Teaching and Researching Autonomy, Second Edition

Teaching and Researching Autonomy
AP P LI ED LI NGU I STIC S I N AC TION
General Editors:
Christopher N. Candlin and David R. Hall
Books published and forthcoming in this series include:
Teaching and Researching Computer-assisted Language Learning Ken Beatty

Teaching and Researching Autonomy Philip Benson
Teaching and Researching Motivation Zoltán Dörnyei and
Ema Ushioda
Teaching and Researching Reading William Grabe and
Fredricka Stoller
Teaching and Researching Lexicography R. K. K. Hartmann
Teaching and Researching Translation Basil Hatim
Teaching and Researching Speaking Rebecca Hughes
Teaching and Researching Writing Ken Hyland
Teaching and Researching Language and Culture Joan Kelly Hall
Teaching and Researching Language Learning Strategies Rebecca Oxford
Teaching and Researching Listening Michael Rost
Teaching and Researching
Autonomy
Second edition
Phil Benson
First published 2001 by Pearson Education Limited
Second edition published in Great Britain in 2011
Published 2013 by Routledge

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Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience
broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical
treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in
evaluating and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In
using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of
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ISBN 13: 978-1-4082-0501-3 (pbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Benson, Phil, 1955–
Teaching and researching autonomy / Phil Benson. – 2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4082-0501-3 (pbk.)
1. Learning, Psychology of. 2. Autonomy (Psychology) 3. Language and
languages–Study and teaching. I. Title.
LB1060.B45 2011
418.001′9–dc22
2010044155
Typeset in 10.5/12pt Janson by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

Contents
General editors’ preface ix

Author’s acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
Introduction to the second edition 3
Section I: What is autonomy? 7
1 The history of autonomy in language learning 9

1.1 Origins of the concept 9
1.2 Autonomy and self-access 10
1.3 Autonomy and learner training 11
1.4 Autonomy and individualisation 12
1.5 Autonomy and interdependence 14
1.6 Why autonomy? Why now? 17
1.7 The two faces of autonomy 23
2 Autonomy beyond the field of language education 26
2.1 Educational reform 27

2.2 Adult education 36
2.3 The psychology of learning 38
2.4 The philosophy of personal autonomy 49
2.5 Autonomy in language learning and its sources 56
v
vi TE AC HI NG AND RESEARC H I N G AUT O N O MY
3 Defining and describing autonomy 58

3.1 Dimensions of autonomy 59
3.2 Versions of autonomy 62
3.3 Measuring autonomy 65
3.4 Autonomy and culture 69
4 Control as a natural attribute of learning 73

4.1 Self-management in learning 74
4.2 Learner agendas in the classroom 79
4.3 Control of psychological factors influencing learning 81
4.4 The seeds of autonomy 91
5 Dimensions of control 92
5.1 Control over learning management 92
5.2 Control over cognitive processing 100
5.3 Control over learning content 112
5.4 Describing the autonomous learner 117
6 Conclusion 119
Section II: Autonomy in practice 121
7 Fostering autonomy 123

8 Resource-based approaches 127
8.1 Self-access 127
8.2 Tandem learning 131
8.3 Distance learning 133
8.4 Self-instruction 136
8.5 Out-of-class learning 138
8.6 The effectiveness of resource-based learning 141
9 Technology-based approaches 145

9.1 Computer-assisted language learning 146
9.2 The Internet 148
9.3 The effectiveness of technology-based approaches 152
CONTENTS vii
10 Learner-based approaches 154

10.1 Learner development and language learning 156
10.2 Learner development and autonomy 157
10.3 The effectiveness of learner-based approaches 161
11 Classroom-based approaches 163

11.1 Planning classroom learning 164
11.2 Evaluating classroom learning 168
11.3 The nature of control in the classroom 172
11.4 The effectiveness of classroom-based approaches 173
12 Curriculum-based approaches 176

12.1 The process syllabus 176
12.2 Examples of curriculum-based approaches 178
12.3 The effectiveness of curriculum-based approaches 183
13 Teacher-based approaches 185

13.1 Teacher roles 185
13.2 Teacher autonomy 187
13.3 Language advising 191
13.4 Teacher education 193
13.5 The effectiveness of teacher-based approaches 196
14 Conclusion 197
Section III: Researching autonomy 199
15 Research methods and key areas of research 201

15.1 Teachers’ research 201
15.2 Key areas of research 203
16 Case studies 213

16.1 Case study 1. Out-of-class learning 213
16.2 Case study 2. A self-organised language learning
community 218
viii TE AC HI NG AND RESEARC H I N G AUT O N O MY
16.3 Case study 3. The discourse of language advising 222

16.4 Case study 4. Self-directed learning in the classroom 226
16.5 Case study 5. Language acquisition in autonomous
classrooms 230
16.6 Case study 6. What do good independent learners do? 235
17 Conclusion 240
Section IV: Resources 241
18 Resources for research and practice 243

18.1 Books, journals and newsletters 243
18.2 Conferences and workshops 244
18.3 Professional organisations 244
18.4 E-mail lists 246
18.5 Web sites 247
18.6 Bibliographies 247
18.7 Self-access centres 248
References 249
Index 278
General editors’ preface
Applied Linguistics in Action, as its name suggests, is a series which

focuses on the issues and challenges to teachers and researchers in a range
of fields in Applied Linguistics and provides readers and users with the
tools they need to carry out their own practice-related research.
The books in the series provide the reader with clear, up-to-date,
accessible and authoritative accounts of their chosen field within Applied
Linguistics. Starting from a map of the landscape of the field, each book
provides information on its main ideas and concepts, competing issues and
unsolved questions. From there, readers can explore a range of practical
applications of research into those issues and questions, and then take up
the challenge of undertaking their own research, guided by the detailed
and explicit research guides provided. Finally, each book has a section
which provides a rich array of resources, information sources and further
reading, as well as a key to the principal concepts of the field.
Questions the books in this innovative series ask are those familiar to all
teachers and researchers, whether very experienced, or new to the fields of
Applied Linguistics.
• What does research tell us, what doesn’t it tell us and what should it tell
us about the field? How is the field mapped and landscaped? What is its
geography?
• How has research been applied and what interesting research possibili-
ties does practice raise? What are the issues we need to explore and
explain?
• What are the key researchable topics that practitioners can undertake?
How can the research be turned into practical action?
• Where are the important resources that teachers and researchers need?
Who has the information? How can it be accessed?
ix
x TE AC HI NG AND RESEARC H I N G AUT O N O MY
Each book in the series has been carefully designed to be as accessible as

possible, with built-in features to enable readers to find what they want
quickly and to home in on the key issues and themes that concern them.
The structure is to move from practice to theory and back to practice in a
cycle of development of understanding of the field in question.
Each of the authors of books in the series is an acknowledged authority,
able to bring broad knowledge and experience to engage teachers and
researchers in following up their own ideas, working with them to build
further on their own experience.
The first editions of books in this series have attracted widespread praise
for their authorship, their design, and their content, and have been widely
used to support practice and research. The success of the series, and the
realization that it needs to stay relevant in a world where new research is
being conducted and published at a rapid rate, have prompted the com-
missioning of this second edition. This new edition has been thoroughly
updated, with accounts of research that has appeared since the first edition
and with the addition of other relevant additional material. We trust that
students, teachers and researchers will continue to discover inspiration in
these pages to underpin their own investigations.
Chris Candlin & David Hall
General Editors
Author’s acknowledgements
This book is the product of a lifetime of autonomous, and at times not

so autonomous, learning that has always been informed by the thoughts
and words of others. Among those whose conversations I have most valued
while preparing the second edition of this book are my colleagues and
friends in Hong Kong, Japan and the United Kingdom, including Naoko
Aoki, Alice Chik, Lucy Cooker, David Gardner, Fiona Hyland, William
Littlewood, Bruce Morrison, David Nunan, Richard Pemberton, Richard
Smith, Sarah Toogood, Ema Ushioda, Peter Voller and Jean Young. I am
also appreciative of four Ph.D students at the University of Hong Kong,
from whom I have learned a great deal: Nalini Chavali, Joanne Chuk, Andy
Gao, and Peter Huang. I am especially thankful to Felicity Kjisik and Issa
Ying for their input to Chapter 12, to Alice Chik for her advice and
contributions to the preparation of the Second Edition, to Kathy Wong
for her painstaking work on the preparation of the manuscript, and to my
editors at Pearson Education for the hard work that followed its sub-
mission. Above all, I am grateful to the ALIA series editors, Chris Candlin
and David Hall, without whose vision and encouragement this book would
not have been written.
xi
Our pedantic mania for instruction is always leading us to teach children
the things they would learn better of their own accord.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
To Kaz,
who is still hoping that his father will follow Rousseau’s advice.
Introduction
As the theory and practice of language teaching enters a new century, the
importance of helping students become more autonomous in their learn-
ing has become one of its more prominent themes. The idea of autonomy
often provokes strong reactions. To its critics, autonomy is an idealistic
goal and its promotion a distraction from the real business of teaching and
learning languages. To its advocates, autonomy is a precondition for effec-
tive learning; when learners succeed in developing autonomy, they not
only become better language learners but they also develop into more
responsible and critical members of the communities in which they live.
Discussions on autonomy are, however, often characterised by miscon-
ceptions about the nature of the concept and its implementation. For
example, it is often assumed that autonomy implies learning in isolation,
learning without a teacher or learning outside the classroom, such that the
relevance of the concept to language teaching is unclear. Similarly, auton-
omy is often seen as necessarily implying particular skills and behaviours
and particular methods of organising the teaching and learning process.
These misconceptions are, at least in part, a result of terminological and
conceptual confusion within the field itself.
The aim of Teaching and Researching Autonomy is both to clarify and pro-
blematise the concept of autonomy in language learning and its relevance
to the practice of language education. There are certain fundamentals on
which researchers in the field agree: for example, autonomy refers to the
learner’s broad approach to the learning process, rather than to a particular
mode of teaching or learning. There are other issues on which they disagree,
and often agree to disagree, for autonomy is in essence multidimensional
and takes different forms in different contexts of learning. This book thus
aims to establish what research does and does not tell us about autonomy,
so that those who wish to foster it among their learners can engage in
research and practice on an informed basis.
1
2 TE AC HI NG AND RESEARC H I N G AUT O N O MY
Autonomy can be broadly defined as the capacity to take control over one’s
own learning. In the course of this book, I will expand on this definition,
but for the moment it is sufficient to note that autonomy is not a method
of learning, but an attribute of the learner’s approach to the learning
process. As a teacher and researcher who has been involved with the pro-
motion of the idea of autonomy for a number of years, I take the position
that autonomy is a legitimate and desirable goal of language education.
Among the claims made for autonomy, three stand out as being equally
important to theory and practice:
• The concept of autonomy is grounded in a natural tendency for learners

