Chapter One INTRODUCTION

1.1 Research Background
With the accelerating process of the worldwide economic and culturalglobalization, one of the missions of university education is to cultivate individualizedautonomous graduates, who can adapt to the demanding circumstances of the future jobmarket and make their contribution to the development of the whole nation. And sincemore and more aspects of human life are influenced by computer technology, as anintegral part of higher education—College English teaching and learning is noexception. Computer-based College English teaching model always reflects in twoprincipal ways: one is computer assisted language learning—the implementation ofadvanced computer technology to assist language teaching and learning, and it ispresented in the form of PPT in most cases; and the other one is SAC—it is defined byGardner and Miller (1999), as an alternative learning system that involves a series ofelements so that learners can choose to learn according to their own needs. They arguedthat the SAC has two major functions: first, the provision of self-access languagelearning materials which could meet learners’ needs and wants; second, the preparationof learners’ autonomous learning by encouraging them to develop individualizedstrategies and to reflect on learning (Gardner & Miller, 1999, p.19).According to the College English Curriculum Requirements (2007), the objectiveof College English is to develop students' ability to use English in a well-round way,especially to enhance their ability to study independently and improve their awarenessso as to meet the need of China's social development and international exchanges. Inachieving those goals, it is necessary to build SACs, which could promote the formationof individualized study methods and the autonomous learning ability on the part ofstudents.
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1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study
Based on the previous insightful learner-centered investigations, this study aims tofind ways to optimize learning materials and to maximize their utilization byinvestigating and analyzing EFL (English as a foreign language) undergraduatestudents' general needs towards English learning, together with the evaluation of theexisting learning materials in the SAC.According to Morrison, “prior to the 1970s, research in language learning andteaching focused primarily not on the learner but on teaching methods; It was in the1970s and 1980s with the rise of Communication Approach in English languageteaching that the focus began to switch to the learning process, curriculum design andthe individual learner” (2003, p.12). Since the computer-assisted language learning hasbecome dominant as the global application of English in different areas, there is anurgent demand for the investigation of SACs. It is a common consensus that learningmaterials constitute the main body of a SAC, and the management of it is also a keypoint of a successful SAC, since well-organized learning materials could facilitate andmotivate self-access language learning to a large extent. Morrison (2008, p.134) alsodefines one of SAC's central roles as being a resource centre, which must processhigh-quality (sufficient, varied, relevant, structured and accessible) learning materials.And any account of self-accessed learning will inevitably highlight the need for learnersto properly choose what and how they are going to learn (Thornton, 2010).
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Chapter TwoLITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Needs Analysis in Language Learning
The curriculum development of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and Englishfor Special Purposes (ESP) are always guided by learners’ needs, which were definedby Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) as the identifiable elements of students' targetEnglish situations. To be more specific, West (1994, p.1) claimed that NA is "whatlearners will be required to do with the foreign language in the target situation, and howlearners might best master the target language during the period of training". As iscommonly accepted and more adaptable to college English teaching, it is stated byBrown that “NA is the systematic collection and analysis of all subjective and objectiveinformation necessary to define and validate defensible curriculum purposes that satisfythe language learning requirements of students within the context of particularinstitutions that influence the learning and teaching situation” (1995, p.36). It is acomprehensive approach which can be employed for effective language curriculum andcourse design and assessment.
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2.2 Self-Access Center
There are varied definitions of SAC put forward by the influential investigatorsfrom different perspectives. In regard to SAC’s function, Sheerin argued that “SAC canbe regarded as an effective means to cater for individual learners’ needs which build onthe effort of instructors to provide qualified learning materials” (1991, p.143).Considering its unique property, Brown (1995) claimed that the SAC is a center whereboth teachers and learners have to adjust to the new learning environment by changingtheir traditional teaching and learning approaches, whereby learners could be moreactive in determining their own learning objectives and processes. It was defined byGardner and Miller (1999) as a learning system that includes a series of sections, suchas learning resources (materials, activities, instructors), an all-round self-assessmentsystem and learning feedback during the learning process, evaluation of the centre andthe constantly adaptation of self-access learning materials.What is reflected in these above definitions is that the term SAC generally refers toa learning environment where learners are provided with self-access learning materialsunder no direct supervision. In this study, the SAC is confined to the English learningplatform, which is conducted in the virtual learning environment. It consists of learningmaterial that is designed and organized in a specific way that learners could select andcomplete language practices and learning tasks on their own, and could obtain feedbackon their performance. And these specially designed and organized materials could alsoencourage learners to figure out what they need easily and independently.
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Chapter Three RESEARCH METHODOLOGY......... 27
3.1 Research Questions.......... 27
3.2 Participants of the Study......... 28
3.3 Instruments........ 30
3.3.1 Questionnaire..... 30
3.3.2 In-depth interview..... 32
3.4 Data Collection Procedure ...... 32
3.5 DataAnalysis Procedure......... 33
Chapter Four RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS.......... 35
4.1 The General Learning Needs of English Learners in the SAC ......... 35
4.2 Learners’Satisfaction with the Existing SAC Learning Materials.... 42
4.3 The Proper Construction of SAC Learning Materials ........ 48
4.3.1 Research question 3-a and discussions.......... 48
4.3.2 Research question 3-b and discussions ......... 51
Chapter Five CONCLUSIONS.....57
5.1 Summary of the Study...... 57
5.2 Pedagogical Implications........ 58
5.3 Limitations of the Study.......... 59
5.4 Recommendations for Future Study...... 60

Chapter FourRESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

4.1 The General Learning Needs of English Learners inthe SAC
English learning motivation is an important determinant to detect learners’learningneeds. Descriptive statistics of the collected data analyzed by the SPSS 13.0 Programare carried out to figure out learners tend to be motivated by which kind of the twomotivations. Firstly, the general state of these two categories of learning motivation(intrinsic motivation—item1, item7, item8, item9, item10；extrinsic motivation—item2,item3, item4, item5, item6) which they perceived during their English languagelearning are examined, the mean value and standard deviation are obtained. In the firstplace, the general feature of participants’perceived L2 learning motivations is presentedand analyzed. The description of these two kinds of motivation is graphically depictedin table 4.2. As shown in table 4.2, the mean score of the participating learners’ perceivedintrinsic motivation toward English learning is 3.41 (standard deviation=.61). And themean score of their perceived extrinsic motivation toward English learning is 3.62(standard deviation=.56). The results show that College English learners have aconsiderably high motivation toward English learning. Based on the result of meancomparison, it comes to the conclusion that students’ intrinsic motivation is lower thanthat of extrinsic motivation. This finding is similar to that of the investigation conductedby Chung (2013), who reached a conclusion that instead ofinterests-based/intrinsicmotivation, the instrumental/extrinsic motivation turns out to be most crucial inparticipants’ visit to SACs. And further descriptive analysis is conducted for detailedinformation (see figure 4.1).

CONCLUSIONS

The concluding chapter consists of four parts as a whole. In the first part, theresearch findings brought forth from both the quantitative and qualitative survey arepresented and interpreted. The second part provided some practical implications of thegathered results as well as academic contributions to the current related literature. In thethird part, the researcher makes a clear explanation to the existing limitations pertainingto this research issue. Finally, some possible recommendations for future studies in thisresearch area are presented. The current study aims to figure out the proper way of constructing the SAClearning materials by analyzing English learners’ learning needs and the results of SACmaterials evaluation. After conducting the analysis of both the quantitative andqualitative data concerning the college students’ learning needs and their satisfactionwith the existing SAC learning materials, methods to match the construction of learningmaterials with learners' learning needs are further explored.
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