On Promotion of Students’Autonomy in China’s College English Classroom论文

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Abstract
  With exposure of weaknesses of the traditional classroom practice, it has been realized that students’ autonomy needs to be promoted. To achieve this, both teachers’and students’ awareness has to be raised in the context of China. The cultural tradition needs to be broken and the role of teachers needs to be shifted. Students’ autonomy can also be fostered through clssroom interaction in China’s College English teaching.
  Key words: Promotion; Autonomy; College English classroom
  INTRODUCTION
  For many years, College English teaching in China ‘has been dominated by a teacher-centered, book-centered, grammar-translation method and an emphasis on rote memory’ (Rao, 2006). However, with the acceleration of China’s steps of development and closer ties with the outside world, more and more weaknesses of this teaching practice he been exposed. Many students find it difficult to be understood in an interview when hunting for a job. Hing been accustomed to relying on teachers’instructions, students tend to be passive in learning and do not know how to improve after graduation. To solve these problems and achieve the objectives of the syllabus, a new direction has to be adopted. Autonomy, as a goal of language teaching, has become an inevitable trend. This paper, based on a critical look at the traditional classroom practice, attempts to explore how to promote more effective teaching-learning in the context of China by introducing the concept of autonomy from sociocutural perspective.
  Autonomy is a concept that was first introduced into language teaching by Holec. Holec (1981) defines autonomy as ‘the ability to take charge of one’s learning’and ‘an ability or a capacity that needs to be acquired’. Autonomy is regarded as a ‘pedagogical goal’ by Wenden(1987) and ‘an unoidable methodological option’ by Narcy (1994). In sociocultural field, Little (1999a, p.4) defines autonomy as a capacity ‘for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action’. This capacity ‘includes the planning, monitoring, and evaluating of learning activities and involves both the content and process of learning’(Little, in Paiva & Braga, 2008, p.

2 ).

  Studenets’ autonomy is ‘the product of an interactive process’ (Little, 2007) and thus can be gained through the class interaction. As can be seen from the perspective of socio-interactive view, the development of competence derives from the ‘interchange between organis and environments’ (Rose, 1997). Class is like a all society in which the students can gradually develop their autonomy through the two-way interaction. Students’autonomy doesn’t mean that the teachers will ‘relinguish all initiative and control’ (Little, 1999a, p.3). According to sociocultural theory, the development of students’autonomy is a process involving a gradual shift from other regulation to self-regulation. At first, the teachers may provide a lot of assistance. Gradually, teachers reduce their ‘scaffolding’ (Mitchell & Myles, 1998) until students are eventually able to take the responsibility for strategic functions of a certain task. In the process of achieving autonomy, besides the teachers, the peer students can also scaffold each other through the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which is defined by Vygotsky (1978:76) as: ‘…the distance between the actual level of development as determined by independent problem-solving and the level of potential development as determined by problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.’ The basis of students’ autonomy is that the students accept responsibility for their learning (Little, 1995). Cultivation of students’ autonomy is a gradual traner from shared responsibility to individual responsibility. Negotiation plays an important role in this respect. Negotiation means ‘discussions that take place between people who he different interests, in order for them to be able to come to an agreement about something, solve a problem, or make arrangements’ (Collins COBULD English Language Dictionary, in Benson & Voller, 1997) This also involves a traner from joint problem-solving to independent problem-solving. Besides this, mediation in target language or teachers’ personal costrut are also very important in achieving students’ autonomy.