to take control over their learning. As such, autonomy is available to all,
although it is displayed in different ways and to different degrees accord-
ing to the unique characteristics of each learner and each learning situation.
• Learners who lack autonomy are capable of developing it given appro-
priate conditions and preparation. One condition for the development
of autonomy is the availability of opportunities to exercise control over
learning. The ways in which we organise the practice of teaching and
learning therefore have an important influence on the development of
autonomy among our learners.
• Autonomous learning is more effective than non-autonomous learning.
In other words, the development of autonomy implies better language
learning.
In Teaching and Researching Autonomy, I argue that these are claims rather
than facts and that before we accept or reject autonomy as a legitimate goal
of language education, we should examine them carefully. Certain claims
can be substantiated by research evidence, others remain open to research
and some are non-researchable. I also argue that the best research on
autonomy is often not research concerned with ‘grand theory’, but action
research conducted by practising teachers on the specific conditions of
teaching and learning within which they work. In order to do this kind of
action research, we must make some attempt to foster autonomy among
the learners we work with. In doing so we will frequently find ourselves in
a position where we are able, through careful observation and analysis of
empirical data, to contribute to theory.
The book is divided into four sections. Section I focuses on the origins
and development of the concept of autonomy in language learning,
definitions of key terms and research evidence that enables us to describe
autonomy in terms of various dimensions of control over learning. Section
II focuses on evidence for the effectiveness of practices that have been
claimed to foster autonomy. Section III outlines key areas for future
research and presents six case studies of action research in the field of
autonomy. Section IV lists resources that will help researchers and practi-
tioners in the field.
Introduction to the second edition
Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2001, interest in
autonomy in language learning has grown to the point where the number
of books and papers published since the turn of the century matches the
number published over the previous three decades. Conferences on auton-
omy have been held in Europe, Asia, Australasia and Latin America and
at the AILA 2005 World Congress, there were no less than 36 contribu-
tions from 18 different countries under the heading of autonomy. At the
AILA 2008 World Congress the number of presentations on autonomy
rose to 56.
In addition to numerous papers in language teaching and learning jour-
nals, 30 book-length publications on autonomy were published in the first
decade of the century, including reports on collaborative projects (Barfield
and Nix, 2003; Jiménez and Lamb, 2008; Little, Ridley and Ushioda, 2002,
2003; Miliander and Trebbi, 2008; Skier and Kohyama, 2006; van Esch
and St. John, 2003; Vieira, 2009), journal special issues (Dam, 2001; Rubin,
2007; Smith and Vieira, 2009; Victori, 2000), collections from conferences
(Benson, 2007; Benson and Toogood, 2001; Benson, Collins and Sprenger,
2008; Gardner, 2007; Karlsson, Kjisik and Nordlund, 2000; Kjisik et al.,
2009; Lamb and Reinders, 2008; Mackenzie and McCafferty, 2002; Miller,
2007; Reinders, Hacker and Lewis, 2004; Ribé, 2000; Sinclair, McGrath
and Lamb, 2000; Vieira, Moreira, Barbosa and Paiva, 2002) and collections
of commissioned papers (Hurd and Lewis, 2008; Jiménez and Sercu, 2007;
Lamb and Reinders, 2006; Lewis and Walker, 2003; Mozzon-McPherson
and Vismans, 2001; Palfreyman and Smith, 2003).
Part of my task in revising the book for this second edition has been
to assess what these new publications contribute to our knowledge of
autonomy. A more important part, however, has been to consider how the
theory and practice of autonomy have responded to the changing land-
scapes of language education and social thought of the first decade of a new
3
century. One change that I have tried to account for more systematically
than in the first edition is the growth of interest in autonomy itself. Why
are language educators so interested in autonomy at this time and how
does that interest influence the ways in which we conceptualise and imple-
ment autonomy? Another change concerns the approaches to language
education theory that now rub up against the idea of autonomy. First, there
is the growing importance of social and contextually-situated approaches,
which has deepened the debate over the individual or social character of
autonomy. Second, there is the growing tendency to blur established
boundaries among constructs such as individual difference, motivation and
learning strategies, which has led to discussion of the ways in which these
constructs interact with learner autonomy. Lastly, there is a renewed
interest in teachers and teaching, which has found its place in the field of
autonomy in vigorous debate over the role of teacher autonomy in the
development of learner autonomy.
To this I should add that it is not only in the field of language education
that interest in autonomy has gained ground. In recent years, autonomy has
played a prominent role in educational policies around the world, in part
because of the importance of self-directed lifelong learning in business,
employment and social policy. And although the idea of autonomy is a
product of the European Enlightenment, interest in the philosophy of per-
sonal autonomy has never been more intense than it has been over the past
decade. This renewed interest in autonomy is in turn related to broader
concerns about the anchoring of individual and social identities in a rapidly
changing world that have come into language education through an inter-
est in the ways that language learning connects with personal and social
identities. Beyond education, the idea of autonomy is found in fields as
varied as medicine and nursing, bioethics, genetics, the law, feminist scholar-
ship, artificial intelligence, and business and organisational management.
This suggests that autonomy in language learning may be no more than
personal autonomy applied within our particular field. Yet the literature on
autonomy in language learning is now much larger than the literature on
autonomy in any other field, including philosophy, which perhaps points
to a fundamental role for language learning in the social changes that are
stimulating wider interest in autonomy at the present time.
The major revisions to this edition of Teaching and Researching Autonomy
are, therefore, prompted both by a need to draw together the vast quantity
of literature published since the first edition was completed and by a need
to situate the growth of this literature in the changing contexts of language
education and social thought that surround it. These revisions will be
apparent throughout the book. A more substantial revision comes in
Chapter 16, which is designed to help readers plan and design research
on autonomy. In this chapter all but one of the case studies included in
the first edition has been replaced by a more recent study. This revision
INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION 5
reflects both the growing maturity of research on autonomy as well as the

emergence of new research methods in the field. Lastly, I am pleased to
have been offered the opportunity to correct a number of errors of my own
making. One that is worth calling attention to is the date of Paulo Freire’s
passing, which has now happily been delayed by 20 years. Another is the
spelling of Lorna Rowsell’s name, which was misspelled as ‘Rosewell’ in
the first edition. I am pleased to have the opportunity to include her classic
study of self-instructed language learning (Rowsell and Libben, 1994) as
the concluding case study in Chapter 16.
This page intentionally left blank
Section
I What is autonomy?
This section will:

• outline the history of autonomy in language learning and identify its
sources in the fields of language pedagogy, educational reform, adult
education, the psychology of learning and political philosophy;
• discuss definitions of autonomy and key issues in research;
• explain why autonomy is a key issue in language education today.
Chapter 1
The history of autonomy in

language learning
1.1 Origins of the concept

Second language acquisition predates institutionalised language learning
by many centuries. Even in the modern world millions of individuals con-
tinue to learn languages without the aid of formal instruction. Although there
is much that we can learn from their efforts, the theory of autonomy in
language learning has been essentially concerned with the organisation of
formal education. As such, it has a history of approximately four decades.
Concept 1.1 The origins of autonomy in language learning

The concept of autonomy first entered the field of language teaching through
the Council of Europe’s Modern Languages Project, established in 1971. One
of the outcomes of this project was the establishment of the Centre de Recherches
et d’Applications en Langues (CRAPEL) at the University of Nancy, France,
which rapidly became a focal point for research and practice in the field. Yves
Châlon, the founder of CRAPEL, is considered by many to be the father of
autonomy in language learning. Châlon died at an early age in 1972 and the
leadership of CRAPEL was passed to Henri Holec, who remains a prominent
figure within the field of autonomy today. A seminar on self-directed learning
and autonomy at the University of Cambridge in December 1976, which
included contributions from Philip Riley and Caroline Stanchina of CRAPEL,
was also an important foundational event in the field (Harding-Esch, 1977).
Holec’s (1981) project report to the Council of Europe is a key early document
on autonomy in language learning. The journal Mélanges Pédagogiques, pub-
lished at CRAPEL, has also played an important role in the dissemination of
research on autonomy from 1970 to the present day. Important early papers
on autonomy from Mélanges Pédagogiques were distributed internationally in
Riley’s (1985) collection on Discourse and learning.
9
According to Gremmo and Riley (1995), interest in the concept of

autonomy within the field of language education was in part a response to
ideals and expectations aroused by the political turmoil in Europe in the
late 1960s. Holec (1981: 1) began his report to the Council of Europe
(Concept 1.1) with a description of the social and ideological context
within which ideas of autonomy in learning emerged:
The end of the 1960s saw the development in all so-called industrially
advanced Western countries of a socio-political tendency characterized by
a definition of social progress, no longer in terms of increasing material
well-being through an increase in consumer goods and services, but in terms
of an improvement in the ‘quality of life’ – an expression that did not become
a slogan until some years later – based on the development of a respect for
the individual in society.
The Council of Europe’s Modern Languages Project aimed to provide
adults with opportunities for lifelong learning and the approach developed
at CRAPEL was influenced by proposals from the emerging field of adult
self-directed learning (Chapter 2.2), which insisted ‘on the need to develop
the individual’s freedom by developing those abilities which will enable
him to act more responsibly in running the affairs of the society in which
he lives’. This connection between education, individual freedom and
social responsibility also reflected prevailing views of personal autonomy in
European and North American political philosophy at the time.
Autonomy, or the capacity to take charge of one’s own learning, was seen
as a natural product of the practice of self-directed learning, or learning in
which the objectives, progress and evaluation of learning are determined
by the learners themselves. Among the key innovations in the CRAPEL
approach to the provision of opportunities and support for self-directed
language learning were the self-access resource centre and the idea of
learner training. In its early days, the theory and practice of autonomy
in language learning also enjoyed an uneasy association with ideas of
‘individualisation’ in language instruction.
1.2 Autonomy and self-access

The first self-access language learning centres, at CRAPEL (Riley and
Zoppis, 1985) and the University of Cambridge (Harding-Esch, 1982),
were based on the idea that access to a rich collection of second language
materials would offer learners the best opportunity for experimentation
with self-directed learning (Quote 1.1). The provision of counselling ser-
vices and an emphasis on authentic materials were also important elements
in the CRAPEL approach.
T H E H I ST O RY O F AU T O NO M Y I N L A NGU A GE L E A R NI NG 11
Riley and Zoppis on the Sound and Video Library at CRAPEL
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 peda-
gogical principles and strategies we firmly 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)
At CRAPEL, self-access was seen as a means of facilitating self-directed

learning. In recent years, however, self-access language learning centres
have proliferated to the point where ‘self-access language learning’ is often
treated as a synonym for self-directed or autonomous learning. In many
institutions, self-access centres have been established without any strong
pedagogical rationale and it is often assumed, without any strong
justification, for the assumption that self-access work will automatically
lead to autonomy. To a lesser extent, the producers of self-instructional
and distance learning materials have assumed that autonomy will be one
outcome of these modes of learning. One of the important lessons of the
spread of self-access over the past three decades, however, is that there
is no necessary relationship between self-instruction and the development
of autonomy and that, under certain conditions, self-instructional modes
of learning may even inhibit autonomy (Chapter 8).
Because self-access centres have been enthusiastic consumers of educational
technologies, self-access learning has also tended to become synonymous
with technology-based learning. Within the field of computer-assisted
language learning, especially, autonomy has become an important issue. As
in the case of self-access, however, researchers on autonomy emphasise
that learners who engage in technology-based learning do not necessarily
become more autonomous as a result of their efforts. A great deal depends
on the nature of the technology and the use that is made of it (Chapter 9).
1.3 Autonomy and learner training

