UNDERGRADUATE THESIS THE REALITY OF THE FRESHMEN ENGLISH MAJORS’ AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE LEARNING IN AN GIANG UNIVERSITY SUPERVISOR NGUYỄN THỊ ÁNH NGUYỆT, MA. DECLARATION ------ I hereby declare that the thesis titled “The Reality of the Freshmen English Majors’ Autonomous Language Learning in An Giang University” represents my own work and that it has not been previously submitted to any other university or institute in application for admission to degrees or other qualifications. _____________________________________________ May 2019 Van Thanh Thang i ACKNOWLEDGMENT ------ First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Ms. Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet, MA.
Ngo Ngoc Hoa, MA., who supported my research by provided insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research. Besides, I sincerely thank some teachers for helping me collect research data, and 105 students coming from three classes DH19AV, DH19TA1 and DH19TA2 for cooperation and comments that greatly contribute to the study results. Furthermore, I would also like to show my great gratitude to my friends for supporting and sharing their pearls of wisdom with me during the course of this research. Finally, I thank my beloved family for supporting and encouraging me to carry out the study.
Without any of those help, I could not complete my research well. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF FIGURES.viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .2 RESEARCH AIMS AND QUESTIONS.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE THESIS. 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.1 DEFINITION OF AUTONOMY .2 WHY DOES LEARNER LEARN AUTONOMOUSLY? .3 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SUCCESSFUL AUTONOMOUS LEARNER.4 AUTONOMOUS OUT-OF-CLASS LANGUAGE LEARNING .5 LEARNER ATTITUDES AND MOTIVATION .6 MERITS AND DRAWBACKS OF AUTONOMY LEARNING .4 DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES.
19 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 DEMOGRAPHIC DATA OF THE PARTICIPANTS .2 FRESHMEN‟S COMPREHENSION TOWARD AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE LEARNING .1 THE ATTITUDE ON AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE LEARNING .2 THE UNDERSTANDING OF AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE LEARNING .3 THE DISCUSSION ON THE FRESHMEN‟S COMPREHENSION TOWARD AUTONOMY .3 THE REALITY OF FRESHMEN ENGLISH MAJORS‟ AUTONOMOUS LANGUAGE LEARNING .1 DO THE FRESHMEN ENGLISH MAJORS ACTUALLY LEARN AUTONOMOUSLY? .2 HOW DO THE FRESHMEN ENGLISH MAJORS DO AUTONOMY LEARNING? .3 THE DISCUSSION OF THE REALITY OF FRESHMEN ENGLISH MAJORS‟ AUTONOMY .1 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNIVERSITY .2 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE STUDENTS .2 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH. 52 APPENDIX 1 RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE (ENGLISH VERSION). 52 iv APPENDIX 2 RESEARCH QUESTIONNAIRE (VIETNAMESE VERSION). 54 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AGU – An Giang University FFL – Faculty of Foreign Language L1 – first language – native language – mother tongue L2 – second language – foreign language – target language – foreign tongue CALL – Computer Assisted Language Learning vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.
Do you like learning English?. You think autonomy is interesting. You think autonomy is important. You think autonomy is boring.
What is autonomous language learning?. You think autonomy can advance your English. What can you do to increase the autonomy's effectiveness?. What do you think can motivate autonomy?.
Do you learn autonomously?. Why do not you learn autonomously?. How much time per week do you spend in your autonomy?. When do you usually learn autonomously?.
How many people do you usually autonomously learn with?. Where do you usually learn autonomously?. How do you plan your autonomy?. When learning Listening autonomously, how do you learn?.
When learning Speaking autonomously, how do you learn?. When learning Reading autonomously, how do you learn?. When learning Writing autonomously, how do you learn?. Autonomy has advanced your English.
41 vii ABSTRACT Autonomous language learning is a modern learning theory of constructivism which means the students take charge of their own learning by carrying out their own learning plans according to their own needs. It is also a student-centered learning model which emphasizes the learning environment and cooperative learning. In An Giang University (AGU), English is taught as a foreign language. However, the pathways to success in teaching English to the AGU learners are rather challenging as traditional language teaching classes just provide basic knowledge.
Obviously, it is not enough for students to develop in such a modern and active environment. Thus, autonomous learning is extremely necessary. Therefore, the survey was carried out to study the reality of freshmen English majors‟ autonomous language learning and their comprehension about it. The result was based on (1) the questionnaires conducted to investigate the reality and their comprehension of autonomous language learning.
In addition, (2) informal interviews were conducted to seek out the students‟ opinion toward autonomy. The results showed the praiseworthy numbers about the reality of their autonomy, besides, the comprehension of the students toward autonomy is also laudable. From there, the researcher finds out many autonomous learning strategies popular among the students as well as gives some implications for the university and the students; and some recommendations for further research were also prosed. viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Classroom-based, teacher-directed language learning has been dominant in language teaching and learning for decades; however, the notion of independent, autonomous learners is also not novel to language teachers.
Both modes of language learning seem to have developed independently; no attempt had been made until the late 1980s to integrate self-access language learning into the school curriculum (e., Dam & Gabrielsen, 1988; Hall & Kenny, 1988; Karlsson, Kjisik & Nordlund, 1997). According to Lightbown & Spada (2006, pp. 1), “language acquisition is one of the most impressive and fascinating aspects of human development”. Ellis (1985) defined second language acquisition as a complex process involving many interrelated factors.
