Learner autonomy:
rom requirements to satisfaction
Questions:
If learner autonomy is viewed as an educational goal in language training,
what our curriculum and syllabus should look like, how can it be structured
and delivered?
Is it possible to operationalize the process of achieving the goal of learner
autonomy and describe its developmental levels?
Can we use features of learner autonomy in language assessment and
program evaluation?
Data description:
Learners’ examples of their learning experience that refer to specific
categories of learner autonomy and relevant to certain questions.
Methods of data collection:
Learner autonomy: introspective and retrospective speak-aloud free
protocols, questionnaires, scoring applications.
# 8: According to Knowles, successful adult educators can be measured in
terms of the extent to which participants leave their educational activities with
increased ability to carry on their learning. It is imperative that adults be equipped
with the skills necessary to continue learning on their own when they leave a
formal educational experience so that they may be able to adapt and respond to
these changes. As Wenden points out, these social considerations are applicable
to L2 classrooms. (p. 9).
# 8 Wenden agrees with Knowles on the importance for learners to gain
awareness of the need that they will have to continue learning the language on
their own once they leave the classroom together with the skills they will need to
do so. (p. 9)
# 8 A set of assumptions about the psychological characteristics of adult learners
underlies the importance of developing self-directed language learners. 1). The
self-concept of the adult is that of a self-directed personality: managing his own
life, making decisions and facing their consequences: 2). Significantly
accumulated life experience of an adult learner shapes his self-identity.
Therefore, minimizing it or ignoring it in learning situations will result in personal
rejection of the adult learner – implications: personal stakes in the learning
process of a learner, negotiation process, formation of a personal inner syllabus;
3). Social roles of the adult-learner’s developmental tasks prompt and determine
the nature of decisions to learn; 4). Adult’s approach is problem-oriented and
must result in immediate solutions to their learning needs. (p. 10)
# 8 Stevick’s 2 levels of meaning from perspective of memory and learning can
be useful in designing syllabuses, tasks, and self-reflection and planning
activities. The emphasis is on positive influence on learning and recall on items
that are of personal significance to the learner. Implications for process-based
negotiation-directed syllabus, not for a needs-driven one. (p. 10).
# 8. Brookfield (1985) contrasts 2 approaches to providing adults with
educational experiences that nurture and refine their capacity and need for
autonomy.
1). Technological implications of psychological facts (see Knowles’s definition of
self-direction (1975) for self-directed learning: self-initiation in diagnosing learning
needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and material resources,
contents, selecting strategies methods and techniques, monitoring and
evaluating acquisition process and learning outcomes. (self-instructional
techniques to organize and conduct learning events – external technicist.
2). Reflective approach – for an internal change in consciousness together with
technical expertise in the use of instructional techniques. Self-directed
autonomous learning of an adult learner is based on his awareness of his
structure of cultural and psychological assumptions that form the meaning
context of behavior. The network of ideals, values, and beliefs, the abstract social,
political, and educational concepts that are constituent elements of their cultural
assumptions need to be critically examined and re-interpreted and recreated.
Mezirow (1985:20) states that psychological assumptions that produce
dependency need to be brought to light. The process of critical reflection and
awareness is not only about HOW one approaches learning but also WHAT and
WHY one decides to learn. Autonomous learners should also understand a range
of alternative action paths and the limits of these possible choices. At the heart of
the internal change there needs to be a growing appreciation on the part of
adults of their personal power. They need to become aware of their ability to
make choices, initiate action, to become responsible for and influence the course
of their lives. Holec’s (1980) suggestions as to weaning learners away from their
state of dependence include not only learning techniques but also experience in
changing their psychological attitude towards what learning is through gradual
‘deconditioning’ process. Every learner begins a learning program with initial
assumptions of the L2, language learning process, respective roles of teacher
and learner, content, role, and sources of language materials. Therefore, it’s
necessary that he re-examine these prejudices and preconceptions, such as
learning a language is possible only in the presence of an expert teacher, that
you must never make use of the mother tongue, learning objectives must be
defined only by someone who knows the language. (p. 11).
# 8 Four levels of autonomous language learning:
1. Cognitive tactics (depending on task formats) outlining, paraphrasing,
asking questions, repeating, spelling, memorizing, comparing, contrasting,
categorizing, listing, defining, dictogloss, C-test, tasks.
2. Meta-cognitive strategies (planning, identifying needs, making decisions
about content, methods, monitoring and evaluating outcomes)
3. Critical reflection of conceptual meaning context of their own learning
(network of ideals, values, and beliefs as well as abstract social, political
and educational concepts underpinning their cultural assumptions; selfdecondition from primary culture-driven assumptions of what a language is,
of what language learning process entails, and their clear awareness of
the purpose for learning a language.
4. Appreciation of their personal power to make choices, initiate action,
become responsible and influence the course of their lives, to be willing to
assume more responsible role in the process.
# 9 If we bring our students to the stage where they will be to improve on their
own, if they have the knowledge of how to improve more, their accuracy and
fluency will continue to increase. This goal is ambitious enough and few
language programs have achieved it. p. 21
# 8 It is assumed that making learning decisions conscious can lead both poor
and better learners to improve the obtaining, storing, retrieving, and using the
information and can lead them to learn better. p. 16
# 8. Conscious attention to one’s learner strategies helps focus one’s learning.
Students who have learner strategies are more likely to look for learning
environments outside classroom, expose themselves to language input, and use
the language without teacher’s guidance. P. 17.
# 8. Learning process includes explicit and implicit knowledge. p. 16
# 8. Roles of a teacher, according to Rubin, are in creating favorable
environment for students to identify their favorite learner strategies, to suggest
alternative strategies to students’ favorite ones and guide students’ consideration
of those new alternative strategies. P. 16.
# 8. Critical faculty in language learning process in obtaining new knowledge:
while monitoring, learners are able to identify a problem, make decisions about
the nature and seriousness of the problem, decide whether to correct it, and if
yes, would seek feedback as to the correctness of their self-correction, and make
an effort to internalize it. P. 19.
#8. Good language learner always seek preferred language learning / cultural
environments, develop an awareness of language as a system, and as a means
of interaction and communication, accept and copy with affective demands of L2;
extend and revise L2 system by inferencing and monitoring. Additionally,
successful adult learners display a greater variety and quantity of learning
behaviors, and many of those behaviors occurred together, simultaneously, as
complexes, not just one behavior. p. 19
#8. Five areas of meta-cognitive knowledge: 1. the language, 2. student’s
proficiency (interlanguage), 3. outcomes of student’s learning endeavors, 4.
student’s role in the language learning process, 5. how best to approach the task
of language learning. p. 22.
#8. The analysis of language use can be broken according to three parameters:
form, meaning, and message. These parameters may lead to quantification of
theoretical assumptions about language as a system of signs and rules, as a
vehicle of communication (functional-notional approach), and environment for
social interaction and self-actualization. p. 23
Teacher’s roles:
Provide positive evidence through comprehensible input by verbally (orally or in
writing) reacting to originally written products by native speakers used to
communicate to other native speakers. The teachers’ reactions can be used
Provide negative evidence by answering students’ questions (requests for preemptive feedback).