Reconstructing Autonomy in Language Education

Reconstructing Autonomy in Language Education
Inquiry and Innovation
Andrew Barfield and Stephen H.Brown

Tessie says:

What a striking photo on the front cover?

What make the publisher choose this photo?

Yes -- I am a person who usually "judge books by the covers" -- PHOTOS --sometimes can tell 'more than words'!

In the Thai context, we usually talk about rote learning - the way students learn by memorizing and reciting all the contents of knowledge both in formal classroom and outside school. It's called "learning to speak like parrots". As parrots are trained to speak by taking tremedous repetitive input and reinforcement, they speak because they have gone through the treatment with reward and punishment. They have no idea at all what's the meaning of the language they speak. It's a good metaphor for the traditional way of studying in the Thai educational context.

WELL -- How much can we insert 'AUTONOMY' into our language learning context?

Does 'autonomous learner' mean the same in every EFL learning context?

No -- I would say --

So I need to read this book and then I will add more of my perspectives on this.

Here's an excerpt from chapter 19:

There is the wide diversity in the ways researchers and teachers define autonomy in language classroom as Benson 1997 predicts.

Some researchers see learner autonomy as the development of skills that allow learners to learn a language outside the framework of an educational institution and without the intervention of a teacher’, or at least to make steps toward this goal (Schmenk, 2005:110). Some conceptualize learner autonomy as self-directed learning. Others see autonomy as an individual capability, trait or accomplishment- and see it as a goal that can empower learners in other aspects of their lives. In another version of educational autonomy, autonomy is the critically co-constructing process of learners and teachers.

Based on a socio-cultural perspective on learning Norton and Toohey (2005) conceptualized learner autonomy as socially-situated agency when studies three learners. When learners were increasingly participating in communities that use English, these learners were located within particular communities that both constrained and enabled their access to desirable identities, resources and practices. Learners (as well as teachers!) were not agentive or autonomous on their own; rather, the social settings in which they participated both imposed constraints on, and enable their agency.Classroom interventions are situated in larger social worlds and expectations from stakeholders To investigate learner autonomy, a socio-cultural theoretical model can offer a more detailed analysis. .

…Tessie comes up with reflective questions asking herself (and anybody who cares about this issue):
* What make a student feel intrinsically motivated to be an autonomous learner?

* Is there any degree of ‘autonomous’ found in different groups of language learners?

* What do teachers think about 'autonomous learning'?

* Is there any guarantee of success for adopting autonomous learning in an educational setting that the majority of students needs a lot of support from instructors and some of them are grade-oriented just like in Thai tertiary language instruction?