The Teacher's Role in Developing Learner Autonomy

Kateřina Sedláčková, Barbora Chovancová, Štěpánka Bilová

• Publisher: Candlin & Mynard ePublishing Limited
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780463438138
• Topic: Pedagogía
• Subtopic: Enseñanza de idiomas

As the title suggests, it is the teacher who is in the spotlight of this volume on learner autonomy. The issues addressed herein include the specific and ever-changing role of teachers within the context of autonomous learning

CHAPTER 1: The Future of Language Learner Autonomy: Theory, Practice, Research

David Little

Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

This article is founded on four beliefs. First, I believe that the most successful language learning environments are those in which, from the beginning, the target language is the principal channel of the learners’ agency: the communicative and metacognitive medium through which, individually and collaboratively, they plan, execute, monitor and evaluate their own learning. For me, this sentence captures the essence of language learner autonomy. Secondly, I believe that research has three roles to play in relation to language learner autonomy. Action Research and Exploratory Practice illuminate and help us to explain success in particular learning environments; empirical research allows us to see the development of autonomous learners from the perspective of second language acquisition more generally; and the findings of research in both these traditions, together with findings from a number of adjacent disciplines, allow us to formulate principles that can be used to guide the development of successful practice in widely differing educational contexts. Thirdly, I believe that a worthwhile theory of language learner autonomy, while always taking account of the particularities of the given learning environment, should state clearly (i) what the teacher should do and why, and (ii) what the learners should do and why. It has sometimes been argued that any kind of prescription betrays what learner autonomy stands for; but the idea that it is impermissible to draw lessons—and thus prescriptions—from theory, successful practice and research is incoherent and self-defeating. Fourthly, I believe that whether it takes place in a classroom, a resource centre or a virtual learning space, autonomous learning depends crucially on the actions of the teacher or the designer/manager of the resource centre or virtual learning space: formal learning in any domain requires structure, support and predictability. In what follows, everything I say about the role of the teacher in the classroom should be understood as applying also to designers/managers of resource centres and virtual learning spaces.

Those of us who have successfully created and maintained autonomous language learning environments need no persuasion that learner autonomy is the key to success both in language learning and in education more generally. But although in the last twenty-five years or so learner autonomy has become one of the most widely discussed topics in language education, its impact is difficult to discern. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of language classrooms around the world are still dominated by the teacher in ways that suppress learner agency; language teacher education may sometimes include discussion of learner autonomy, but its dynamic rarely has much in common with the dynamic of a successful autonomous learning environment; and language learner autonomy has largely escaped the attention of second language acquisition researchers. These considerations lead me to identify four tasks for the future. First, we need to restate our argument in favour of language learner autonomy in terms that are more convincing to the language teaching mainstream, language teacher education and second language acquisition researchers. Secondly, and again taking account of the characteristic features of the given learning environment, our argument needs to include a detailed description of (i) the role we assign to ourselves as teachers (or managers/designers of resource centres or virtual learning environments) and (ii) what we want our learners to do and why. Thirdly, we need to make explicit the fact that from the beginning autonomous language learners are by definition researchers of their own learning. An obvious way of doing this is to use the techniques of Action Research and Exploratory Practice to shape teaching and learning. And fourthly, we need to establish partnerships between autonomous language learning environments and second language acquisition researchers in order to explore in detail the rich developmental processes that such environments foster.

The remainder of the article is divided into three sections. First I summarize the chronological development of my theoretical understanding of language learner autonomy; then I restate the argument in its favour in terms that coincide with current theories of second language acquisition and dialogic pedagogy; and after that I briefly explore the implications of the restated argument for classroom practice and the role of the teacher, our engagement in Action Research and Exploratory Practice, language teacher education, and empirical research into second language acquisition. I conclude by arguing that LASIG has a key role to play in supporting the implementation of this agenda.

The Chronological Development of my Theoretical Understanding of Language Learner Autonomy

In the beginning …

Any historical account of learner autonomy in language education must start with Henri Holec and his report Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning, published by the Council of Europe in 1979 (cited here as Holec, 1981). Holec defined autonomy as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning”, which he elaborated as follows:

To take charge of one’s learning is to have, and to hold, the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning, i.e.:

- determining the objectives;

- defining the contents and progressions;

- selecting methods and techniques to be used;

- monitoring the procedure of acquisition properly speaking (rhythm, time, place, etc.);

- evaluating what has been acquired. (Holec, 1981, p. 3)

Holec’s report was written for Council of Europe Project No. 4, Modern Languages, which was carried out under the aegis of the Committee for Out-of-School Education. The focus of Project No. 4 was adult language learning, and in some respects Holec’s report reflects the transformative ideology that underpinned the Council of Europe’s work in this domain. As he notes in his introduction, there was an interest in fostering “the individual’s freedom by developing those abilities which will enable him [sic] to act more responsibly in running the affairs of the society in which he lives” (Holec, 1981, p. 1). For the Council of Europe, adult education has an unmistakably political purpose that arises directly from two of its foundational values: human rights and democratic governance. According to the final report of the project Organization, Content and Methods of Adult Education, adult education

becomes an instrument for arousing an increasing sense of awareness and liberation in man, and, in some cases, an instrument for changing the environment itself. From the idea of man “product of his society”, one moves to the idea of man “producer of his society” (Janne, 1977, p. 15; cited in Holec, 1981, p. 1).

The same report insisted that adult education should not resemble school, which generally “leaves a memory of frustration or even defeat” (Janne, 1977, p. 19). Instead, it should draw on learners’ personal experience (p. 20), supporting them in self-management (p. 27) and the kind of group work that makes possible the “interpersonal dialectical dialogue” that supports “self-learning” (p. 53). “Self-learning” is not to be confused with “self-teaching”, in which the learner acts as his or her own teacher; rather, it is learning in which learners collaboratively invest their identity, their experience, and their existing knowledge and skills in pursuit of a negotiated agenda.

Despite its evident commitment to the Council of Europe’s strongly political view of adult education, Holec’s report does not adopt this interactive, dialogic view of learning. His autonomous learner exercises cognitive and organizational control over his or her learning in apparent isolation. The lack of a social–interactive dimension may reflect an essentially monologic view of mind, language and learning. Alternatively, it may be due to Holec’s interest in self-access learning that used non-interactive technologies, especially the language laboratory. Readers of the Eng...

Table of contents

• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1: The Future of Language Learner Autonomy: Theory, Practice, Research
• CHAPTER 2: Developing Language Learner Autonomy: The Teacher as Action Researcher
• CHAPTER 3: “Advisor, Counselor, Mentor, Coach – What Should We Call Ourselves?”
• CHAPTER 4: On the Road to Autonomy: Degrees of Learner Autonomy in Experiential Learning
• CHAPTER 5: Using Learning Journals to Develop Learner Autonomy
• CHAPTER 6: Enhancing Language Learner Autonomy with ePortfolio Implementation
• CHAPTER 7: Innovative HE Teaching: Considering Aspects of Autonomous Learning in Virtual Exchange P
• CHAPTER 8: Promoting Learner Autonomy in Classes of Business English using Quizlet
• CHAPTER 9: Supporting the Development of Academic and Professional Identity in Students of Bachelor
• CHAPTER 10: Teaching Dogme: Materials-Light, Autonomy-Rich?