Like self-access, learner training began life as a mechanism to support self-
directed learning (Dickinson and Carver, 1980; Holec, 1980). At CRAPEL,
it was argued that in order to carry out effective self-directed learning, adult
learners would need to develop skills related to self-management, self-

monitoring 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 counterproduc-
tive, since the learning would by definition 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.
Holec on learner training
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 find the
answers to the problems with which he is faced. By proceeding largely by trial
and error he trains himself progressively.
Holec (1980: 42)
As the practice of learner training became more widespread in the 1980s

and 1990s it increasingly drew upon insights from research on learning
strategies, which aimed to identify the behaviours and strategies used by
successful learners and train less successful learners in their use. Although
the idea of autonomy did not initially have a strong influence on learner
strategies research, Wenden (1991) made the link explicit in the title of her
book, Learner Strategies for Learner Autonomy. Like self-access, learner
training has also taken on a life of its own in recent years. While most prac-
titioners in the field see learner training as leading to greater autonomy,
learner training is no longer confined to self-directed learning. Dickinson
(1992), for example, views learner training as a resource to help learners to
engage more actively in classroom learning, and some of the best learner
training materials have been developed for classroom use (Chapter 10).
1.4 Autonomy and individualisation

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, autonomy was closely associated with
individualisation, an association evident in the titles of collections that
linked the two fields (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 individualis-

ation 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 and autonomy overlapped in as much as both were
concerned with meeting the needs of individual learners. Self-directed
learning as it was practised at CRAPEL was thus in a sense a form of
individualisation, in which learners determined their own needs and acted
upon them. As the practice of self-access spread, self-access resource
centres were also seen as performing important functions in the individu-
alisation of learning.
Individualisation also took the form of programmed learning – a mode
of instruction in which learners were expected to work their way, at their
own pace, through materials prepared by teachers. From the outset,
researchers at CRAPEL took pains to distinguish self-directed learning
from programmed individualised learning on the grounds that the latter
left the most important decisions in learning to the teacher rather than to
the learner. Holec (1981: 6) also made a distinction between teaching that
takes the learner into consideration and learning that is directed by the
learners themselves:
In a general way the extent to which the learner is taken into consideration
forms no criterion for judging the extent to which learning is self-directed:
individualization effected by taking into account the learner’s needs, his
favourite methods of learning, his level, and so on, leave the learner in the
traditional position of dependency and do not allow him to control his learn-
ing for himself.
Riley (1986) also argued that programmed learning deprived learners of
the freedom of choice essential to the development of autonomy (Quote 1.3).
Riley on autonomy and individualisation
Individualisation (‘individualised learning’, ‘individualised instruction’) is, his-

torically at least, linked with programmed learning and based on a thoroughly
behaviouristic psychology. As it is generally practised, it leaves very little free-
dom 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
efficient 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)
The early association of autonomy with individualisation may also be

largely responsible for the widespread criticism that autonomy implies
learners studying languages in isolation from teachers and from each other.
This criticism was more difficult to counter since it must be acknowledged
that, although collaborative programmes for self-directed groups of
learners have been designed at CRAPEL and elsewhere, much of the early
work in the field of autonomy focused on the learner as an individual with
distinct characteristics and needs. In recent years, however, researchers on
autonomy have emphasised that the development of autonomy necessarily
implies collaboration and interdependence.
1.5 Autonomy and interdependence

It is evident in retrospect that the concept of autonomy in language learn-
ing 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) defined
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
field that autonomy best refers to the capacity to control or take charge of
one’s 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 capac-
ity 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 neces-
sarily develop this capacity. However, the argument that the opportunity
to exercise autonomy through self-directed learning was a necessary pre-
condition for the development of autonomy was interpreted by critics as
an argument that it was a sufficient 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
field of autonomy as one in which crucial questions concerning the social
character of learning are avoided (Concept 1.2).
Concept 1.2 Independence, dependence and interdependence

A number of researchers, in the United Kingdom and Australia especially,
have preferred the term independence to autonomy, creating two terms for
what is essentially the same concept. When independence is used as a synonym
of autonomy, its opposite is dependence, which implies excessive reliance on
the direction of teachers or teaching materials. One problem with the use of
this term, however, is that it can also be understood as the opposite of inter-
dependence, which implies working together with teachers and other learners
towards shared goals. Many researchers would argue that autonomy does
imply interdependence. For this reason, the term independence is avoided in
this book.
The theory and practice of autonomy escaped from this crisis of

identity largely through the efforts of practitioners who experimented with
the idea of autonomy in classroom settings (Chapter 11). Their work was
influenced in part by developing views of the classroom as a ‘social context’
for learning and communication (Breen, 1986; Breen and Candlin, 1980)
and the idea that autonomy could be developed by a shift in relationships
of power and control within the classroom. Some of the most influential
work in this area was carried out by Leni Dam and her colleagues in Danish
secondary schools, where autonomy developed through negotiation of
curriculum and classroom tasks (Dam, 1995). This work, which developed
out of a collaborative in-service teacher education project with the
University of Lancaster (Breen et al., 1989), had a considerable influence
on later innovations, prompting a shift in the focus of research towards
classroom practice and teachers’ own autonomy.
One of the most challenging developments in the theory of auton-
omy in the 1990s was the idea that autonomy implies interdependence.
Kohonen (1992: 19) argued the point forcefully:
Personal decisions are necessarily made with respect to social and moral
norms, traditions and expectations. Autonomy thus includes the notion of
interdependence, that is being responsible for one’s own conduct in the
social context: being able to cooperate with others and solve conflicts in
constructive ways.
Collaborative decision making within cooperative learning groups was
thus a key feature of Kohonen’s ‘experiential’ model for the development
of autonomy. Little (1996: 211) also argued that collaboration is essential
to the development of autonomy as a psychological capacity, stating that

‘the development of a capacity for reflection and analysis, central to the
development of learner autonomy, depends on the development and
internalization of a capacity to participate fully and critically in social inter-
actions’. Such statements provided a corrective to the earlier emphasis on
the individual working outside the classroom. They also provided a focus
for research and practice on the reform of the conventional classroom
to support the development of autonomy (see also Breen, 2001; Kohonen
et al., 2000).
Little on teacher autonomy
. . . since learning arises from interaction and interaction is characterized by

interdependence, the development of autonomy in learners presupposes the
development of autonomy in teachers.
Little (1995: 175)
The idea of interdependence in the classroom was also developed

through work on teacher autonomy (see Chapter 13). In this work, the
interdependence at issue is between learners and teachers and some have
gone so far as to suggest that the development of learner autonomy is
dependent on teacher autonomy (Quote 1.4). Although a strong case can
be made for this argument in classroom contexts, the implication that the
development of learner autonomy presupposes classroom learning remains
problematic. There is also the difficulty of separating learner–teacher
interdependence from learner dependence upon teachers. Nevertheless,
current interest in the idea of teacher autonomy reflects the degree to
which learner autonomy is now viewed as a socially and institutionally
contextualised construct.
In place of a simplistic dichotomy between autonomous learning and
instructed learning, we now have a more complex view of autonomy as
the outcome of a range of education processes. This view involves greater
attention to classroom learning and teacher education. At the same time,
there has been continued attention to out-of-class and out-of-school settings,
especially self-access, distance learning and technology-based learning
(Chapters 8 and 9). Within a broadly social understanding of learner
autonomy, there has also been renewed interest in learner individuality
in qualitative investigations of the long-term development of autonomy
in individual language learning careers (Benson and Nunan, 2002, 2005;
Kalaja, Barcelos and Menezes, 2008).
1.6 Why autonomy? Why now?

In the course of its evolution, the concept of autonomy has become part of
the mainstream of research and practice within the field of language edu-
cation. 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 inde-
pendently of social and economic factors that have made language educators
and funding authorities more open to the practices associated with it
(Concept 1.3).
Concept 1.3 Autonomy in policy and practice

As part of its collaborative work on autonomy in language learning, the
EuroPAL project has published data on autonomy in the education and
language education policies of seven European countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus,
England, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden (Miliander and Trebbi, 2008).
Policies in all seven countries were supportive of autonomy, with Norway
having the mostly strongly articulated policies on paper. An extract from the
Norwegian National Common Core Curriculum for primary and secondary
schools reads:
Education shall provide learners with the capability to take charge of themselves
and their lives, as well as with the vigour and will to stand by others. [Education]
must teach the young to look ahead and train their ability to make sound
choices, allow each individual to learn by observing the practical consequences
of his or her choices, and foster means and manners, which facilitate the
achievement of the results they aim at. The young must gradually shoulder
more responsibility for the planning and achievement of their own education –
and they must take responsibility for their own conduct and behaviour. (Cited
in Trebbi, 2008b: 42)
An extract from the French as a second foreign language curriculum for
lower secondary reads:
The learning task will enable pupils to discover and explore the language, to use
it right from the start, and through their own use of it gradually systematize
their discoveries and try out their knowledge of the language. The pupils’
evaluation of their own texts, and of the actual work process, helps them gain
insight into their own language learning. (Cited in Trebbi, 2008b: 45)
But Trebbi, who has been involved in projects on autonomy in northern
Europe since the 1980s, also cites extracts from a Council of Europe Experts’
Report on language education policy in Norway, which indicate that progress
towards learner autonomy has been limited, with many teachers adhering to
traditional ways of teaching languages. She suggests that this is partly due to
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, flexible timetables, new subject content,
independent study time, learning-to-learn schemes, portfolio-based assess-
ment, and counselling.
The more complex view of autonomy that now characterises the field
reflects the range of contexts in which it is now discussed and applied. This
in turn reflects 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 field 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 field (Cameron, 2001; Harmer, 2001; Hedge, 2000). In these
works learner autonomy is presented less as a specialised educational con-
cept, and more as an idea that is likely to form part of language teachers’
conceptual toolkit. Research on autonomy in the field of language educa-
tion has no doubt contributed to language teachers’ knowledge of the
concept and its applications, but Cameron’s 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 field. 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.
Lynne Cameron on autonomy and young learners
It is commonly recognised in today’s world that autonomous and self-regulated

learners will be at an advantage in continuing to learn and adjust throughout
their lives as technology and information develop rapidly and continuously.
Learner autonomy then is ‘a good thing’ and to be encouraged, but how
realistic is this in classes of five year olds? My own view is that we tend to
underestimate the potential for self-regulation in our children, seeing them too
often as blank sheets to be written on, empty vessels to be filled, 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)
Much of this book is concerned with evidence that autonomy can be

