What is Learner Autonomy?

1. Language Learner Autonomy:
Some Fundamental
Considerations Revisited
David Little

2.  A matter of learners doing things on their own
(early 1980s)
 A matter of learners doing things not
necessarily on their own but for themselves
(after 1990s)
 At the turn of the century, the textbooks
witnessed a shift, too.
The Shift in the Concept
of Learner Autonomy

3.  Empirical research has focused on issues that
certainly have to do with language learner
autonomy such as self-access learning
systems, attitudes, motivations and beliefs.
 Little research has focused explicitly on the
relation between learner autonomy, the
processes of language learning and the
development of proficiency in the target
language.
Looking Back to the Literature
on Learning Autonomy

4.  to restate an understanding of language learner
autonomy.
 it is necessary to do in order to develop
autonomous language learners and users and
at the same time provide us with criteria by
which to evaluate our efforts.
The Purpose of The Paper

5.  The definition was provided by Holec in Autonomy
and Foreign Language Learning, a report that was first
published by the Council of Europe in 1979 (cited here
as Holec, 1981).
 From the idea of man ‘‘product of his society’’, one
moves to the idea of man ‘‘producer of his society’’.
 Adult education
 Not only a way of learning but also a knowledge
 ‘objective, universal knowledge is [...] replaced by
subjective, individual knowledge.’
 Constructivist theories of learning
 The contradiction with constructivist theory is that
autonomy is not inborn but acquired by natural means
or in a systematic way.
The Ability to Take Charge
of One’s Own Learning

6.  To help learners to achieve their linguistic and
communicative goals
 To become autonomous
Holec (1981) posits two
objectives for language
learners

7.  Learners are often reluctant to take charge of
their own learning.
 Up-bringing style
 In every household that has children,
negotiations must be made with young family
members: their personal agendas have
somehow to be accommodated.
Autonomy, Competence,
Relatedness and Intersubjectivity

8.  Autonomy is one of the basic three needs in
order to achieve sense of self fulfilment.
 ‘fully willing to do what [we] are doing and
[we] embrace the activity with a sense of
interest and commitment’.
 Two basic needs are for competence and
relatedness.
Deci’s Theory of Self-regulation, 1966
Overcoming
optimal
challengesTo love and
being loved
Social
psychologist

9.  the theory predicts that learners who are
autonomous will be fulfilled and thus
motivated learners. It also predicts that their
autonomy will be undermined if they do not
feel that their learning effort is paying off.
Deci’s Theory of Self-regulation, 1966

10. Constructivist Learning Theories
The Council of
Europe:
Each adult language
learner has a unique
set of communicative
needs.
Educational
Psychology:
Learner-centredness
derived
overwhelmingly from
constructivist
epistemology.
LEARNER-CENTREDNESS

11.  Knowledge is not a set of universal
truths but a set of working
hypotheses.
 We construct our knowledge by
bringing what we already know
into interaction with the new
information, ideas and
experiences we confront.
Constructivist Learning Theories

12.  The knowledge embedded in
curricula is set of objective truths
that schools need to teach.
 Then, where is exploration and
interpretation?
Constructivism casts doubt on
traditional learning and teaching
models

13. Claiming that there are two kinds of
knowledge:
Barnes’s (1976) From
Communication to Curriculum
School Knowledge Action Knowledge
Learners should bring their action knowledge to shape
their school knowledge.

14. Learners cannot control
construct their knowledge out
of nothing or by instincts.
Teachers remain indispensible
elements of education.
The purpose of education
remains the same as ever

15.  A feature that an autonomous learner should
have.
 Every act in the classroom should entail an act
of self-consciousness
 It is necessary to leave a place for reflection and
metacognition.
 If there is no reflective intervention, knowledge
will control the learners.
 In vice versa situation, The learner will be a
member of culture-creating community.
Reflective Intervention

17. Exploratory
Interpretative
Participatory
After all, the formal learning
context should assist;

18. How will we make
use of
constructivist view
as a ESL/EFL
teacher?

19. According to constructivist theories of
language acquisition:
 Language acquisition is a matter of developing
complex language representations in the brain.
 No special language acquisition device.
 The mechanism activated when language is used for
communication.
Theories of Language Learning

20. Contructivist and
Innatist Theories
are alike in a way
that …
The effort to communicate:
Intersubjectivity

21.  The recitation of scripted dialogues
 When there is spontaneous talk, it is one-way,
brief or formulaic.
 Learners need to interact with input they can
understand, also their efforts is important.
 Output may move learners from
comprehension to production.
What we see in language
classrooms

22. Another example of
Intersubjectivity
Exploratory
Interpretative

23. Sociocultural Theory by Vygotsky, 1987

24. Success in second language is governed by
three interacting principles.
Learner involvement
Learner reflection
Target language use
Pedagogical Implications

25. A process that requires constant attention
from the beginning to the end.
 T drawing Ss to into their own learning
 Making them sharing responsibility
 Selecting the learning activities, materials
 Managing classroom interaction
 Evaluating learning outcomes
Learner Involvement

