What Is Autonomy?: Section
What Is Autonomy?: Section
What Is Autonomy?: Section
What is autonomy?
Chapter 1
1.1
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1.2
Quote 1.1
If one of our initial aims was to make sure that the Sound and Video Library would
actually be able to take in all its potential users for as long as possible each week,
we also wanted it to be a place where we would apply some of the pedagogical principles and strategies we rmly believe in. Foremost among these
was the principle of autonomous learning for advanced and fairly advanced
students. In our view, students who have reached a certain level in English can
improve their listening comprehension, their oral expression or their written
comprehension by regularly working in semi-autonomy with adequately prepared
teaching material or in complete autonomy using raw authentic material.
Riley and Zoppis (1985: 287)
1.3
Like self-access, learner training began life as a mechanism to support selfdirected learning (Dickinson and Carver, 1980; Holec, 1980). At CRAPEL,
it was argued that in order to carry out effective self-directed learning, adult
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learners would need to develop skills related to self-management, selfmonitoring and self-assessment. Learners who were accustomed to
teacher-centred education would also need to be psychologically prepared
for more learner-centred modes of learning. According to Holec, teaching
learners how to carry out self-directed learning would be counterproductive, since the learning would by denition no longer be self-directed.
Instead, learners needed to train themselves (Quote 1.2). Although learners
might draw on the support of counsellors, teachers or other learners, the
important thing about learner training was that it should be based on the
practice of self-directed learning itself. Self-direction was understood as
the key to learning languages and to learning how to learn languages.
Quote 1.2
The basic methodology for learner training should be that of discovery; the
learner should discover, with or without the help of other learners or teachers,
the knowledge and the techniques which he needs as he tries to nd the
answers to the problems with which he is faced. By proceeding largely by trial
and error he trains himself progressively.
Holec (1980: 42)
1.4
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, autonomy was closely associated with
individualisation, an association evident in the titles of collections that
linked the two elds (Altman and James, 1980; Brookes and Grundy, 1988;
Geddes and Sturtridge, 1982). Brookes and Grundy (1988: 1), for example,
suggested in the introduction to their collection of papers on individualisation and autonomy that the two were linked to each other through the
idea of learner-centredness:
One corollary of learner-centredness is that individualization will assume
greater importance, as will the recognition of the autonomy of the learner as
the ultimate goal.
Individualisation (individualised learning, individualised instruction) is, historically at least, linked with programmed learning and based on a thoroughly
behaviouristic psychology. As it is generally practised, it leaves very little freedom of choice to the individual learner. Rather it is the teacher who tries to
adapt his methodology and materials to the learner, like a doctor writing out
a prescription. That is, the majority of the relevant decisions are made for the
learner, not by him. It is in fact individualised TEACHING: it aims at the most
efcient use of the teacher and at the most effective result, but in terms of
what the teacher wants the learner to achieve.
Riley (1986: 32)
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1.5
It is evident in retrospect that the concept of autonomy in language learning had, by the late 1980s, begun to suffer something of a crisis of identity.
Holec (1985a) continued to emphasise that autonomy should be used to
describe a capacity of the learner, but others began to use it to refer to
situations in which learners worked under their own direction outside the
conventional language-teaching classroom. Riley and Zoppis (1985: 287),
for example, described learners working in a self-access centre as working
in semi-autonomy or complete autonomy. Dickinson (1987: 11) dened
autonomy as the situation in which the learner is totally responsible for all
of the decisions concerned with his learning and the implementation of those
decisions. He also used the term full autonomy to describe the situation
in which the learner is entirely independent of teachers, institutions or
specially prepared materials. Although there is now consensus within the
eld that autonomy best refers to the capacity to control or take charge of
ones learning, the term autonomous learning is still used to refer to the
situation of studying without the direct presence of a teacher, especially in
the literature on learning beyond the classroom.
Researchers on autonomy were aware that in order to develop a capacity to take control of their learning, learners needed to be freed from the
direction and control of others. At the same time, they were well aware
that learners who chose, or were forced by circumstances, to study
languages in isolation from teachers and other learners, would not necessarily develop this capacity. However, the argument that the opportunity
to exercise autonomy through self-directed learning was a necessary precondition for the development of autonomy was interpreted by critics as
an argument that it was a sufcient condition. Moreover, the theory and
practice of autonomy had, in a sense, become framed within the practice
of individualised self-directed learning, and was seen by many as being
irrelevant to classroom learning. The use of the term independence as a
synonym for autonomy by some researchers also led critics to view the
eld of autonomy as one in which crucial questions concerning the social
character of learning are avoided (Concept 1.2).
