1 IntroductionIn the 21st century, with the rapid development of economic globalization, the exchanges, among the nations become increasingly frequent around the world. English, as one of the most widely used languages around the world, is playing an indispensable role in the international communication and cultural exchange, it is necessary to improve the students‟ English ability. English teaching as the main route to help the students to master English should be paid more attention in China. Therefore, with the New English Curriculum Standards that were put into effect in 20003, classroom English teaching has changed from merely imparting knowledge to guiding students to learn English autonomously. Training students‟ autonomous English learning ability has become the internal requirement of new curriculum reform. Under the new English curriculum standard, English learning is no longer a single subject learning; teachers should pay more attention to training students‟ initiative and innovative spirit of learning so as to stimulate their study enthusiasm and improve their learning efficiency. The SW is an effective way to develop students‟ autonomous learning ability. The SW rests on cognitive rather than affective arguments. It shares certain principle with the cognitive code approach. For example, one of the basic principles of the SW is that “teaching should be subordinated to learning”. It is characterized by a problem-solving approach to learning (Xu 41). In the traditional English teaching class the learning was subordinated to teaching in most instances, the students lack the initiative and interest of English (Nunan 148). The SW pointed that the production and active learning should be as student-centered as possible. The SW is a good way to cultivate students‟autonomous English learning ability, and it is meet the new English curriculum standard. To develop students‟ English autonomous learning ability is also the requirements of modern society development and the students‟ development. How to improve the students‟ autonomous learning ability becomes a key issue. It is necessary to cultivate students‟ autonomous learning ability, at the same time changing the teaching method is equal importance, both of them can help the students and the teachers to be aware of and make up for their weaknesses and disadvantages in the learning and teaching process. Only with the strong ability of autonomous learning and the scientific and reasonable teaching method, the Chinese education can adequately meet the challenge of the knowledge economy society.In order to explore the current situation of autonomous English learning in senior highschool, the author surveyed and interviewed one hundred students and 10 high school English teachers in Handan Qiuxian First High School. The questions involve students‟ attitude towards autonomous English learning, views of teachers and the learning goals and planning, and the strategies; and the teachers‟view of the SW. Then the author analyses the factors affecting autonomous English learning in senior high school and the effects of the SW for cultivate students‟English autonomous learning. At last the author puts some effective suggestions to promote students‟ autonomous English learning, and the development prospect of the SW.2 Literature reviewIn order to understand the SW better, the following part deals with the studies of the SW theoretical foundation and the development in China.2.1 The theoretical foundation of the Silent WayThe Silent Way (SW) is a language-teaching method created by Caleb Gattegno that is striking for its extensive use of silence on the part of the teacher as a technique. It was first introduced in Gattegno‟s book Teaching Foreign Languages in Schools: the SW in 1963(Stevick 1-2). Gattegno was critical of the mainstream language education of the time, and conceived of the method as a special case of his general theories of education. The method emphasizes the autonomy of the students, the teachers‟ role is to guide the students learning new knowledge and monitor their efforts, and the students are encouraged to have an active role in learning the language. The teachers use silence for multiple purposes in the SW. It is used to focus students‟attention, to elicit student responses, and to encourage them to correct their own errors. In the SW the teachers use the specialized teaching materials to guide the students to learn new knowledge. They usually use the sound-color chart, which type of chart is used right from the beginning stages to teach pronunciation and word stress. Sometimes they also use other teaching aids to help the students to deduce the meaning of the sentence or master the new knowledge points by themselves. In the SW, the teacher should keep silence properly and the students and the students try their best to work on the language. The unique part of SW teaching method is the teachers‟ different role in class. Teachers will provide the model for students to follow and remain silent as much as possible and which could make the students use the newlylearned language as much as possible. The success of this approach is enhancing learning as it is based on the subordination of teaching to learning.The SW views learning language as a problem-solving task. Gatetegno believes that learners should develop independence, autonomy