Learner Autonomy and the Chinese Context

Abstract

There is a move away from teacher-centered learning to student-centered learning or autonomy. Learner autonomy has become the new rational concept in educational field since 1980s and it is more challenging and of greater significance to cultivate learners’ ability to self-direct their learning and live independently and successfully later in society. However, autonomy in language teaching is sometimes presented as western concept unsuited to contexts such as those in China, which has different educational traditions.
This paper mainly researches two questions: What’s learner autonomy indeed? And why is such concept presented that learner autonomy is unsuited to the Chinese context?