2.6 A practical approach to learner autonomy

So far, we have seen that autonomy can be, in its narrowest sense and in the most general terms, defined as a process where learners determine their own learning goals and the content and progression of their learning, as well as being able to reflect on their progress. Taking the more traditional modes of teaching as a starting point, this in effect means transferring the responsibilities listed above from the teacher to the learner.

However, for both the student and the practicing teacher with average training in teaching methodology, this definition is lifeless, unless demonstrated on a real-life learning situation. Indeed, its general, machine-like nature may lead to frequent misinterpretations, as Little notes:

Stories abound of teachers who, inspired by the ideal of learner autonomy, have interpreted this argument too literally, telling their learners that it is now up to them to be responsible for their learning and withdrawing to a corner of the classroom in order to manage the resources that will magically facilitate 30 or more individual learning processes. When nothing happens the teacher usually concludes that autonomy does not work.

(Little 1995: 178)

This comment gives evidence of frequent mismatches between learning theory and teaching practice – a situation which calls for a more practical approach to the issue.

It is clear that outside of the classroom, all decision-making is naturally left to the student, unless he chooses to submit himself to a private teacher or a set of authoritative teaching materials. If left alone, his success depends on his degree of autonomy, including the successful adoption of a range of cognitive, metacognitive and affective strategies.

In most classrooms, however, the learning is much less self-directed, succumbing to the needs of the particular methodology, the group of learners, or both. And yet, a modern communicative classroom, if so constructed, offers a variety of activities that range from those that are entirely teacher-directed to those that require a full employment of the learners' autonomous capacities. Let us illustrate this point with a few examples.

A grammar drill, for instance, asks very little of the student. The teacher is in control of the language (i.e. the learning content), the detailed procedure (i.e. the management of learning) as well as the learning outcome. A grammar gapfill exercise already requires some deal of interdependent work – the learner tackles the task independently, and while checking with a partner or in a group, he is expected to fulfill a number of roles (counselor, negotiator...). However, the content and procedure are still determined from the outside, and the employment of the learners' personal constructs is limited to the grammar point in question. A grammar/vocabulary activity where the students are asked to produce their own sentences calls for a yet greater deal of autonomy, as the content of the task (the language produced) is already almost entirely under the learners' control; however, both the procedure and the learning outcome are likely to be determined by the textbook or the teacher.

Let us now describe an activity where the students' autonomous capacities may be more or less fully employed. The teacher asks the students to produce a word made up of six letters. She then breaks up the word into individual letters and asks the students to think of nouns that begin with each of the letters. Having collected six words, she divides the class into a number of small groups and asks each group to make up a story based on the six words, and draw it as a cartoon on a sheet of paper. Once finished, half the students are asked to change groups. Once in a new group, they try to tell the new group's story using the cartoon as a starting point. The other members are supposed to correct the storytellers whenever they make wrong assumptions or deviate from their story.

It is clear that here, both the learning content and a great deal of the learning management are left to the learners. The language used is entirely under their control (both in the brainstorming session and in the course of the activity itself), they need to devise a group strategy to go about the task, play a number of roles within the group and find intrinsic motivation for their actions. The success of the activity then largely depends on the learners' ability to perform the actions listed above. As well as that, the learning outcome also rests with the student – not merely due to the fact that the language practiced and/or learned is the sole product of group activity, but also because the aim is determined by the learners, much exceeding the general notion of fluency practice.

If the students are lacking in any of the capacities mentioned above and if they fail to reflect on their learning (Why have I done this? How did it help me?), their progress towards greater autonomy – as exemplified in our four examples of activities – will be a path of many horrors and frustrations. (Of course, we have only addressed a fraction of what may happen in the classroom, leaving out a number of aspects of autonomous learning.)

A similar demonstration is made by Little, who compares two fictitious classrooms and two types of activities to show the extent to which classrooms can differ in terms of learner control. One of the conclusions to be drawn is that "if learners are to develop mastery of the range of discourse roles that characterizes the autonomous learner, those roles must be available to them in the classroom" (Little 1991: 29). In other words, if we expect our students to achieve the kind of autonomy characteristic of a fluent language user – so that they may once engage in meaningful discourse without the help of formal instruction – we need to provide them with ample opportunities to acquire autonomy in the classroom.

In this chapter, we have attempted to interpret the issue of learner autonomy into the context of everyday classroom practice. Also, we have shown that it is not an all-or-nothing concept, especially regarding formal instruction; rather than that, in a communicative classroom, it exemplifies itself to a greater or lesser degree, in a variety of activities.