitive strategy, metacognitive strategy and social-affective strategy(O’Malley and Chamot, 1990).
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Chapter Ⅴ Conclusion

1. Findings of the Study

This thesis took six months to complete and the research occupied one month.Qualitative and quantitative analysis are adopted in the thesis to investigate the status quoof learner autonomy under teacher’s mediating function in middle school of remote townsin Shanxi Province. The statistic of the research indicates that the overall level of thestudents’ autonomy is very low. They are not clear about autonomous learning and regardthe homework as autonomous learning. Therefore, many students are not independent inthe process of learning and they are always waiting for their teachers to assign somethingto do, which also increases the teachers’burden.When it comes to the factors lead to the phenomena above, this paper gets someconclusions which are enlightening to education in remote towns:Firstly, teachers’ mediating function is not so obvious to the students which is themain reason of it. The role of teachers in these places is a controller instead of mediatorbecause they decide everything for the students and what students can do is just to obey it.However, autonomous learning does not mean learning without teachers’ participation.Adversely, teachers have more responsibilities to give them guidance, point out theinefficient learning method, stress the emphasis and help them to form a good habit tolearn autonomously.Secondly, students are afraid to speak English in public. Most of the English teachersin remote town schools rarely leave speaking time for students to practise spoken English.They often teach lessons in mother tongue rather than the target language which makesthestudents feel easier when they speak native language. The students are so shy and they areafraid of speaking English in public. With the low rate of repetition, these students havelimited chances to use and practise the English.Thirdly, students have simple types of learning resources. There are no schools in thisarea equipping multi-media classroom for English lessons and library for teachers andstudents to read. Thus they have simple types of learning resources like blackboard,coursebook, workbook and newspaper. So teachers need some novel materials to attractstudents’attention to take full advantage of the 45 minutes in class.Fourthly, students have little time to arrange for autonomous learning. In order tocatch up with the development of modern society, every school makes teaching objectivesfor every teacher to complete. So the students have to finish a lot of homework everydaywhich leaves them little time to learn other things they like autonomously.On the basis of the reasons above, some suggestions are presented to improvestudents’ ability of learner autonomy from three angles: suggestion to local educationaldepartment and schools, suggestion to teachers and suggestion to students. Such as givinginstructions on learning strategy, signing learning contract with students, assigning groupwork homework, offering different kinds of materials and encouraging students foremotional exchange and so on.

2. Limitations of the Study

From the results of this research, this paper has got a conclusion that students inremote towns are weak at learning autonomously as supposed. However, there are alsosome limitations that should be accepted and amended for reference in the future.Time for research is limited. Because the teachers and students have tight schedule forstudy, it cannot occupy too much time of them to do the research.This research is only conducted in Dongguan middle school, but it is a difficult taskfor the writer to do it in other schools here. So the results of this investigation cannot standfor the status of the whole county or other remote towns in other cities.Some of the students are not willing to take part in this research which will impact theresults of the research. The students are not interested in research and investigation, somaybe theywill answer the questions with carelessness.The knowledge level of the author is limited. Completing a thesis takes too much timeand it needs much professional knowledge about this field to the author. So it is inevitableto make some mistakes in finishing it and the mistakes should be corrected in the furtherstudy.

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