Different learners in different situations learn L2 in different ways. Therefore, second language acquisition is a process of learning or acquiring a language influenced by many factors either in a classroom or naturalistic setting. Autonomous language learning is a modern learning theory of constructivism (Jihui Wang, 2010) which means the students take charge of their own learning by carrying out their own learning plans according to their own needs (Holec, 1981). It is also a student-centered learning model which emphasizes the learning environment and cooperative learning.
In 1981, Holec Henri introduced the concept of “autonomous language learning” in his book named Autonomy and Foreign language learning. After that, many scholars such as Lee (Supporting greater autonomy in language learning, 1998), Littlewood (Do Asian students really want to listen and obey?, 2000), Garden and Miller (Establishing Self-access: From theory to practice, 2002) studied the issue and made greater contributions to the field. In An Giang University (AGU), English is taught as a foreign language, but the pathways to success in teaching English to the AGU learners are rather challenging as language teaching classes in the university just provide basic 1 knowledge which is not enough for students to develop in such a modern and active environment. Thus, autonomous learning is extremely necessary.
The students must take charge of their own, self-study much more from their friends, books and the Internet, and organize their learning process to improve their language skills. However, in FFL, if the students realize how important autonomy is, do they really know what autonomous language learning is and how to learn autonomously. They go to the traditional classroom; they do all the homework, and they learn what they want to learn. So, whether what they do is autonomous learning or not? Whether that is enough to learn English or not? Therefore, this paper aims to find out the reality of autonomy of freshmen English majors in AGU, point out the importance of autonomous learning and seek out the freshmen English majors' perceptions of the effects of learner autonomy in learning English.2 Research aims and questions 1.1 Research aims This study is carried out aims to investigate the reality of the autonomous English learning of freshmen English majors in AGU and their comprehension toward autonomous English learning.2 Research questions The questions that have been addressed in this paper as of central importance are given below: 1.
What is the freshmen English majors' comprehension of learner autonomy? 2. Do the freshmen English majors learn autonomously? 3. How do the freshmen English majors do autonomous learning? 1.3 Scope of the study Autonomy is a hot and popular topic nowadays. It is very extensive, too.
Therefore, a lot of aspects of this topic can be studied. However, this study mainly investigates the reality of university freshmen English majors‟ autonomy 2 in AGU. Some related factors can be discussed generally, but the deeper discussion is not carried out to avoid being off-topic. Besides, the population of the study is focused on the freshmen English majors in AGU who learn seriously.
It means some students who are usually absent and do not learn their major anymore will be removed from the population. Moreover, the study mainly investigates autonomous language learning through the students‟ perspective. Therefore, the research methodology only focuses on the freshmen English majors in AGU. Furthermore, this research mainly aims to investigate student‟s autonomy outside the classroom.
It is the student‟s ability to take charge of their own out-of-class English learning to seize their knowledge and study new target language.4 Significance The research points out the freshmen English majors' comprehension towards learner autonomy. It also seeks out the freshmen English majors' perceptions of the effects of learner autonomy in learning English. Besides, it shows the reality of autonomous language learning of the freshmen in FFL in AGU. Therefore, the information from the research can help students comprehend the importance of autonomy and know how to apply autonomous learning methods effectively.
The researcher expects that this survey will make the university pay much more attention to students‟ autonomy and create favorable conditions for their autonomy. As a result, teachers and students can make use of all the benefits of autonomous language learning. Moreover, the research data can be useful for further research on autonomy in AGU.5 Limitations This study is limited in some aspects. First, this is the first time the researcher carries out a study, therefore, he lacks knowledge and experience.
Second, the 2-month internship makes the researcher miss a lot of time. Third, some teachers‟ noncooperation obstructs the data collecting process. Four, the study focuses on the students‟ perspective, so it does not have the teacher‟ opinions on their students‟ autonomy. Fifth, the students‟ regular absence makes 3 it hard to collect all the questionnaires.
Finally, the study mainly aims to investigate the reality of the students‟ autonomous out-of-class English learning. Other aspects will be generally discussed but no deep discussion.6 Organization of the thesis The study is organized into five main chapters: Chapter 1 – INTRODUCTION – provides some information about the rationale of the study, the research aims and questions, the significance of the study, limitation and basic information of the organization of the study. Chapter 2 – LITERATURE REVIEW – focuses on the theoretical background of the study. Chapter 3 – METHODOLOGY – describes how the data and information are analyzed and selected.
Chapter 4 – FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS – provides the results of the collected data, analyzes the findings of the study via statistics in the graphs and tables, and discusses the results. Chapter 5 – CONCLUSIONS – restates the discussion result and a general view of the study and gives the implications as well as the recommendations for further research. 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definition of autonomy Since the 1980s, the concept of learner autonomy has been discussed and argued by many scholars and practitioners. So far, they have failed to reach an agreement on what autonomy really means.
Benson (2003) considers the question „What is autonomy?‟ as the most difficult question regarding autonomy in language learning. He justifies it by saying that any answer to this question is likely to be subjective. There are several definitions of autonomy in language learning. According to Gardner and Miller (1999), defining the concept of autonomy is difficult because different writers have defined the concept in different ways.