The Role of the Dalton Plan-Based Instruction in Enhancing Learner Autonomy and Reading Proficiency for Chinese College English Students

This study explored the role of the Dalton Plan-based instruction in improving learner autonomy and reading performance among non-English major university students in China. A quasi-experimental design was utilized to reach the goal. The Dalton Plan-based instruction in this study consists weekly individual sessions and monthly class meetings, which were held on the basis of the problems reported in students’ self-reports in accomplishing their reading assignments. The experiment was undertaken in one university characterized by students from multi-ethnic background in China. The participants were 62 second-year non-English major students from medical college of the university, thirty-two of them makes the experimental group, the rest 30 composes the control group. The experimental group received the Dalton Plan-based instruction and the control group received conventional classroom instruction. The quantitative data of Autonomous Learning Scale and reading tests were collected and analyzed to answer the research questions. The results of this study revealed that the Dalton Plan-based instruction was more conducive to building learner autonomy and improving reading proficiency than conventional instruction, and there’s a moderate positive relationship between the learner autonomy and reading proficiency among College English learners under the Dalton Plan-based instruction.