made to work in a variety of settings. In this section, however, I want to
look briefly at five aspects of the broader contexts of educational and social
change that have both favoured the spread of interest in autonomy and
problematised its role in the theory and practice of language teaching and
learning: the changing landscape of language teaching and learning, the
globalisation of educational policy, changing assumptions about the nature
of work and competence, the rise of self-improvement culture, and chang-
ing conceptions of social and personal identity.
Allwright (1988: 35) summed up the view of many in the late 1980s,
when he wrote that autonomy was ‘associated with a radical restructuring
of pedagogy, a restructuring that involves the rejection of the traditional
classroom and the introduction of wholly new ways of working’. In retro-
spect, however, we can see that, for reasons having relatively little to do
with those who were advocating autonomy, the restructuring of language
pedagogy around innovations such as self-access, distance learning, infor-
mation technology and blended learning were already underway in the late
1980s and have only gathered pace since. The impetus behind these pro-
cesses has come both from the exponential growth since the early 1960s in
the number of language learners, especially English language learners,
worldwide and a global trend towards the reduction of per capita costs of
language education. It is not only economies of scale that have made inno-
vations associated with autonomy attractive to governments and institu-
tions, however, but also the diversity that has accompanied growth in
student numbers. As education providers find it increasingly difficult to
predict the needs of the heterogeneous populations of students under their
charge, it makes good sense to offer students choices and a degree of inde-
pendence. Where more traditional approaches prevail, as they do in many
primary and secondary school systems around the world, there is often an
underlying, if questionable, assumption of a homogeneous student body
and a common purpose for language learning. Recent reviews of language
education policy in East Asia, however, also show how increased English
language provision in schools has been accompanied by a shift towards
communicative and task-based approaches to classroom learning and the
use of self-access and CALL facilities (Ho, 2004; Nunan, 2003).
In these respects, language teaching is possibly a step ahead of other sub-

ject 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 increa-
singly 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 indi-
vidual has become a central concern. According to Mundy (2005: 8), edu-
cational 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 defined nation–states’.
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 influence national
economic growth and has contributed significantly to the economic develop-
ment 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 nar-
rowing 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, poli-
cies 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 so-
called ‘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, flexibility 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 define themselves as
competent and worthy (Quote 1.6). This image will, no doubt, resonate
with anyone who works in a post-industrial economy, and perhaps especially

so with language teachers, who are now not only surrounded by discourses
on the qualities of graduates that are preferred by new capitalist employers,
but are required to manifest these qualities in their increasingly insecure
professional lives. Again these changes have created favourable climates of
discourse for experiments in autonomy, while also creating the risk that
such experiments will be seen as harnessing educational goals to newly
conceptualised needs of employers.
Gee on shape-shifting portfolio people

Shape-shifting portfolio people are people who see themselves in entrepreneurial
terms. That is, they see themselves as free agents in charge of their own selves
as if those selves were projects or businesses. They believe they must manage
their own risky trajectories through building up a variety of skills, experiences, and
achievements in terms of which they can define themselves as successful now
and worthy of more success later. Their set of skills, experiences, and achieve-
ments, at any one time, constitutes their portfolio. However, they must also
stand ready and able to rearrange these skills, experiences, and achievements
creatively (that is, to shape-shift into different identities) in order to define
themselves anew (as competent and worthy) for changed circumstances.
Gee (2004: 105)
The idea of the self as ‘project’ is also prevalent within the self-
improvement culture that has now begun to invade so many aspects of every-
day 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 fitness, beauty and bodily improve-
ment, body decoration and modification, 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, especi-
ally 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 ‘com-
munication skills’ within self-improvement culture – an importance that
reflects their role as a recognised qualification for employment in new
capitalist economies.
Deborah Cameron on self-improvement culture
What I am calling ‘self-improvement culture’ comprises a range of practices

and text-types focusing on the individual and her or his relationships with
others, and particularly on the problems of modern personal life. Among
the most accessible expressions of this culture are self-help and popular
psychology books, and broadcast talk shows of the ‘confessional’ type where
people talk about their experiences, problems and feelings, sometimes
receiving advice from an expert (a therapist, counsellor or psychologist). Large
numbers of people are at least occasional consumers of this kind of material,
and it is so ubiquitous in contemporary popular culture that it is difficult for
anyone to remain entirely unfamiliar with it.
(Cameron, 2002: 74)
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 fixed
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 con-
struction 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 first language identities and provokes
reconstruction of the individual’s 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 learner’s 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 one’s 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
in substantive pre-existing identities, but in identities that become

individualised over time through self-thematisation and self-narrative
(Chapter 2.4.1).
To sum up, developments in the landscape of language education,
educational policy and broader economic and cultural environments have
converged in recent years to create a climate that favours a growth of
interest in autonomy in language learning. While it would seem churlish
for advocates of autonomy not to welcome this growth of interest, it
has nevertheless been viewed as somewhat problematic, in part, because
autonomy no longer seems to be an incontrovertibly ‘good thing’ in edu-
cation (Hand, 2006; Olssen, 2005).
1.7 The two faces of autonomy
Early experiments in self-directed learning and autonomy drew sustenance

from the social and ideological changes of their times. Gremmo and Riley
(1995) suggest that the rise of autonomy corresponded to an ideological
shift away from consumerism and materialism towards an emphasis on the
meaning and value of personal experience, quality of life, personal freedom
and minority rights. In higher education, the notion of ‘student power’ was
current (Cockburn and Blackburn, 1970), and radically student-centred
educational reforms were being proposed by Freire (1970), Illich (1971),
Rogers (1969) and others. Advocates of autonomy who come from this
countercultural tradition are, therefore, liable to be somewhat sceptical of
the ways that learner autonomy is now represented in educational and
social discourse, not so much because these are diluted representations, but
more because of a sense that the idea of autonomy is being coopted to pro-
posals that fail to problematise the idea of education as a means to prepare
students for the world of work.
The problem that research needs to address is, perhaps, the inherent
ambiguity in the assumption that autonomy in learning is a good thing
for all concerned. Have economic, social and educational systems across
the world really changed to such an extent that we need no longer think of
autonomy in terms of a shift in the balance of power towards learners?
Have the interests of students, educational systems and employers in the
new capitalist economies really converged to such an extent that we no
longer need to tease out pedagogies that serve the interests of students
from pedagogies that produce the kinds of graduates that employers are
deemed to require?
Concept 1.4 Autonomy and employability

In an important contribution to the literature on educational reform in
England, Bentley (1998) directly links ‘active learning’ and ‘learning beyond
the classroom’ to concerns about the ‘employability’ of young people. Bentley
shows how ‘the role of education in developing employability has gradually
come into focus, and educationalists and employers have moved towards
each other, building closer partnerships, developing a common language,
and seeking ways to achieve shared goals’ (p. 99). One of the major obstacles
to reform, he argues, is the ‘separation of different perspectives on the same
problem, and the lack of communication and mutual understanding between
schools, parents, employers and pupils over a set of goals which are common
to all’ (p. 106). While Bentley favours greater learner autonomy, his assump-
tion of a common set of interests among educational stakeholders appears to
undermine the principle of learners making key decisions about their learn-
ing, rather than following what schools, parents and employers deem to be
their best interests.
While schools clearly have a broad responsibility to prepare students

for future employment, the risk in arguments for autonomy in learning
based on employability is that it will become difficult to conceptualise
the educational value of autonomy in anything other than economic terms
(Concept 1.4). Broader social visions of education contributing to the for-
mation of democratic communities of self-determined individuals are also
liable to be erased in favour of a much narrower vision of the harnessing of
educational goals to the requirements of employers. Addressing these
concerns does not necessarily imply an explicitly oppositional approach to
language education. It does imply, however, that concerns about the goals of
education should not be divorced from the practice of teaching and learning.
Fostering autonomy requires, above all, a focus on the learners’ perspectives
in regard to goals and processes. As Holec (1985a: 182) argues:
Providing yourself with the means to undertake your own learning pro-
gramme presupposes that, at the very least, you think it is possible to be both
‘producer’ and ‘consumer’ of such a programme. This runs counter to the
usual attitudes of members of our modern consumer society; indeed for the
individual it means withdrawing from it to some extent, since the usual pro-
cedure for acquiring ‘goods’ (in this case competence in a foreign language)
is not a creative one.
Although the idea of autonomy in learning currently appears to be in har-
mony 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 difficult issue, how-
ever, is to separate out these two kinds of interests in both theoretical and
practical work.
Pennycook on the ‘psychologisation’ of autonomy
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 com-
monly 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 cur-

rently 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 justifiable 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 under-
stood 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 ques-
tioning has also led to a number of attempts to identify ‘stronger’ and
‘weaker’ approaches to the theory and practice of autonomy (Chapter 3).
Chapter 2
Autonomy beyond the field of

language education
The concept of autonomy in language learning (Figure 2.1) has influenced,

and has been influenced by, a variety of approaches to the theory and
practice of language education. It is not, however, originally or primarily a
language-education concept. Galileo, like many other great thinkers through-
out the ages, evidently believed in autonomous learning (Quote 2.1), while
the term itself has been widely used in connection with educational reform,
adult education, the psychology of learning and political philosophy in the
twentieth century. One of the characteristics of research on autonomy in
language learning has been its willingness to look at sources beyond the
field of language education for insights and intellectual guidance. Before
proceeding to a more detailed discussion of definitions of autonomy in
Figure 2.1 Major influences on the theory of autonomy in language

learning
26
AUTONOMY BEYOND THE FIELD OF LANGUAGE EDUCATION 27
language learning, we will look briefly at some of the more important of

these sources.
Galileo on teaching and learning
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)
2.1 Educational reform

2.1.1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
In Emile, his classic work on education, Rousseau described the ideal of a
‘natural education’ as it is experienced by a boy brought up on a country
estate away from the corrupting influence of social conventions and insti-
tutions (Boyd, 1956). Rousseau’s ideas on education were grounded in a
philosophical view of the human subject as intrinsically good, in contrast
to the dominant doctrine of the time, which held that human beings had
fallen from grace through sin. He also believed that the source of corrup-
tion in human affairs lay in verbal abstraction and social institutions, both
of which distanced humanity from nature. The idea of the human subject
as intrinsically good tied in with the idea that social order was maintained
through a social contract in which individual wills are integrated with the
general will. As the individual will is part of the general will, each indi-
vidual is his or her own authority.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) was born in Geneva and later moved to