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Quote 1.4
1.6
In the course of its evolution, the concept of autonomy has become part of
the mainstream of research and practice within the eld of language education. This is in part due to the reported success of numerous projects
associated with autonomy and the efforts of those who have advocated
autonomy as a goal of education. However, it would be a mistake to assume
that autonomy has entered the mainstream of language education independently of social and economic factors that have made language educators
and funding authorities more open to the practices associated with it
(Concept 1.3).
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ambiguities within the policy: for example, in addition to stating that pupils
should build up their knowledge, generate their skills and evolve their
attitudes largely by themselves, the Core Curriculum states that the course
of study must identify what the learners should be familiar with, in what
order and at which level. She also notes a double-binding strategy, in which
learners are expected to take responsibility for their learning regardless of
whether the activities are self-directed or teacher-directed (p. 49). In spite
of these limitations, Trebbi points out that many schools are experimenting
with new ways of grouping students, exible timetables, new subject content,
independent study time, learning-to-learn schemes, portfolio-based assessment, and counselling.
The more complex view of autonomy that now characterises the eld
reects the range of contexts in which it is now discussed and applied. This
in turn reects the development of a much wider interest in the idea of
autonomy in language education. The number of publications on autonomy
in language learning appearing since the turn of the century is an indicator
of the growth of autonomy as a specialised eld of inquiry. The inclusion
of sections on autonomy in more general guides to language teaching, on
the other hand, is a sign of a somewhat more diffuse interest in autonomy
within the eld (Cameron, 2001; Harmer, 2001; Hedge, 2000). In these
works learner autonomy is presented less as a specialised educational concept, and more as an idea that is likely to form part of language teachers
conceptual toolkit. Research on autonomy in the eld of language education has no doubt contributed to language teachers knowledge of the
concept and its applications, but Camerons account of the relevance
of autonomy to young learners (Quote 1.5) points to a broader sense of
autonomy as a good thing that comes from outside this eld. Cameron
also touches upon a widespread feeling that, in spite of being a good
thing, autonomy may also be imposed on language learners by the
realities of a changing world. Teachers may also feel that they are often
presented with the problem of making autonomy work in settings to which
it is not always transparently relevant.
Quote 1.5
underestimate the potential for self-regulation in our children, seeing them too
often as blank sheets to be written on, empty vessels to be lled, or wild and
in need of taming since learning arises from interaction and interaction is
characterized by interdependence, the development of autonomy in learners
presupposes the development of autonomy in teachers.
Cameron (2001: 235)
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In these respects, language teaching is possibly a step ahead of other subject areas, but in recent years broader education policies have also begun to
favour experiments in autonomy in certain respects. The well-documented
tendency towards the globalisation of educational policy, leading to increasingly homogeneous national policies, has been an important factor in this
(Block and Cameron, 2002; Mundy, 2005; Wiseman and Baker, 2005).
Within the framework of globalised policy, the development of the individual has become a central concern. According to Mundy (2005: 8), educational convergence in the late twentieth century helped produce a world
culture that embedded such common ideas and institutions as citizenship,
equality, individualism and progress in territorially dened nationstates.
Wiseman and Baker (2005: 8) note how this has largely been a process of
exporting Western assumptions to other parts of the world. Driven by the
economic principle that the education of individuals can inuence national
economic growth and has contributed signicantly to the economic development of nations, the Western myth of the individual as the source of value
and change has come to provide the model framework for schooling
around the world. The extent to which principles of learner autonomy have
been built into language education policy has been less well-documented,
although data has now been published on seven European countries
(Miliander and Trebbi, 2008) (Concept 1.3) and policy initiatives have
been described in China (Shao and Wu, 2007), Thailand (Akaranithi and
Punlay, 2007) and Japan (Head, 2006). On the evidence of these reports,
national policies favouring student-centred language learning are to be
found in many parts of the world. Such policies create a favourable climate
of discourse for experiments in autonomy, but such experiments can also
be discouraged by economic assumptions about the costs of education and
the nature of teaching, which have led to increased workloads and a narrowing of focus of teachers work to the delivery of mandated curricula and
assessment of students work (Lamb, 2008; Smith, 2006).
