This week has given me a lot of exposure in exploring learner autonomy. As I mentioned in the discussion thread that the paradigm has changed from teacher-centered to learner-centered. Students can do things to improve what they have. They can decide by themselves what activities they will do or they can ask someone or the teacher to help them know what to do.
Just like Little (1991:4) mentioned that by encouraging learners to self-direct learning, It is expected to assume greater responsibility for, and take change of, their own learning.
I agree with what Thanasoulas said that'however, learner autonomy does not mean that the teacher becomes redundant, abdicating his/her own control over what is transpiring in the language learning process. In my opinion, autonomous learners can be divided into two kinds. They are what we call as:
1. Fully autonomous-learner, where learner has a full access to decide what learning style, materials, level or even where they want to do the learning process. Teacher can be conditioned as resource person.
2. Semi autonomous-learner, here where Teacher and learner should work together to enhance their own and their students'autonomy just like Sheu said in his article- http://coyote.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp/learnerdev/LLE/8.1/smithE.html. Here Teacher has more role in encouraging, motivating or leading the students to do some activities for helping them to take responsibility for their own learning. Further Sheu explained that he found that the activities could encourage those who were less motivated to learn by choosing and doing what they wanted and liked, and sharing with friends.
For being an autonomous learner student can use technology or without it. From the lesson I got this week, I found various alternatives to do for letting the students have their learning autonomy.
See you all next week!
Dear Meita,
ReplyDeleteYour post inspired me to relate the learner's autonomy to the way babies and little children learn. They learn by discovering and choosing their own way to do it. This truly is a complete independence of a learner in both cases.
Kind regards,
Karolina
Dear Meita,
ReplyDeleteI really like your description of fully-autonomous and semi-autonomous learners. I believe that the more they aknowledge their ability to learn, more autonomous they become.
Dear Meita,
ReplyDeleteI like your phrase: teacher-centered to learner-centered, I agree with you because it happens in my country too, the students have the opportunity to develop their autonomous learning even though the teacher may be so extrict, and it is satisfactory to notice how students develop their thoughts, in my classes for example some students give their opinions aloud and teachers must accept all of their opinions because they are very interesting.
Autonomous learning may be excellent for our teaching process because it means that not only the teacher has to do everything, but the students too.
Take care,
Loly