and responsibility (Xu 41). At the same time the learners have to learn to cooperate with other students to solve the problems in the classroom. In the SW the role of the teacher is that of technician or engineer. The teacher‟s task is to focus the students‟ attention, and provide exercises to help them develop language facility; however, to ensure their self-reliance, the teacher should only help the students as much as is strictly necessary (Freeman 64-65). As Gattegno says, “The teacher works with the student; and the student works on the language” (Freeman 65). In the SW the teachers should through the helps of the teaching aids such as colored rods and charts to show the new knowledge to the students and give them time to learn it by themselves. And j ust like Benjamin Franklin said “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn” (Xu 41), Benjamin Franklin told us that learning is facilitated if the learner discovers rather than remembers or repeats, and which is the basic tenet of the SW.2.2 The development prospect of the SW in ChinaThe SW is in an embarrassing situation in China. Though now many teachers use the SW in the English teaching class, but they don‟t know the SW very well. The SW adopts a highly structural approach, with language taught through sentences in a sequence based on grammatical complexity, described by some as a “building-block”approach. The structural patterns of the target language are presented by the teacher and the grammar “rules” of the language are learnt by the learners (Xu 41). The SW is a special case of Gattegno‟s broader educational principles. Gattegno developed these ideas to solve general problems in learning. Broadly, these principles are: ( Stevick 1-2)1. Teachers should concentrate on how students learn, and their teaching should grow out of this2. Imitation and dill are not the primary means by which students learn3. Learning consists of trial and error, deliberate experimentation, suspending judgement, and revising conclusions4. In learning, learners draw on everything that they already know, especially their native language5. The teacher should take care not interfere with learning processThese principles situation the SW in the tradition of discovery learning, that sees learning as a creative problem-solving activity (Richards 81).The new English Curriculum Standards points out the traditional teaching method should be change, the teachers should be subordinated to learning, and the SW is conforms to the tendency. To some extent the SW had occupy a certain position in China, but it is not so popular like the traditional teaching method. Comparing the SW and the traditional teaching method, the traditional teaching method is monotonous. The teacher is in the domain position and the students have to imitate the teacher‟s movement and behavior, they don‟t have their own time to learn the knowledge by themselves. Especially among the senior high schools in China, the traditional teaching method is so popular that almost all the students don‟t have their own time to develop autonomous learning ability. Therefore the senior high school students have less autonomy, the education system should be reformed urgently. Otherwise we will not keep up with the times. Until now, the quality-oriented education is only applied in the developed areas, and the corresponding teaching methods also implement in those areas. So the SW has a very good development foreground.3 Survey the Senior High School students’ English autonomous learning and the application of the SW.Autonomous learning is a school of education which sees learners as individuals who can and should be autonomous. In order to obtain reliable information，the author surveyed and interviewed one hundred students and 10 senior high school English teachers in Handan Qiuxian First High School. The main purpose of the survey and interview is to investigate the current situation of the senior high school students‟ autonomous learning ability.The SW is a teaching method which is different from the traditional teaching way the traditional teaching method is the most one than any others. The author intends investigate the application of the SW, so the author interviewed 10 teachers in the in Handan Qiuxian First Middle School.3.1 Survey about the current situation of the senior high school students ’English autonomous learningIn the recent years the students ‟ autonomous learning ability is a common concerned topic of the pedagogy and psychology. The traditional teaching method made the students lack of initiative and independence. In the Normal Senior English Curriculum (2003), the basic concept is “optimizing the way of learning and fostering ability of autonomous learning ”. In order to know well the current situation of the senior high school students ‟ English autonomous learning, the author surveyed one hundred students and 10 high school English teachers in Handan Qiuxian First High School. The author found that there are many factors affected the students ‟ English autonomous learning ability, and the current situation is that the students almost dependent on their teacher, and they rarely learning the new content by themselves. What ‟s worse the students ‟ didn ‟t realize the seriousness of this problem, most students ‟ purpose of learning English is get the top grades