Pedagogical Suggestions on Boosting Learner autonomy in China

Abstract

Educators have argued convincingly that schooling cannot prepare students with all contingencies in a constantly changing world. Instead of spoon-feeding students with a static body of knowledge, teachers need to raise students’ consciousness as their center of learning and train them how to learn in order to make them responsible for their own learning. In our classrooms, due to the overbearing influence of the traditional teaching methods in China, most students don’t have the self-direction to organize their studies. They don’t even know what they are expected to do before and after class unless it is made explicit. Therefore, it becomes excessively urgent that learner autonomy should be developed to meet the demand. This paper intends to provide some pedagogical suggestions on boosting learner autonomy in China, including raising students’ awareness; building self-confidence; enforcing strategy training, and endowing teachers with new roles, etc.