26.  For deciding on the curriculum togethers
 13 topics are needed
 T puts 20 pictures, each representing a topic.
 T gives Ss stickers and asks them to put a
sticker on the topics that they want to deal with
more.
 13 topics that have the most stickers on have
created to the path for the term.
 Seven other topics are not ignored, rather
turned into a peripheral learning materials.
One example of drawing
students into the the process

27.  Do not image that reflection is a
silent procedure.
 It comes out from the interaction
happenning in the classroom.
 Learner involvement and learner
reflection is interdependant.
Learner Reflection

28.  It is simply the medium that all
classroom activities are conducted.
 The effective use of group work
 Writing tasks
Target Language Use
• To make posters
• To maintain a journal
• To produce written texts
in groups

29.  A language passport
 A language biography
 A dossier
The Council of European Language Portfolio
(ELP)

30. Learner autonomy
depends on the
development of
teacher autonomy

31.  Phil Benson
Autonomy in
language teaching
and learning

32. A review article
Since 2000, the number of papers on
autonomy
 20 book lenght publications
 Short summary articles in handbooks, on
web
 Guides for teachers and learners
 Chapters

33.  The Council of Europe
 The ability to take charge of one’s own learning
 In 1981, Dickinson (1987) described autonomy as the
situation in which the learner is totally responsible for all
of the decisions concerned with his learning and the
implementation of these decisions.
 Little (1991) stated that interdepence over independence in
learning, the learner autonomy depends on the quality of
the dialogue between teachers and learners.
The rise of autonomy in language
education

34.  There are degrees of autonomy
 That behaviour of autonomous learner
can take numerous different forms,
depending on age, how far they
progressed with their learning, what their
needs are or to be.
Among a hundred of definitions for
autonomy, there were consensus

35.  The two consensus caused the autonomy to be
a problematic concept; contextually-variable
and a matter of degree
Mainstream Autonomy
and Its Critics

36. 1. Awareness
2. Involvement
3. Intervention
4. Creation
5. Transcendence
Nunan’s Model of Autonomy (1997)
Making links
between the content
of classroom
learning and the
world beyond.
Being aware of
pedagogical goals,
content of the
material, identifying
learning styles and
strategies.

37. 1. Language acquisition
2. Learning approach
3. Personal development
Littlewood’s Three-stage Model (1997)
The ability to
operate
independently
with the language
and use it
communicatively
Taking
responsibility for
learning and
applying relevant
strategies
Higher level goals
of generalized
autonomy

38. Macaro (1997)
1. Autonomy of language
competence
2. Autonomy of language learning
competence
3. Autonomy of choice and action
Scharle & Szabo’s (2000)
1. Raising awareness
2. Changing attitudes
3. Transferring roles
Two other models of Autonomy

39. Each of the models
implies that
autonomy move from
lower to higher level.
Kumaravedivelu’s
Argument (2003)

40.  Proactive Autonomy: Learners’ sets up
directions which they themselves have
partially created.
 Reactive Autonomy: Learners do not
create their own directions but once a
direction has been initiated, it enables
learners to organize their resources in order
to reach the goal.
Proactive vs. Reactive Autonomy

41.  Benson (1997): technical, psychological, political
 Ribe (2003): convergence, divergence-convergence,
convergence-divergece
 O’Rourke & Schwienhorst (2003): individual-
cognitive, social-interactive, exploratory-participatory
 Oxford (2003): technical, psychological, socio-cultural,
political-critical
 Holliday (2003): native-speakerists, cultural-relativist,
social approaches
 Smith (2003): weak and strong
 Kumaravadivelu (2003): narrow and broad
Versions of Autonomy

42.  What is commonly believed is that autonomy is
Western ideal by emphasizing active
participation and individualism.
 However, many empirical studies showed that
autonomy and culture is not concerned much.
 The cultural appropriateness of autonomy has
mainly been adressed in relation to non-
western ELT students.
Autonomy and Culture

43.  Self-access centres were initially viewed as a
radical alternative to the classroom.
 Self-access
 CALL
 Distance-learning (with the emergence of CALL),
Online learning, Cyberschools, Asynchronous
learning networks
 Tandem learning
 Study abroad
 Out-of-class learning
 Self-instruction (without the aid of teacher)
Autonomy beyond the classroom

44.  After 1990s, many books included chapters on
learner autonomy and tried to provide
guidelines for teachers.
 Learning to learn vs. Learning to liberate
 Kumeravadivelu and Hedge’s classifications of
autonomy
Autonomy beyond in classroom

45.  Strategy training, learner training and learner
development, self-regulation, self-management.
 Attribution theory and self-determination theory is
directly related to autonomy and motivation.
 Greater responsibility for learning increases motivation.
 Self-regulated learning can occur only when thr ability to
control strategic thinking processes is accompanied by the
wish to do so.
 Teacher autonomy: teachers’ freedom to exercise
discretion in curriculum implementation.
 The idea of teacher autonomy = self-directed professional
development, teacher research, reflective practice, action
research, teacher development.
Interaction with language education theory

46. The reason why autonomy has
taken a lot of attention lately is
due to the common function of
English language :
Communication
Conclusion