guiding autonomous learning

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› A student who has the ability to take control over his or her own learning (Holec, 1981).

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› Academic writing: a process based approach
› Is meant not only to guide students through the writing process but also to cultivate selfefficacy in guiding their own processes.
› Teachers play a vital role in this process

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› The book trains autonomy in each chapter.
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Orientation task : integrate background knowledge
Goal setting task: incite strategy use
Wing system tasks: practice theory/apply strategies
Peer review task: raise awareness of strategy use
Self-evaluation task: reflection of goal achievement

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STEP 2: GOAL SETTING
“Learners who have reached a point where they are able to define their own goals and create their own learning opportunities have, by definition, become autonomous” (Nunan, 1999,145).

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› “I would like concentrate on avoiding the use of wordy multi-clause sentences that are very common to the German language”
› “Use a more comprehensive vocabulary (i.e. not always resorting to the same phrases and words)”

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› The challenge of a teacher is to find a balance between freedom for students to choose their own learning methods and structure to guide the learner to self-efficacy.

Teaching students to set goals

Setting goals and making plans
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“Whereas one’s goals help to specify one’s destination, planning is like finding the best road to get there. Planning involves drawing up practical plans and allocating time to them” (Reinders, 47).

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Student examples
: which goal might produce the most effective plan?
› “To develop a more sophisticated and elaborate writing style.”
› “My aim is to become more familiar with legal texts, various referencing styles and the respective formats of legal documents.”
› “I aim to expand and vary my vocabulary.”

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AUTONOMOUS LEARNING:
The 4-step Programme
› (1) Define the task
› (2) Set goals and make a plan for success
› (3) Follow the plan
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Wing tasks
Peer review
› (4) Reflect, and adjust future goals and strategies

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› Benefits:

Students help each other
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Provides a review of the lessons
Increased awareness of strategy use and writing style
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In order to be effective, it must also be properly trained!

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Chapter 1: Introducing the peer review

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Chapter 2: Explaining Comment Types
› Directive = specific change suggested
› Praise = positive description of a part of paper
› Summary = text interpretation without specific change suggested

Chapter 3: Practice giving comments

Chapter 4: Students begin to peer review each other
Final Comment: All in all, I consider your paper to be wellstructured, informative and most notably assertive. You have managed to encourage me to think through your own perspective which proves your skills as a writer. Although you had several punctuation mistakes and sometimes repeated some phrases often, it was not distracting to follow your opinion on the topic. The paragraph structure is good, it is formulated in a smooth flow and you stick to the main argument: for the humanitarian intervention in Libya.

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*
Metzger reveals his open defensive point of view on abortion.
Court decisions protecting a woman’s personal choice and capability of being a mother are essential to the author. Furthermore, he exclaims that if a federal regulation of abortion-related drugs has taken force, then abortions shall be granted similar legal right. He finishes the writing with the administration policies which appear to be more often while speaking of abortion rights. Nevertheless, the author considers that the
Constitutional protection should be more effective and affirmative regarding abortions.
1.
Paragraph Unity 5
2.
Transparent structure 4
3.
Logical structure 5
4.
Proper punctuation 5
5.
Well used linking vocabulary to create cohesion 5
6.
Appropriate academic tone 4
7.
Flow 5

All in all, your paragraphs are well structured . Each topic sentence relates to the summary and the related topic, which is referring to abortion as a woman’s personal choice. You have just minor mistakes, as in the structure of the paper. You have a good use of proper punctuation and the use of the transition words used make your summaries flow better. In brief, your references are well written and the relation from your references to your topic is well related.

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› In-class: after giving a lesson
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Students can ask teacher directly
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Lesson review
Working in pairs or groups
› Outside of class: writing groups (carousel)
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Student “support group”
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Lesson review

Chapter 5
In Class peer review:
Each student is a
“specialist”

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› “I believe that my use of the English language improved in the last semester as I achieved the goals that I had set myself at the beginning of the term.”
› “Nevertheless, participation in the English Course gave me an opportunity to improve afore-mentioned skills to a significant extent. I am able to produce a structured essay, with using a proper grammar and sentence construction. I am much more creative while preparing the text. However,
I am aware that I still need to exercise using articles.”

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› Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: the exercise of control. New York, NY: W H Freeman & Co.
› Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and foreign language learning. Oxford: Pergamon. (First published 1979, Strasbourg:
Council of Europe) .
› Naiman et al. (1978). The Good language learner. Modern Languages in Practice.
› Nunan, D. (1999). Second language teaching and learning. Boston: Heinle & Heinle.
› Rader, L. (2005). Goal Setting for Students and Teachers: Six Steps to Success. Clearing House, 78(3), 123.
› Reinders, Hayo (2010) "Towards a Classroom Pedagogy for Learner Autonomy: A Framework of Independent
Language Learning Skills," Australian Journal of Teacher Education: Vol. 35: Iss. 5, Article 4.
› Rivers, W. (2001). “Autonomy at all costs: An ethnography of metacognitive self-assessment and self management among experienced language learners”, Modern Language Journal 85 (2 Summer): 279–290.
› Schunk, D. H., & ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and Student Services, 135 G. C. (2001). Self-Regulation through
Goal Setting. ERIC/CASS Digest.
› Schunk, D. (2008). Metacognition, Self-Regulation, and Self-Regulated Learning: Research Recommendations.
Educational Psychology Review, 20(4), 463-467.

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