France. He received no formal education, but became known for his work on
political philosophy and ‘natural’ education. On its publication in 1762, copies
of Rousseau’s classic work on education, Emile, were burned for religious
heresy and Rousseau was forced to leave France. For an excellent review
of Rousseau’s contribution to educational thought and links to Rousseau on
the web, see Mark K. Smith’s Informal Education Homepage.
<http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rous.htm>
Emile proposed a model of education that followed the child’s natural

impulses and inclinations (Quote 2.2). Rather than master preordained
subject matter, children should learn what they want to learn when they
want to learn it. Moreover, they should learn primarily through direct con-
tact with nature rather than through the transmission of abstract ideas in
verbal form. In Rousseau’s model the teacher is a permissive individual who
supports learners and learns with them. Learners are responsible for their
own actions and learn by enjoying or suffering their consequences. Under
the influence of a natural education, children develop naturally into indi-
viduals subject to their own authority rather than the authority of others.
Rousseau on teaching and learning
Make your pupil attend to the phenomena of nature, and you will soon arouse
his curiosity. But to nourish this curiosity, be in no hurry to satisfy it. Suggest
problems but leave the solving of them to him. Whatever he knows, he should
know not because you have told him, but because he has grasped it himself.
Do not teach him science: let him discover it. If ever you substitute authority
for reason in his mind, he will stop reasoning, and become the victim of other
people’s opinions . . .
If he goes wrong, do not correct his errors. Say nothing till he sees them and
corrects them himself; or at most, arrange some practical situation which will
make him realise things personally. If he never made mistakes he would never
learn properly. In any case, the important thing is not that he should know the
topography of the country, but that he should be able to get this information
for himself.
Boyd (1956: 73–6)
Although Rousseau is seldom cited as a source, the germs of the modern

idea of autonomy in learning are to be found within his thought. In the
modern era, his influence was perhaps most apparent in Freinet’s (1971)
work in primary schools, which emphasised pedagogic practices embedded
in the children’s natural environment (Samuda and Bygate, 2008: 21–3).
For many modern educational theorists the problem with Rousseau’s
model lies in his romantic view of human nature. However, his emphasis
on the learner’s responsibility for learning is a key idea of autonomy. Many
advocates of autonomy in language learning would also share Rousseau’s
view that the capacity for autonomy is innate but suppressed by institutional
learning. Similarly Rousseau’s idea that learning proceeds better through
direct contact with nature re-emerges in the emphasis on direct contact
with authentic samples of the target language that is often found in the
literature on autonomy in language learning. Rousseau’s influence is indi-
rect, however, and comes principally through later progressive educators
such as John Dewey and William Kilpatrick, whose influence on the theory
and practice of autonomy has been profound.
2.1.2 John Dewey

Dewey was a philosopher of the Pragmatist school, for whom education
was a vital philosophical issue. Pragmatism held that truth consists of ten-
tative conclusions drawn from experience and that philosophy should be
oriented towards solving problems of everyday life. Dewey rejected the
romantic premises of Rousseau’s thought as part of a more general rejection
of philosophical dualism, which contrasts the imperfection of reality with
an ideal realm of truth. Nevertheless, Dewey’s educational ideas reflected
many of Rousseau’s concerns and grounded them within a project of social
reform. His contribution to the idea of autonomy lies mainly in three areas:
the relationship between education and social participation, education as
problem solving, and classroom organisation.
Dewey’s philosophy of education rested upon the belief that individuals
have a moral responsibility to engage in the betterment and reform of the
societies in which they live. The aims of education in a democratic society
thus go beyond the mastery of subject matter to preparation for participa-
tion in social and political life. In this respect, Dewey’s view of education
is a precursor of the view that informed the early Council of Europe work
on autonomy in language learning.
John Dewey
John Dewey (1859–1952) was both a philosopher and educator who has
exercised a wide-ranging influence on western educational practice. A prolific
writer on education, the best introduction to his thought is perhaps Democracy
and Education, first published in 1916. The Center for Dewey Studies web
site at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale is a good place to begin an
exploration of Dewey’s work.
<http://www.siu.edu/~deweyctr/>
Dewey also held the view that schooling should not be a preparation for
situations that students would face later in life. Instead, it should be con-
cerned with the solution of current problems (Quote 2.3). He therefore
argued that educational activities should begin from the immediate personal
and social experience of the learners. Dewey saw learning as an adaptive
process, in which interaction with the environment generates problems
that must be solved in order for individuals to satisfy their needs. This view
of learning as an adaptive process is also at the root of constructivist
approaches to learning that have been influential in the theory of autonomy
in language learning (Chapter 2.3.1) and has been proposed as a theoretical
basis for autonomy in language learning by Esch (1996).
In Dewey’s problem-solving method, the school and the classroom were

seen as microcosms of the community, in which learners worked together
to solve shared problems. It was through collaborative work that learning
contributed to the development of community. At the same time, the
problem-solving method implied the deconstruction of the authority of
the teacher as learners acquired internal discipline based on the need to
solve the problems with which they were faced. In order for learners
to acquire this internal discipline, however, the starting point of activities
must be the learners’ own felt needs so that the educational aims were
those of the learners rather than those of the teachers. The teacher’s role
was not to direct the process of learning, but to act as a resource or guide
for the learners’ own self-directed efforts. Many of the principles of class-
room and curriculum organisation advanced by Dewey are evident in the
work of Dam (1995) and others whose efforts to promote autonomy are
focused on the classroom.
John Dewey on problem solving
While we may speak, without error, of the method of thought, the important
thing is that thinking is the method of an educative experience. The essentials
of method are therefore identical with the essentials of reflection. They are first
that the pupil have a genuine situation of experience – that there be a con-
tinuous activity in which he is interested for its own sake; secondly, that a
genuine problem develops within this situation as a stimulus to thought; third,
that he possess the information and make the observations needed to deal
with it; fourth, that suggested solutions occur to him which he shall be respon-
sible for developing in an orderly way; fifth, that he have opportunity and
occasion to test his ideas by application, to make their meaning clear and to
discover for himself their validity.
Dewey (1916/1966: 163)
2.1.3 William Kilpatrick
William Kilpatrick
William Heard Kilpatrick (1871–1965) was a follower of the early twentieth-

century North American progressive education movement, which shared many
of the philosophical assumptions of Rousseau, including the belief that people
were essentially good. Kilpatrick began his career as a mathematics teacher in
elementary school, where he abolished report cards and grades and encour-
aged children to work cooperatively. He was especially critical of textbooks,
which, in his view, led to mechanistic learning and favoured memorisation
over understanding.
Kilpatrick’s (1921) distinctive contribution to the idea of autonomy was

the ‘project method’. In the project method, students plan and execute
their own learning projects, which may be of four kinds: construction projects
involve the development of a theoretical plan and its execution (e.g. writing
and performing a drama); enjoyment projects are activities such as reading
a novel or seeing a film; problem projects require the students to resolve
an intellectual or social problem; and, lastly, specific learning projects involve
learning a skill such as swimming or writing. Like Dewey, Kilpatrick
believed that his methods lent themselves to group work, through which
students might acquire skills and attitudes needed for democratic social
participation. Legutke and Thomas (1991: 270) acknowledged Kilpatrick
as a source for their work on project learning and argued that project work
provides a principled and practicable route towards autonomy.
2.1.4 Paolo Freire
Paolo Freire
Born in 1921, Paolo Freire (1921–97) was exiled from Brazil following
the 1964 military coup for his educational work among the Brazilian poor. He
taught at Harvard University before returning to Brazil under a political amnesty
to be appointed as Minister for Education in Sao Paolo. His best-known work,
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, was published in English in 1970. A short critical
review of Freire’s contribution to educational thought, with a bibliography and
web links can be found on Mark K. Smith’s Informal Education Homepage.
<http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-freir.htm>
Freire’s early educational work in literacy programmes in Brazil com-

bined educational and political goals. He believed that authoritarian polit-
ical systems rested upon the depoliticising influence of mass education and
could be challenged through radical educational reform. Freire’s (1974: 3)
conception of learning was also based on a distinctive view of the human
condition:
To be human is to engage in relationships with others and with the world. It
is to experience that world as an objective reality, independent of oneself,
capable of being known.
Individuals thus realise their humanity by engaging with others in the
social process of knowing the world. For Freire, this should be a process
of ‘integration’ with, rather than ‘adaptation’ to, the world since it is the
exercise of our critical capacity to make choices and transform reality that
makes us truly human (Quote 2.4). Adaptation, according to Freire, is
a characteristic of the animal world and a symptom of dehumanisation
when exhibited by people. Quoting Simone Weil (1952), Freire (1974: 16)
argues that responsibility is a fundamental human need, and:
For this need to be satisfied it is necessary that a man should often have to
take decisions in matters great or small affecting interests that are distinct
from his own, but in regard to which he feels a personal concern.
This responsibility is acquired through reflection on experience and the
transformation of social reality. The idea of deep learning as the transfor-
mation of individuals and the social realities in which they live has been
developed in the context of adult self-directed learning by Mezirow (1991)
and is particularly relevant to approaches to autonomy in language learn-
ing that emphasise the purposes to which second language learning is put
(e.g. Kenny, 1993; Pennycook, 1997; Ramadevi, 1992).
Freire on transformative learning
Integration with one’s context, as distinguished from adaptation, is a distinc-

tively human activity. Integration results from the capacity to adapt oneself to
reality plus the critical capacity to make choices and to transform that reality.
To the extent that man loses his ability to make choices and is subjected to
the choices of others, to the extent that his decisions are no longer his own
because they result from external prescriptions, he is no longer integrated.
Rather, he has adapted.
Freire (1974: 4)
Freire’s methods aimed not at the acquisition of abilities that would later
enable the individual to become an autonomous member of society, but
at critical social participation within the process of education itself. They
centre on the identification and discussion of learning material based on
everyday social and political issues facing the learners. The contribution of
Freirean education theory to the theory of autonomy, however, lies mainly
in its emphasis on the need to address issues of power and control in the
classroom within broader social and political contexts.
According to Freire (1970), the ‘banking model’ of teaching and learn-
ing, in which knowledge is transmitted from teacher to learner, presupposes
that knowledge is neutral or objective. The goal of this model is the
assimilation of the learners into the logic of the dominant system, or their
‘domestication’. Freire argues that education ceases to be domesticating
when it begins to address the learner’s role in the social order. The role of
the teacher in Freirean pedagogy is thus to present knowledge in the form
of problems that engage students in dialogue and reflection, leading to the
analysis of their social realities for the purpose of transforming them.
Although Freire is often cited as a source for autonomy in language

