Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study
Nowadays, China has entered WTO, and a growing number of international events areheld in China. English, an important communication tool, is showing its importance indifferent fields. More and more companies prefer to employ comprehensive employees withprofessional skills. Vocational and Technical College is a place to cultivate professionaltalents for the society, and the students here learn professional technology andcommunication skills at the same time. So how to improve the students’ English efficiently isa problem we English teachers are facing and are eager to solve.The course College English is a required one in author’s college. According to the BasicRequirements for Vocational English Teaching published in 2000 and revised in 2008,students are supposed to study for the purpose of application”, and the course is aimed tocultivate students’ practical English ability, especially the listening and speaking abilityrelated to the further daily activities and written ability which are of critical importance to thefuture business work. One of the important points of the course is for the students to grasp thepractical writing skills for certain positions, and teachers should not only enable the studentsto be acquainted with forms (documents, resume, registration, etc.), but also promote Englishpractical writings, such as notices, letters, and so on, and this is also the difficult domain ofthe course.
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1.2 Aims for the Study
Flavell(1976), an American psychologist, is considered to be the first person who putforward the idea of metacognition in 1970’s. In Flavell’s opinion, the cognitive subject’sknowledge about the procedure of cognition, the result of cognition and some other activitiesrelated are the active surveillance, adjustment and coordination according to the cognitiveobject when the cognitive subjects manage to accomplish a certain specific task or aim. In thewhole procedure of learning, metacognition plays the part of control and coordination.Metacognition has been considered as the highest and the most core factors in the structure ofthinking by contemporary psychologists.Learner autonomy is introduced by Holec(1981) in 1980’s. He thinks that learners shouldhave the ability of shouldering responsibility in the learning procedure. Learner autonomy isnot only an action but also an indication of ability which can be acquired. The learner inlearner autonomy has a definite aim, self-consciousness and response to what he learned andthe whole study procedure.In the author’s opinion, metacognition theory takes an important guiding function inlearner autonomy which is not limited to the self-study of the learners.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Learner Autonomy
With the enrollment expansion in colleges, the number of the college students is increasingrapidly. However, this situation leads to the lack of resources needed for learning, whichbothers many colleges. So, guiding the students to learn autonomously represents the generaltrend. People have realized that the final result of learning is decided by learners themselves.Therefore, an increasing number of educators pay more attention to learner autonomy which,consequently, has become a hot topic in foreign language teaching. Holec(1981) gives the definition of learner autonomy in 1980s. He thinks that learnerautonomy means that learners should have the ability of taking responsibility in learningprocedure. Learner autonomy represents an action as well as the learning ability which can beacquired. At micro-level, if the learner cultivates this capability, he can determine the learning aim, confirm the learning content and schedule, choose learning methods and skills, monitorthe acquisition process, and evaluate the result by himself. In a broad sense, learner autonomymeans the learner’s capacity of managing and organizing his learning.Dickinson(1987) also gives a definition of learner autonomy. He says, “Learner autonomymeans the learner should be in charge of all the decisions related to the learning activities,and determine how to execute one’s decision”. Dickinson’s definition mainly lies in theemphasis of the right of learners to manage his study, to choose and decide how toaccomplish this study activity.
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2.2 Metacognitive Training
Nearly 30 years ago, the psychological and educational field in the west brought up a newconcept---Metacognition. Through the research on children’s meta-memory, Flavell(1979), anAmerican psychologist, brings in the term “meta-memory” in 1971. Then, he put forward theidea “metacognition”, thus he is considered the inaugurator of the research on metacognition.Shortly, metacognition is the cognition on cognition. It is also the cognition and monitoring toone’s own cognition process. Metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experience andmetacognitive monitoring constitute metacognition. Metacognitive knowledge refers to theknowledge about cognition; in other words, it is cognition on the facts which can affect theprocess and result of people’s cognition activities, and how do these facts play parts and workon each other. It consists of three parts: 1) cognition on individual person. It is cognition on aperson’s own or other people’s cognitive ability and features. Specifically speaking, it mainlyincludes cognition on individual cognitive ability and features, on some common knowledgewhich can affect cognition and on the difference of cognitive features and ability. 2)Cognitions on task and aim. This kind of cognition affects learning material, learning task andlearning aim. 3) Cognition on strategy facts.
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Chapter Three Research Design ...........19
3.1 Research Questions........... 19
3.2 Class Description........... 20
3.3 Instruments...........20
Chapter Four Empirical research........... 25
4.1 Empirical Research in the First Phase........... 25
4.2 Empirical Research in the Second Phase........... 27
4.2.1 Planning ...........27
4.2.2 Introducing Metacognitive Training and Writing Strategies........... 27
4.2.3 Test for the Second Phase........... 32
4.3 Empirical Research in the Third Phase...........32
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion ...........35
5.1 Introduction ...........35
5.2 Score Analysis........... 37
5.3 Within Group Comparison ...........40
5.4 Correlation between Metacognitive Training and Writing Scores ...........43
5.5 Correlation between Metacognitive Training and Learner Autonomy ...........44
5.6 Summary ...........45

Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion

5.1 Introduction
The statistical analysis of the data which is from the samples of the research is presented inthis chapter. In chapter One, the researcher had stated that the purpose of the study is toexamine the feasibility of using metacognitive strategies training on English writing training,correlation between metacognitive training and writing scores and correlation betweenmetacognitive training and autonomous learning. The core of the research is the examinationof the effect of metacognitive strategies training on learner autonomy of non-English majors.All the statistics are analyzed through SPSS software. Analysis on interview andquestionnaires had been done in Chapter Four, and this Chapter focuses on the analysis of theresults of the three tests and makes a discussion on the problems which the researcher isinterested in.

Conclusion

This study is undertaken to demonstrate whether it is feasible to use metacognitivestrategies training on English writing training for students of non-English majors, andwhether the students can improve their English writing marks by metacognitive strategiestraining and whether metacognitive strategies training can improve the ability of learnerautonomy. At the beginning of the study, the researcher introduces the background of thestudy and indicates the problems the researcher wants to solve in this study. Then, theresearcher put forward literature review of metacognition and learner autonomy. This studytests the research mentioned in the literature review. The researcher also analyzes thecorrelation between metacognitive training and writing score and the correlation betweenmetacognitive training and autonomous learning. The study is mainly conducted in realclassroom settings, but carried out mainly in students’ spare time through metacognitivestrategies training instruction. Through research instruments such as questionnaires,interviews and writing tests, data have been collected and analyzed by SPSS 19. The studyhad the following findings.
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Reference (omitted)