With the rapid development of Internet technology, online independent learning has become one of the important trends in the field of higher education, especially in the field of English teaching. As the learning subject of the digital age, college students’ English network independent learning ability is not only related to the improvement of personal language skills, but also the key to adapt to the global competition and realize lifelong learning. However, the current network English learning resources are complicated, and how to efficiently and accurately choose suitable learning resources, has become a major challenge for college students. In this context, it is of important research value and practical significance to introduce the association rule algorithm (Association Rule Mining) to optimize the independent learning process of college students. The quality accuracy of talent training and the quality time of talent training are better than machine learning algorithms.