The author views' learner autonomy as an important and efficient approach to enhance China's foreign language teaching (FLT). While learner autonomy is being studied and practised at an international level, most of China's foreign language teachers are still giving stereotyped lectures using unified and often officially designated textbooks with strict syllabuses and testing systems under teacher-dominating and material-centered traditional language teaching theories. Learner autonomy would help shift the learning/teaching responsibilities from the teacher to the learners, and establish the classification of teachers' roles as librarians, observers, assistants, course designers, lecturers and researchers instead of the present inefficient and monotonous role of lecturer-deliverers. This paper attempts to set up an individual-centered model for public classroom language teaching/learning, based on the belief that students actually learn languages by themselves through the guidance of their 'inside' teacher rather than a classroom teacher. The model aims at stimulating learning and teaching motivations to the largest possible extent. A pilot quasi- experiment was conducted under this model.