and admit the university. The original intention of the curriculum provision was ignored and the teaching method is malformation and no prospects. In one word, the students ‟ English autonomous learning ability is very poor in this school as a whole. And the teachers ‟ teaching method is unscientific. The survey results are bellow ：The result of the survey reflects the students ‟ autonomous ability and some problems which exist in the English teaching process. Through the survey the author analyze the factors affecting autonomous English learning in senior high school.The affecting factors of the English autonomous learning ability are mainly from twoaspects: the external causes such as society 、school 、culture and etc. The internal causes are the cognition 、meta-cognition and the self-efficacy.There are many external factors influence the senior high school students ‟ autonomous题号选项1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10A 42% 65% 42% 12% 15% 11% 22% 15% 7% 17% B39% 15% 20% 45% 43% 55% 40% 21% 27% 29% C10% 8% 25% 30% 31% 23% 22% 40% 36% 26% D 9% 12% 13% 13% 11% 11% 17% 24% 30% 28%learning ability, the main factors are conception of teaching、the teachers‟ view of the students and the learning environment, at the same time, there are some other external factors(Su and Zhuang 12-13).The conception of teaching is the teachers‟ view of the teaching activities and the teaching method. For a long time, the traditional teaching method influenced by the “dualism of the subject and the object”, in teaching process, the teachers and the students were deemed as the two opposites, because that the teachers have the authority of the knowledge and the more important social status than students, so the teachers dominated the class at the same time teachers play the role of the administrator and the educator in the teaching process. In this way, the teaching activities become a teacher-centered process. The teaching method was decided by the teacher and the students almost be ignored, however, the teaching method have a strong impact to the students‟ autonomous learning ability.The learning environment is also important to the senior high school students, as Chinese old saying goes: “He that lies down with dogs must rise up with flea”and “birds of a feather flock together”, these saying tell us the environment is important. The learning environment is a significant external factor to develop the students‟ autonomous learning ability.The internal factors are more important than the external factors. Philosophically, under the certain condition, the internal factors play a decisive role. The mine internal factors of the autonomous learning of the senior high school students are the interests and the students‟learning habits.Interest is the best teacher, in the English teaching class, the teacher should foster the students‟ interests of the English. In the traditional classroom teaching, the students only answer the teachers‟questions. The teachers ask and the students answer, which is a common phenomenon of the traditional teaching. The teachers neglected to cultivate the students‟ interest in language learning. Boring teaching pattern, thousands of words, and complex grammar rules all make students depressed and lose intestine learning. The traditional teaching method made the students regard the language learning as a heavy burden, rather than enjoyment. Students‟interest in English learning is very important, only when the students begin like English, they can learn it well. The students‟ interests in English learning are benefit to cultivate the autonomous learning ability.The students‟poor learning habits lead to students‟English learning difficulties. Many students do not preview before class and do not review after class. At the same time many students do not learning any knowledge by themselves, they almost relying on the teacher completely and they lack of the learning initiative. They cannot concentrate in class and lack of the awareness of active thinking. So the students‟learning habits is very important for the students‟ autonomous learning ability.3.2 The survey about the application of the SW in the senior high schoolEnglish teachingIn order to obtain reliable information of the application of the SW, the author interviewed 10 teachers in the in Handan Qiuxian First High School. The main purpose of this interview is to investigate the SW application in senior high school. Based on the interview, the author will analyze the factors affecting the application of the SW.The SW application is conditioned by many factors. The main factors are the teachers and the students. In the traditional teaching method the teacher dominant the class and the students act as audiences, the students almost only receive the knowledge which the teachers tell them. The teachers almost have no awareness of cultivate students‟ autonomous learning ability. Soin the SW the teachers should change idea, and realize the students should dominate the class and the students are the leading actors.In the SW the students should be interested in English at first, and the most important is the students should not depend on the teachers completely. They should find the learning method which suit themselves rather than memorize mechanically. So the most important for the students is to cultivate the autonomous。
