Literature Review：

Nowadays,the term “Autonomous learning ability” is quite widely discussed in the fieldof language acquisition. In recent years, scholars from home and abroad havedevoted themselves to studying the correlation between "autonomouslearning ability" and other factors such as "second languageacquisition", "self-efficacy" and " academic achievement".In the past, the definition and characteristics of autonomous learning abilitywere discussed by experts like Holec(1981) and Zizzerman(1989). To be morespecific, the term "Autonomous learning ability" was first introducedby Henri Holec in his masterpiece Autonomy of Foreign Language Learning. Hedefined "Autonomous learning ability" as the ability to takeresponsibility for one’s study in the learning process. From then on, thenumber of researches studying "Autonomous learning ability" keeps onincreasing. Till the late 1980s, several significant achievements had beenachieved by western scholars. Our domestic researches on autonomous learningability, however, were not carried out until the 1990s. But a lot ofachievements have also been made by experts and scholars in the past fifteenyears. For the time being, there are a great number of domestic researchstudies relating to the autonomous learning ability, such as the empirical oneswritten by Li Heng(2016), Xu Jingfen(2012amp;2014).

Purpose of Researches:

Theauthor of this paper has consulted many academic papers concerning theempirical study on college students' autonomous learning ability in Englishstudy. However, the author finds out that such kind of papers concerningEnglish-French bilingual study are quite few. Considering that more and moredepartments of foreign language in Chinese universities have consecutively setup the English-French bilingual class, the author thinks that a study of howautonomous learning ability could affect the academic performance ofEnglish-French bilingual learners would make sense. As a senior studentmajoring in English and French in a key university in China, the author choosesthe 27 students from the selected bilingual class as the subjects to conduct anempirical study.

The aimsof the study are to explore the impacts autonomous learning ability exerts onEnglish-French bilingual learners’ academic performance, as well as toencourage them to study more autonomously and divide their studying time moreproperly.

Significance of Researches：

In recentyears, the study of "autonomous learning ability" has receivedincreasing attention in the field of language acquisition. Academic papersworldwide have already pointed out the significant role "autonomouslearning ability" plays in college students' English study. Meanwhile,with the increasing popularity of bilingual education in China, professors andstudents in bilingual class have been seeking teaching and learning methods toimprove students' academic performance.

As asenior student majoring in English and French, I suppose that autonomouslearning ability has much to do with bilingual learners' academic performance.Therefore, I consulted many related academic papers and carried out thisempirical study. From the perspective of learning method, this study aims notonly to raise bilingual learners' awareness of the importance of autonomouslearning, but also to provide them with some useful experience and advice forEnglish-French bilingual learning.

Inconclusion, this thesis will help English-French bilingual learners in threeaspects, namely, understanding the definition of autonomous learning ability,realizing how autonomous learning ability could largely affect their academicperformance as well as learning to assess and enhance their own autonomouslearning ability.