As Ecclestone (2002) notes in the context of vocational education, policies favouring autonomy are often driven by the view that investment in
the education of individuals offers the best chance of economic survival for
nations at risk from the forces of globalisation. This reasoning, however,
is also linked to broader views of the nature of work and competency in socalled post-industrial or new capitalist economies. The new capitalism,
it is argued, is primarily based on services and knowledge work and, in the
face of rapid technological change, generic skills, exibility and the ability
to learn how to learn are at a premium. Gee (2004) describes the kinds of
individuals favoured by the new capitalism as shape-shifting portfolio
people, who must constantly be ready to rearrange their portfolios of skills,
experiences, and achievements creatively in order to dene themselves as
competent and worthy (Quote 1.6). This image will, no doubt, resonate
Quote 1.6
The idea of the self as project is also prevalent within the selfimprovement culture that has now begun to invade so many aspects of everyday life in post-industrial societies. For Cameron (2002) self-improvement
culture comprises a range of practices and text-types, including self-help and
popular psychology books, and confessional TV shows on which people
talk out their experiences, problems and feelings in public (Quote 1.7). To
these we might add practices and text-types concerned with personal
health and safety, diet and physical tness, beauty and bodily improvement, body decoration and modication, and mental well-being. Informal
adult foreign language learning, at evening classes or using broadcast
media, can also be considered part of this self-improvement culture, especially where there is an intention to use foreign language for work or travel,
but also where it is seen simply as a form of personal development.
Cameron, however, focuses more on the general importance of communication skills within self-improvement culture an importance that
reects their role as a recognised qualication for employment in new
capitalist economies.
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Quote 1.7
Lastly, a somewhat different kind of concern with the self has been
documented in recent interdisciplinary research on global mobility and
identity that has problematised the traditional view that identities are xed
by circumstances of birth and upbringing (Bauman, 2004; Giddens, 1991;
Hannerz, 1996). Often described as post-structuralist, this research argues
that processes of mobility and displacement associated with globalisation
are obliging individuals to take more and more responsibility for the construction of their own identities, albeit under certain social and cultural
constraints. It has also been argued that self-narratives play an important
role in this new identity work: our identities are increasingly framed
within the stories that we tell about our lives (Giddens, 1991).
For individuals who learn and use a second language, this kind of
identity work may be especially important. Engagement with a second
language inevitably destabilises rst language identities and provokes
reconstruction of the individuals sense of self to accommodate the fact
of learning and using a second language. It has also been observed that
sustained experiences of language learning involving mobility can enhance
the individuality of the learners sense of identity (Benson, Chik and Lim,
2003). The idea that language learning involves identity work has begun
to play an increasingly important role in language education research,
especially in post-structuralist studies in which language identities are
viewed as multiple, fragmented and dynamic (Block, 2007; Norton, 2000).
From this perspective, autonomy, or an ongoing sense of being in control
of ones own identity to some degree, could be viewed as the glue that
holds identities together. Straub, Zielke and Werbik (2005), for example,
have adopted this point of view, arguing that autonomy is not grounded
1.7
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Concept 1.4
Although the idea of autonomy in learning currently appears to be in harmony with the needs of new capitalist economies and with other social and
cultural trends, it does not arise from them, nor is it dependent upon them.
Fostering learner autonomy remains a matter of allowing the interests of
learners to emerge and take priority, rather than one of meeting the
interests of those who require their skills. The more difcult issue, however, is to separate out these two kinds of interests in both theoretical and
practical work.
Quote 1.8
The idea of autonomy has therefore moved rapidly from a more marginal and
politically engaged concept to one in which questions are less and less commonly asked about the larger social or educational aims of autonomy. Broader
political concerns about autonomy are increasingly replaced by concerns
about how to develop strategies for learner autonomy. The political has
become the psychological.
Pennycook (1997: 41)
Placing this argument in the context of language education, there is currently a global trend for education providers to see language skills as a
form of economic capital. As language educators respond to this trend,
there is a risk that the focus in work on autonomy will shift away from
learner control over the goals, purposes and long-term direction of
language learning to the development of the learning-to-learn skills that
underpin a capacity for control over learning (Quote 1.8). Although
Pennycook may overstate the extent to which this is characteristic of
research on autonomy itself, there is justiable concern that the freedoms
implied by learner autonomy are being reduced to consumer choices.
Little (2007: 2) also has argued that learner autonomy is now often understood to entail nothing more than allowing learners choice not necessarily
an open choice, but the opportunity to select from two or three alternatives
offered by the teacher. It is mainly in relation to this reduced form that the
emphasis on autonomy in language education has been questioned (Holliday,
2003, 2005; Pennycook, 1997; Schmenk, 2005; Sonaiya, 2002). This questioning has also led to a number of attempts to identify stronger and
weaker approaches to the theory and practice of autonomy (Chapter 3).
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