learning, his ideas on the political character of education have exercised a
greater influence on critical language pedagogy (see, for example, Auerbach,
1995). Some writers on autonomy have, however, argued for the continuing
relevance of Freire’s ideas and for greater interaction between autonomy
and critical language pedagogy (Benson, 1996, 1997, 2000; Lamb, 2000;
Littlejohn, 1997).
2.1.5 Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich (1926–) was born in Vienna and moved to the USA in 1951. He
was co-founder of the Center for Intercultural Documentation in Cuernavaca,
Mexico, a centre for radical thought on technology and education in the
1970s. His best-known work is Deschooling Society, published in 1971. More
information on Illich, including links to his major works can be found at the
Ivan Illich Studies web site, maintained by the Department of Philosophy at
Pennsylvania State University.
<http://www.la.psu.edu/philo/illich/>
In his work on deschooling, Illich (1971) argued that schooling was not
only unnecessary and economically misguided, but also ‘anti-educational’.
As an alternative to schools, he discussed ‘the possible use of technology to
create institutions which serve personal, creative, and autonomous interac-
tion and the emergence of values which cannot be substantially controlled
by technocrats’ (p. 2). Although Illich saw the value of direct instruction in
certain circumstances, he argued that the belief that learning necessarily
involved teaching was misguided and only served to justify the existence of
schools. Illich (1971: 12–13) cited second language learning as an example
of ‘casual’ learning:
Most learning happens casually, and even most intentional learning is not the
result of programmed instruction. Normal children learn their first language
casually, although faster if their parents pay attention to them. Most people
who learn a second language well do so as a result of odd circumstances and
not of sequential teaching. They go to live with their grandparents, they
travel, or they fall in love with a foreigner.
Illich believed that schooling reduces learning to acquisition of the prefab-
ricated products of subject matters and ultimately deprives students of the
opportunity to learn (Quote 2.5). His main concern was to find alternatives
to schools rather than alternative methods of organising schooling. While
many researchers on autonomy in language learning would agree that

institutionalised learning tends to inhibit the development of autonomy,
they would also argue that much depends on the ways in which it is organ-
ised. Nevertheless, they would largely accept Illich’s critique of schooling,
which has been an important influence on the theory of autonomy.
Illich on the effects of schooling
School pretends to break learning up into subject ‘matters’, to build into the
pupil a curriculum made of these prefabricated blocks, and to gauge the result
on an international scale. People who submit to the standard of others for the
measure of their own personal growth soon apply the same ruler to them-
selves. They no longer have to be put in their place, but put themselves into
their assigned slots, squeeze themselves into the very niche which they have
been taught to seek, and, in the very process, put their fellows into their places
too, until everybody and everything fits.
People who have been schooled down to size let unmeasured experience
slip out of their hands. To them, what cannot be measured becomes sec-
ondary, threatening. They do not have to be robbed of their creativity. Under
instruction, they have unlearned to ‘do’ their thing or ‘be’ themselves, and
value only what has been made or could be made.
Illich (1971: 40)
Illich’s proposals for informal learning are often highly practical and
reflected in current educational practice. One proposal with particular
relevance to the twenty-first century is the idea of ‘learning webs’, or
networks that facilitate self-motivated learning outside the school system.
Illich proposed four kinds of network that would help learners define and
achieve their own goals: (1) reference services to educational objects, tools
and resources; (2) directories of individuals willing to share skills; (3) peer
matching, or communication networks for students to find partners for
similar learning projects; and (4) reference services to ‘educators-at-large’,
or experts willing to provide assistance or instruction. These proposals
take on a modern form in the use of the Internet to network learners across
classrooms, which Warschauer et al. (1996) have argued, empowers learners
and enhances autonomy.
2.1.6 Carl Rogers

Rogers’s (1969, 1983) ideas on teaching and learning derived from his work
in the field of humanistic psychology, which adopts Rousseau’s view that
people are basically good and focuses on what it means for normal and
healthy individuals to be fully human. Humanistic psychology conceives of
people as ‘self-actualising’ beings striving for health, individual identity

and integrity, and autonomy. Rogers also believed that people have a nat-
ural tendency towards exploration, growth and higher achievement.
Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers (1902–87) was born in Illinois and is best known as a psychologist
and founder of ‘client-centred’ therapy. In Freedom to Learn (1969) Rogers
reworked therapeutic notions of learning in the context of education. His ideas
on person-centred learning and teaching and the concept of teaching as facil-
itation have had a major influence in spite of criticisms of the individualism
implicit in Rogers’s educational thought.
For Rogers, effective learning arises from the uniquely individual

experiences of the learner and leads to a change in behaviour. The optimal
relationship in teaching is therefore one in which the teacher adopts
a non-judgemental, facilitating role in helping the learner achieve self-
actualisation and intervenes as little as possible in the natural development of
the person (Quote 2.6). Humanistic psychology was especially influential
in shaping thinking on self-direction in North American adult education
in the 1970s. Although its major impact on language education has been in
the field of humanistic language teaching (Stevick, 1990), humanistic psy-
chology has also influenced the theory of autonomy in language learning
(Broady and Kenning, 1996; Little, 1991). The emphasis on the uniqueness
of individual learning in humanistic psychology has also led to criticism,
however. Candy (1991: 42), for example, described humanistic psychology
as being concerned with the ‘essential aloneness of the individual’ arguing
that adult education risked losing sight of interdependence in adult learn-
ing. Outside the field of self-directed learning, however, Rogers’s major
contribution lies in his reconceptualisation of the role of the teacher. His
notion of the teacher as facilitator is central to classroom-based approaches
to autonomy in language learning.
Rogers on facilitation
Suppose I had a magic wand that could produce only one change in our edu-
cational systems. What would that change be?
I finally decided that my imaginary wand, with one sweep, would cause
every teacher at every level to forget that he or she is a teacher. You would all
develop a complete amnesia for the teaching skills you have painstakingly
acquired over the years. You would find that you were absolutely unable to
teach. . . .
Traditional teaching, no matter how disguised, is based essentially on the

mug-and-jug theory. The teacher asks himself, ‘How can I make the mug hold
still while I fill it from the jug with these facts which the curriculum planners
and I regard as valuable?’ The attitude of the facilitator has almost entirely to do
with climate, ‘How can I create a psychological climate in which the child will
feel free to be curious, will feel free to make mistakes, will feel free to learn from
the environment, from fellow students, from me, from experience? How can
I help him recapture the excitement of learning that was natural in infancy?’
Rogers (1983: 135–6)
2.2 Adult education

The most immediate influence on the early theory and practice of auton-
omy in language learning came from research and practice in the field of
adult self-directed learning. Candy (1991) traces interest in self-directed
learning to nineteenth-century concerns with self-improvement and self-
education. For many involved in the field, modern adult education emerges
from this tradition, and self-directed learning is its characteristic form.
In the early 1960s, adult educators began to study the learning habits of
individuals engaged in informal self-instruction and in the 1970s and 1980s
numerous studies were published on the nature of self-directed learning.
The focus in the literature on adult self-directed learning tends to fall
on the processes involved in learning outside the context of formal education.
Thus Knowles (1975: 18), a leading figure in adult education, defines
self-directed learning as follows:
In its broadest meaning, ‘self-directed learning’ describes a process in which
individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others, in diagnos-
ing their learning needs, formulating learning goals, identifying human and
material resources for learning, choosing and implementing appropriate
learning strategies, and evaluating learning outcomes.
In later literature, however, researchers began to consider self-directed learn-
ing as an umbrella concept embracing both self-instructional processes and
the psychological characteristics of the learner that support them. Brockett
and Hiemstra (1991: 24), for example, refer to ‘learner self-direction’ as
a dimension of self-directed learning that centres on ‘a learner’s desire
or preference for assuming responsibility for learning’. Similarly, Candy
(1991: 22–3) argued that self-direction encompassed personal autonomy,
self-management, learner-control and self-instruction. Candy’s multidi-
mensional view of self-direction has much in common with the idea of
autonomy as it has developed within the field of language education
(Concept 2.1).
Concept 2.1 Autonomy and self-directed learning

The distinction between autonomy and self-directed learning is often the
object of some confusion arising from differences in the use of these terms in
the fields of adult education and language learning.
In North American adult education, self-directed learning defines a broad
field of inquiry into the processes of non-institutional learning. Self-direction
tends to refer to the learner’s global capacity to carry out such learning
effectively, while autonomy often refers to the particular personal or moral
qualities associated with this capacity.
In the field of language learning, it is autonomy that defines both the broad
field of inquiry and the global capacity to exercise control over one’s learning.
Self-directed learning tends to refer simply to learning that is carried out
under the learner’s own direction, rather than under the direction of others.
Perhaps the most important distinction to be made in the field of language
learning is between autonomy as an attribute of the learner and self-directed
learning as a mode of learning, in which the learner makes the important
decisions about content, methods and evaluation. Autonomy can be considered
as a capacity that learners possess to various degrees. Self-directed learning
can be considered as something that learners are able to do more or less
effectively, according to the degree that they possess this capacity.
Much of the research on adult self-directed learning is concerned with

the ways in which institutionalised adult education can support self-
directed learners and enhance their self-direction. Ideas from the field of
adult self-directed learning have thus exercised a strong influence on
approaches to autonomy in language learning in contexts where adult
learners are studying languages largely of their own volition. The idea of
the self-access language-learning centre, for example, originally developed
as a resource for adult and university level learners who were not enrolled
on classroom-based courses. Ideas from the field of adult learning can be
problematic, however, when applied to contexts in which students study
foreign languages as part of a formal course of learning, especially if they
lack the strong motivation to learn that is often assumed to be characteris-
tic of adult self-directed learners. As the idea of fostering autonomy has
spread within the field of language education, therefore, the influence of
ideas from the field of adult education has tended to become weaker.
The practice of adult self-directed learning has also been subject to criti-
cism from within the field itself. Writing in the 1990s, Brookfield (1993:
228), a leading advocate of self-directed learning in the 1980s, argued that
adult self-directed learning had ceased to be ‘a challenge to institutional
adult educational provision’ and had instead become ‘technocratic and
accommodative’. Approaches based on Rogerian humanistic psychology
have also been charged with encouraging individualism in learning. In the

1990s, critical approaches to self-directed learning were developed, which
emphasised collaboration and learner control over resources and institu-
tional contexts of learning (Brookfield, 1993; Garrison, 1992; Hammond
and Collins, 1991; Mezirow et al., 1990). Interest in self-directed learning
has recently been pursued through three main channels. The annual Inter-
national Self-directed Learning Symposium, held for the 24th year in 2010,
was founded by Huey Long and led to the establishment of the Interna-
tional Journal of Self-directed Learning in 2004 (Chapter 18.3). There has
also been interest in self-directed learning in work on ‘informal education’
(Bekerman, Burbules and Silberman-Keller, 2006) and ‘new literacies’
(Knobel and Lankshear, 2007). While work in these fields has not had a
great deal of impact on research in autonomy in language learning to date,
there is much to be learned from them, particularly in respect to the role
of out-of-school learning in the development of autonomy.
2.3 The psychology of learning

2.3.1 Constructivist theories of learning
Candy (1991: 252) describes constructivism as a cluster of approaches,
which hold that ‘knowledge cannot be taught but must be constructed by
the learner’. This view of learning is implicit in the thought of Rousseau,
Dewey, Kilpatrick, Freire, Illich and Rogers and has now been systematic-
ally developed in the literature on the psychology of learning (Concept 2.2).
In the 1980s and 1990s, research on autonomy in language learning drew
freely on the constructivist tradition, and especially on work by Kelly,
Barnes, Kolb and Vygotsky.
Concept 2.2 Constructivist theories of learning

