1、 1 Literature Review Gender Differences between English Majors in English Autonomous Learning and Its Revelation to Teaching With the development of globalization, English is becoming an official language in the world. How to improve English competence is a question for everyone to concern about. Al
2、so in the school, teachers explore teaching methods for improving English competence. As English majors, English is the leading course. It is the tool to compete with others. With the educational revolution, autonomous learning is the new topic for educational researchers, which means the focus of r
3、esponsibility shifts from teachers to students. It requires that students should be self-disciplined to learn English. Over the past years, the topic of autonomous learning attracts attentions of various researchers. In the 1960s, western educationists began to advocate autonomous learning and set i
4、t as a goal for educational revolution. However, at that time, people paid little attention to this new term. The concept of autonomous learning was brought into the field of foreign language teaching and learning until 1970s. Holec was the first person to define autonomy from the view of foreign la
5、nguage teaching in Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in 1981. According to Holec(1981), autonomy is the ability to take charge of ones own learning. This definition of autonomy was taken as a launching point in other subsequent works. In 2002, Gardner and Miller, in the book Establishing Self-A
6、ccess From Theory to Practice, introduce the history of autonomous learning. According to Gardner and Miller (2002), “ the concept of autonomous learning stemmed from debates about development of life-long learning skills and the development of independent thinkers both of which originated in the 19
7、60s”(p.6). From the perspective of theory, they also demonstrate that there are three major schools of thought in the view of definitions of autonomy. Little and Kenny regard autonomy as personal characteristic, Benson views autonomy as a political concept and Boud sees autonomy as a definition of e
8、ducational practices (Gardner & Miller, 2002). 2 In the book Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning, Benson(2005) defines autonomy as the capacity to take control of ones own learning. In order to make learners have an overall knowledge of autonomy, he asks why autonomous learning is
9、 needed. As Benson(2005) emphasizes, “the current value of the concept of autonomy to language educators may well lie in its usefulness as an organizing principle”(p.17). Control is the main thing learners require to insist in the autonomous learning. In China, Yan Ming (2007) points out that, from
10、the perspective of Pang Weiguo, autonomous learning is based on the development of self-awareness of “the ability to learn” and intrinsic motivation of “the willing to learn”. Another researcher Sun Hongqiong (2007) emphasizes that autonomous learning is learner-centered, which helps learners to rea
11、lize their learning styles. She also summarizes that in self-access learning, the learners take responsibility of all decisions in the process of study and carry out these decisions, which include setting learning goal, selecting learning content, choosing learning methods, carrying out monitoring a
12、nd evaluating learning results. All in all, there is no fixed definition of autonomous learning. Some researchers regard autonomy as the ability to learn while others consider autonomy as an learning behavior. But almost everyone emphasizes the shifts of responsibility from teachers to students. In
13、that way, learners are the main parts in the process of learning. Learning is not mechanical memory but the process of finding out significance from all incidents. In the process of autonomous learning, various factors influence the autonomy quality. A College English Course for the Development Auto
14、nomous Learning written by Yan Ming puts forward the factors which influence autonomy. He summarizes five factors: intelligence, nonintellectual factor, learning strategy, cultural factor and self-management. In addition, nonintellectual factor includes learning attitude, motivation and learning wil
15、l. To carry out autonomous learning efficiently, motivation and learning strategy are necessary for learners to develop. Bai Shuting proposes three factors that influence learner autonomy. Attitude and 3 belief is the first one. Bai Shuting (2006) points out “without correct and appropriate attitude
16、s and beliefs, learning autonomy is doomed to be a failure”(p.88). The second one is motivation which is the key point in the process of learning. The last one is cultural factor because different countries have different teaching methods. According to Pan Xinyan(2007), factors which influence Engli
17、sh autonomous learning are divided into three parts: motivation, self-confidence and learning strategy. In a word, factors which influence autonomous learning are divided into internal causes and external causes. Educational researchers pay more attention to internal causes, such as motivation, atti
18、tude and learning strategy. There is little study on external causes. Whats more, gender difference is a main factor in English autonomous learning and should be considered. When walking in the Foreign Language College, people will find that girls outnumber boys. The phenomenon exists because girls
19、and boys have different competences in English learning. The book Gender and Education written by Zheng Xinrong(2005) demonstrates the relationship between cognitive competence and gender. From the view of memory capacity, girls are better in rote memory and imaginal memory. On the other hand, logic
20、 memory ability of boys are stronger than that of girls. In addition, girls have advantages of language competence while boys have advantage of spatial ability and mathematical ability. Gender difference is an important issue for teachers to consider in teaching. Recent years, researches on the rela
21、tionship between English learning and gender difference have made great progress. However, there are no specific measures to reduce imbalances. English autonomous learning is the tendency for educational revolution. But the study on gender difference in English autonomous learning is few. Since the
22、concept of autonomous learning was introduced to the language learning, many researchers and scholars have proposed different standpoints on autonomy and achieved great development. In the aspect of English study, gender differences do exist. Girls and boys have different learning styles and attitud
23、es towards English learning. However, in pervious researches, objects of English autonomous learning are non-English majors. The study of English majors in 4 autonomy is few. The author focuses on the autonomy of English majors in English learning and finds out gender differences in English autonomo
24、us learning. The above literature provides some theoretical basis in analyzing gender differences between English majors in English autonomous learning. References 1Bai, Shuting(白书婷 ). Research on Learner Autonomy both at Home and Abroad J. Journal of Xinzhou Teachers University, 2006, 22(6): 88-90.
25、 2Benson, P. Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning M. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research, 2005. 3Gardner, D and Lindsay Miller. Establishing Self-Access-From Theory to Practice M. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education, 2007. 4Hedge, T. Teaching and Learning in t
26、he Language Classroom M. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education, 2002. 5Holec, H. Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning M. Oxford: Pergamon, 1981. 6Pan, Xinyan(潘新燕 ). “A Study on Gender Differences in English Autonomous Learning & Its Implications for Teaching” D. Diss. Shanghai International Studies University, 2007. 7孙红琼 (Sun, Hongqiong). 大学生英语自主学习的优化构建 M. 昆明 : 云南大学出版 , 2007. 8严明 (Yan, Ming). 大学英语自 主学习能力培养教程 M. 哈尔滨 : 黑龙江大学出版社 , 2007. 9郑新蓉 (Zheng, Xinrong). 性别与教育 M. 北京 : 教育科学出版社 , 2005.