The term constructivism has been applied to a variety of theoretical
approaches to the psychology of learning that share the underlying assump-
tion that knowledge is produced through socially-mediated interpretative
processes. Paris and Byrnes (1989: 170) distinguish constructivist approaches
from structuralist and empiricist approaches. While structuralist approaches
emphasise ‘innate categories of knowing and concepts that are imposed by
individuals on the world’, empiricist approaches emphasise ‘how experiences
imprint the structure of the world into the minds of individuals’. In contrast,
constructivist approaches ‘describe how people transform and organise real-
ity according to common intellectual principles as a result of interactions
with the environment’.
Constructivist approaches to the psychology of learning provide strong

support for the contention that effective learning begins from the learner’s
active participation in learning. If knowledge is constructed uniquely within
each individual through social interaction, it follows that learning will be
most effective when learners are fully involved in decisions about the content
and processes of learning.
George Kelly’s (1963) personal construct theory, developed within the

field of psychology, was an important early influence on the theory of
autonomy in learning. Kelly’s psychology views human thought as a pro-
cess of hypothesis testing and theory building involving the continual
development and revision of constructs, or meanings attached to objects or
events, in the light of new experience (Quote 2.7). Personal constructs are
derived from shared assumptions and values, but systems of constructs are
unique to the individual because they are shaped through attempts to make
sense of experiences that are uniquely one’s own. Personal construct sys-
tems are also developed over long periods of time and lead us to function
in terms of plans based on expectations of future events.
Kelly on personal constructs
People look at their world through transparent templets which they create and
then attempt to fit over the realities of which the world is composed. The fit
is not always very good. Yet without such patterns, the world appears to be
such an undifferentiated homogeneity that people are unable to make any
sense out of it. Even a poor fit is more helpful than nothing at all.
Kelly (1955: 8–9)
Applied to learning, personal construct theory holds that individual

learners bring their own systems of constructs to bear on learning tasks.
When learning is a matter of adding information to an existing construct,
it is likely to be relatively unproblematic. When new knowledge contradicts
existing construct systems, learning is likely to be more difficult and resis-
tance may be encountered. Both in therapy and in education, resistance is
overcome by helping individuals to become more aware of their existing
personal construct systems and gradually to assume control of their psy-
chological processes. In education, this means helping learners to become
more aware of their assumptions about learning and to assume control of
their own learning processes. It is acknowledged that these processes can
be arduous and disorienting for the learner, both cognitively and emotion-
ally, and that they are not easily implemented where learners are not fully
motivated to change.
Little (1991) argues that the relevance of personal construct theory to

the theory of autonomy in learning is twofold. First, it provides a
justification for the promotion of autonomy in terms of the operation of
normal psychological processes. Second, it highlights, rather than con-
ceals, the difficulties involved in the process of fostering autonomy. Little
(1991: 21) argues that:
. . . it is a common experience that attempts to make learners conscious of the
demands of a learning task and the techniques with which they might
approach it, lead in the first instance to disorientation and a sense that learn-
ing has become less rather than more purposeful and efficient. However,
when the process is successful, it brings rich rewards.
He also argues that in the process of assisting learners to become more
autonomous in their learning, teachers must pay attention to their own
personal constructs, or ‘the assumptions, values and prejudices which
determine their classroom behaviour’ (p. 22).
Douglas Barnes’s (1976) critique of the school curriculum is often
quoted in the literature on autonomy in language learning. His distinction
between ‘school knowledge’ and ‘action knowledge’ entails a hypothesis
about the value of different kinds of learning. School knowledge, or know-
ledge presented and retained in abstract decontextualised form, remains
someone else’s knowledge and is easily forgotten. Action knowledge, or
knowledge that is integrated into the learner’s view of the world, becomes
the learner’s own knowledge and forms the basis of the learner’s actions
and way of living. The distinction also entails a hypothesis about teaching
and learning. Action knowledge cannot be transmitted from teachers to
learners. It can only be acquired through active involvement in learning.
In Barnes’s model, teaching is therefore more a matter of communication
than of instruction.
Barnes on school knowledge and action knowledge
School knowledge is the knowledge which someone else presents to us.

We partly grasp it, enough to answer the teacher’s questions, to do exercises,
or to answer examination questions, but it remains someone else’s know-
ledge, not ours. If we never use this knowledge we probably forget it. In so far
as we use knowledge for our own purposes, however, we begin to incor-
porate it into our view of the world, and to use parts of it to cope with the
exigencies of living. Once the knowledge becomes incorporated into that view
of the world on which our actions are based I would say that it has become
‘action knowledge’.
Barnes (1976: 81)
David Kolb (1984) has developed a model of learning, known as experi-

ential learning, based on the work of Dewey, Kelly, Rogers and others, which
has influenced the theory of autonomy in language learning primarily
through the work of Kohonen and his collaborators in Finland (Kohonen,
1992; Kohonen et al., 2000). In experiential learning, the learner’s imme-
diate experience is taken as the focus of learning, giving ‘life, texture, and
subjective personal meaning to abstract concepts and at the same time pro-
viding a concrete reference point for testing the implications and validity
of ideas created during the learning process’ (Kolb, 1984: 21). Especially
important in experiential learning is the notion of learning as a cyclical
process that integrates immediate experience, reflection, abstract concep-
tualisation and action. Within this cycle, reflection is viewed as the bridge
between experience and theoretical conceptualisation. The experiential
model thus proposes a methodology to help learners to integrate know-
ledge into their own systems of meaning and take control of their own
learning. The methodology emphasises the importance of reflection and is
both collaborative and transformative.
Lev Vygotsky
Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) is best known for his attempts to elaborate a Marxist
psychology in collaboration with Leontiev and Luria. Following his death from
tuberculosis at an early age, Vygotsky’s theories were repudiated in Stalinist
Russia and his major works were not translated into English until the 1960s.
Vygotskyan theories of developmental psychology have recently acquired
renewed importance in the fields of educational psychology and first and
second language acquisition, in which they often come under the heading
of ‘sociocultural theory’ (Chapter 2.3.4).
In his work on developmental psychology, Lev Vygotsky assumed that

learning begins from the starting point of the child’s existing knowledge
and experience and develops through social interaction. This assumption
was made explicit in Vygotsky’s (1978: 86) idea of the ‘Zone of Proximal
Development’, which he defined as:
. . . the distance between the actual development level as determined by
independent problem solving and the level of potential development as
determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collabora-
tion with more capable peers.
According to Vygotsky, under guidance from adults or more experienced
peers, children internalise meanings acquired through linguistic interac-
tion as the directive communicative speech of others is transformed into
self-directive inner speech. Vygotsky’s view of learning is distinguished
from that of others within the constructivist tradition mainly by its

emphasis on the importance of social interaction. His influence on the
theory of autonomy in language learning is relatively recent, and lies
mainly in the support it offers to the idea of collaboration as a key factor
in the development of autonomy (Quote 2.9).
Little on Vygotsky, group work and autonomy
The chief argument in favour of group work as a means of developing learner

autonomy is Vygotskyan in origin: collaboration between two or more learners
on a constructive task can only be achieved by externalizing, and thus making
explicit, processes of analysis, planning and synthesis that remain largely inter-
nal, and perhaps also largely implicit, when the task is performed by a learner
working alone.
Little (1996: 214)
An element within Vygotsky’s thought that has yet to be fully explored

in the context of autonomy in language learning is the notion of self-
directive inner speech. According to Rohrkemper (1989: 145–6):
After repeated exposure to word meanings by other persons in their social/
instructional environments, children subsequently become able to expose
themselves to word meanings and thereby direct their own behaviour. . . . The
developmental sequence of the two functions of language, communication
with others and self-direction, is from social or interpersonal to self-directive
or intrapersonal. The implications of this progression are critical. Not only
does language acquire two distinct functions, but the source of self-directive
inner speech is the social environment.
From a Vygotskyan perspective, therefore, self-direction is a function of
inner speech, which is both social in origin and mediated through lan-
guage. The notion of inner speech may therefore help us to understand
how reflection functions as a bridge between social interaction in learning
and self-direction.
It should be acknowledged that in its early development, the theory of
autonomy in language learning lacked strong support from within the
psychology of learning for the efficacy of its claims concerning the value of
self-directed learning. Constructivist and Vygotskyan theory entered the
field of autonomy in the 1990s primarily through the work of David Little.
The key idea that autonomy in language learning has borrowed from these
approaches is the idea that effective learning is ‘active’ learning. According
to Wang and Peverly (1986: 383):
Effective learners are characterised in the research literature as being cogni-
tively and affectively active in the learning process. They are seen as being
capable of learning independently and deliberately through identification,

formulation and restructuring of goals; use of strategy planning; develop-
ment and execution of plans; and engagement of self-monitoring.
If learning is a matter of the construction of knowledge, effective learners
must be cognitively capable of performing actions that enable them to
control their learning. Similarly, the capacity to manage one’s own learn-
ing activities must be grounded in certain cognitive capacities intrinsic to
the process of learning. The importance of this hypothesis to the theory
of autonomy is evidenced in Little’s (1994: 431) claim that ‘all genuinely
successful learning is in the end autonomous’.
2.3.2 Self-regulated learning

Self-regulation is a term used by a loosely affiliated group of North
American educational psychologists whose work has been published in
several collections by Dale Schunk and Barry Zimmerman (Schunk and
Zimmerman, 1994, 1998; Zimmerman and Schunk, 1989). These resear-
chers have been particularly interested in the social, psychological and
behavourial characteristics that contribute to academic success, especially
among socially and educationally disadvantaged students (Quote 2.10).
Zimmerman (1998) defines self-regulation as ‘the self-directive process
through which learners transform their mental abilities into academic
skills’. Research on self-regulated learning has been conducted from a
range of perspectives within the constructivist tradition, with a particular
emphasis on cognitive aspects of school learning.
Zimmerman on self-regulation
There are many biographies of inspiring figures, such as Benjamin Franklin,

Abraham Lincoln, and George Washington Carver, who despite humble origins
and limited access to high-quality instruction, educated themselves through
reading, studying, and self-disciplined practice. Contemporary accounts of less
famous but similarly dedicated learners continue to reveal the benefits of
academic self-regulation, such as recent immigrant groups from Indochina . . .
These Asian youngsters have succeeded academically despite many disadvan-
tages, such as a lack of fluency in English, poorly educated parents, and
attending inner city schools with few resources and large numbers of low-
achieving classmates. Self-regulated learners, whether historic or contemporary,
are distinguished by their view of academic learning as something they do for
themselves rather than as something that is done to or for them.
Zimmerman (1998: 1)
Zimmerman (1998) has identified processes associated with self-

regulation within learning cycles consisting of three phases: forethought,
performance or volitional control, and self-reflection. He argues that all
learners try to self-regulate their learning, but some are more successful
than others. He also observes that self-regulation is unlikely to be the out-
come of formal instruction and that the two most important factors in its
development appear to be the influence of adults and peers, and rehearsal
and practice. Optimal self-regulatory development, according to
Zimmerman, ‘appears to take root in socially supportive environments that
provide extensive opportunities for self-directed practice’ (p. 11).
The concept of self-regulation is somewhat narrower than the concept
of autonomy and it has exercised a stronger influence on North American
research on learning strategies than it has on the theory of auton-
omy. However, the literature on self-regulation is a potentially rich source
of insights into the cognitive aspects of control over learning which
deserves to be explored more fully in the literature on autonomy in
language learning. It is also a source of interesting insights on the role
of family, teacher and peer support in the development of autonomy
(Strage, 1998).
2.3.3 Self-organised learning

Strongly influenced by the work of George Kelly, psychologists Sheila
Harri-Augstein and Laurie Thomas (1991) have developed an approach
to the development of self-organised learning known as the ‘learning
conversation’. Their methodology depends upon a battery of training
instruments and techniques that have been used in numerous workshops in
the professional and educational fields. Among those acknowledged for
their participation in these workshops is Philip Riley of CRAPEL for his
‘keen interest in “Learning Conversations” as a method for adults learning
a foreign language’.
Harri-Augstein and Thomas (1991: 27) define self-organised learning
as ‘the conversational construction, reconstruction and exchange of
personally significant, relevant and viable meanings with awareness and
controlled purposiveness’. The learning conversation is essentially a struc-
tured approach to training built around reflection on learning experiences
(Quote 2.11). It is designed to enable learners to work out their own
theories about themselves as learners and act as their own ‘personal scien-
tists’ in testing and revising them. According to Harri-Augstein and
Thomas, the learning conversation ‘enables the learner to challenge his or
her personal myths about themselves as learner and to convert these into
a viable, systematically validated set of myths that warrant the title “personal
theory” ’ (p. 27).
Harri-Augstein and Thomas on learning conversations
Personally significant and valued learning through experience is not imposed

by Skinnerian conditioning, nor is it achieved by inventing any reality we
choose. It is achieved by exercising the freedom to learn in ‘conversational
encounters’ which are valued by using criteria which arise from within the
experience itself. Thus, we do not necessarily learn from life’s experiences,
only through awareness, reflection and review of such encounters from within
a conscious system of personal beliefs, values, needs and purposes. This is a
highly skilled activity. Each of our clients, including ourselves, came to value
these learning experiences more fully after being ‘talked back’ through the
experience and then systematically helped to reflect upon it.
Harri-Augstein and Thomas (1991: 9)
Perhaps the most important contribution of the learning conversation

approach to the theory of autonomy in language learning has been a recog-
nition that the cognitive and affective processes by which learners move
towards autonomy are both complex and difficult. Citing Thomas and
Harri-Augstein (1990), Little (1991: 21) notes that ‘the crucial trigger to
total self-organization in learning’ occurs at a stage of reflection at which
the focus of attention shifts to the process of learning itself. Thomas and
Harri-Augstein observe that most learners find it difficult to attain this
stage on their own without professional assistance. This suggests that
autonomy in language learning is unlikely to develop simply through the
practice of self-directed learning in the absence of dialogue and the skilled
assistance of teachers.
2.3.4 Social approaches to learning theory

Over the last decade or so, there has been a significant shift in research
towards ‘social’ accounts of language learning and use (Lantolf and
Poehner, 2008; Lantolf and Thorne, 2006; Norton and Toohey, 2004).
This ‘social turn’ (Block, 2003) has drawn on several socially-oriented
approaches to learning theory, which have also prompted reconsideration
of the relationship between the social and individual dimensions of auton-
omy. Oxford (2003), for example, developed a model of autonomy that
included two ‘sociocultural perspectives’: the first referring to Vygotskyan
approaches and the second to ‘situated learning’ theory (Lave and Wenger,
1991; Wenger, 1998). According to Oxford (2003: 87), these perspectives
emphasise ‘the context of autonomy rather than the individual exercising it’:
they point, in other words, to the ways in which learner autonomy is socially
conditioned and constrained. However, there are also two important
constructs in this work that deserve attention because they appear to be

particularly close to autonomy: ‘agency’ as a factor in the learning process
and ‘identity’ as one of its more important outcomes.
Lantolf and Thorne on agency and language learning
[L]earning a language is necessarily the action of an intentional agent. For this

reason alone, we do not subscribe to the search for causes of learning, as
these have generally been understood in the SLA literature; rather, our search
is for reasons that people learn or do not learn additional languages. . . .
Agency, as we construe it, is about more than voluntary control over
behaviour, although to be sure this is a critical component of what it means
to be an agent. The concept also entails the ability to assign relevance and
significance to things and events.
Lantolf and Thorne (2006: 142–3)
The construct of agency has mainly been developed within the field of
‘sociocultural theory’, a body of research based on Vygotskyan theories of
the development of higher mental functions, which has also incorporated
Leontiev’s ‘activity theory’ (Engeström, Miettinen and Punamaki, 1999),
insights from situated learning theory, and constructs such as ‘voice’
(Bakhtin, 1981), ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1977) and ‘imagined
communities’ (Anderson, 1983). In their sociocultural critique of second
language acquisition theory, Lantolf and Pavlenko (2001: 145) proposed
that learners should be viewed not as ‘processing devices’, but as ‘people’,
or ‘agents’ who ‘actively engage in constructing the terms and conditions
of their own learning’. In a later account, Lantolf and Thorne (2006: 142)
based their interest in agency on activity theory and its emphasis on
goal-directed activity, which leads to the view that ‘learning a language is
necessarily the action of an intentional agent’ (Quote 2.12). They stress,
however, that agency is not a ‘property’ of individuals, but relational –
‘a culturally (in)formed attribute whose development is shaped by participa-
tion in specific communities of practice’ (p. 239). They also stress that
agency ‘does not equate to free will or ultimate control of one’s actions or
destiny’ (p. 237) and that it is ‘always and everywhere constrained by social
groupings, material and symbolic resources, situational contingencies, an
individual or group’s capabilities, and so on’ (p. 238). At the same time,
Lantolf and Thorne view agency as mutable and suggest that, in addition
to achieving linguistic outcomes, language education should ensure that
‘each outcome of a local action and operation should enhance an individual’s
sense of agency’ (pp. 239–40). In this respect, they argue, activity theory
shares with critical pedagogy an aspiration ‘to not only further a subject’s
developing expertise at the level of communicative performance, but also

to support continued development as a person’ (p. 240).
Situated learning theory, or more specifically the theory of learning as
‘legitimate peripheral participation’ in ‘communities of practice’, was
developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger as a general theory of learn-
ing based on anthropological observations of apprenticeship systems.
While Lave and Wenger (1991) focused on learning as participation,
Wenger (1998) examined communities of practice in greater depth, invok-
ing Benedict Anderson’s (1983) notion of ‘imagined communities’ to
describe communities beyond the immediate face-to-face relationships in
focus in apprenticeship research. Situated learning theory is essentially an
‘out-of-school’ learning theory. Lave and Wenger (1991: 39–40) argued
that issues of learning and schooling had become ‘too deeply interrelated
in our culture in general’ and that schooling was ‘predicated on claims that
knowledge can be decontextualized’ (Concept 2.3). Arguing that valuable
knowledge is always contextualised, they suggested that learning should be
conceptualised as ‘the process of becoming a full participant in a sociocul-
tural practice’ and that ‘this social process includes, indeed it subsumes, the
learning of knowledgeable skills’ (p. 29). From this perspective, learning
both ‘implies becoming a different person’ with respect to the relations
within communities of practice and ‘involves the construction of identi-
ties’. It is, they argue, ‘not merely a condition for membership, but is itself
an evolving form of membership’ (p. 53).
Concept 2.3 Schooling and identity

Although Lave and Wenger (1991: 39) suggested that situated learning
theory had avoided, rather than confronted, the problem of accounting for
schools as communities of practice, the following discussion, which appears
towards the end of the book, indicates that the theory was clearly intended
as a critique of conventional schooling.
When the process of increasing participation is not the primary motivation for
learning, it is often because ‘didactic caretakers’ assume responsibility for
motivating newcomers. In such circumstances, the focus of attention shifts from
co-participating in practice to acting upon the person-to-be-changed. Such a
shift is typical of situations, such as schooling, in which pedagogically struc-
tured content organizes learning activities. Overlooking the importance of
legitimate participation by newcomers in the target practice has two related
consequences. First, the identity of learners becomes an explicit object of
change. When central participation is the subjective intention motivating learn-
ing, changes in cultural identity and social relations are inevitably part of the
process, but learning does not have to be mediated – and distorted – through
a learner’s view of ‘self ’ as object. Second, where there is no cultural identity
encompassing the activity in which newcomers participate and no field of
mature practice for what is being learned, exchange value replaces the use value
of increasing participation. The commoditization of learning engenders a fun-

damental contradiction between the use and exchange values of the outcome
of learning, which manifests itself in conflicts between learning to know and
learning to display knowledge for evaluation . . . Test taking then becomes
a new parasitic practice, the goal of which is to increase the exchange value
of learning independently of its use value.
Lave and Wenger (1991: 112)
Social theories of learning have most influenced research that has

focused on the development of autonomy in the context of learners’ lives.
In a field that has largely been concerned with experimental arrangements
for language learning inside and outside the classroom, qualitative research
addressing learners’ longer-term experiences of language learning is a
relatively new departure. Within this research, sociocultural approaches
have the potential to provide valuable perspectives on the development
of autonomy. Van Lier (2008: 177), for example, offers a socioculturally
inspired view of language learning as ‘the process of finding one’s way in
the linguistic world, which is part of the semiotic world (i.e., the world of
sign making and using) and taking an increasingly active role in develop-
ing one’s own constitutive role in it’. In many ways, he argues, ‘L2 devel-
opment is the development of agency through the L2 (or the enactment of
an L2 identity)’ (p. 178). This perspective has much in common with views
developed in recent narrative studies of relationships between autonomy
and identity within language learning careers (Benson, Chik and Lim,
2003; Cotterall, 2005; Malcolm, 2005; Sakui, 2002). One of the more
important themes to emerge from these studies is the extent to which the
learner autonomy, personal autonomy and the construction of multilingual
identities are interwoven in experiences of language learning (Quote 2.13).
Lim on autonomy and agency in language learning
I now realize that being a successful and confident language user means more
than being in the right environment. It means being willing and able to try to
construct a new identity and to be able to look at target and native cultures
with different eyes. Being autonomous in language learning involves creating
a new identity that is, at the same time, part of and apart from the original.
Hye-on Lim in Benson, Chik and Lim (2003: 36)
At the same time, researchers who adopt sociocultural perspectives have

begun to make connections with research on autonomy (Norton and
Toohey, 2004; Toohey, 2007; van Lier, 2007, 2008), although to date this
work seems to have been characterised by reluctance to engage with new
ways of theorising autonomy in language education. Toohey (2007: 240),

writes that she is resistant to the idea of learner autonomy because she
finds ‘the notion of an autonomous, individual self ’ unhelpful. Instead, she
is ‘more attracted to theoretical perspectives that see individuals as socially
constrained but also agentive subjects’. The assumption here seems to be
that there is an inherent implication of individualism and voluntarism
in the construct of autonomy and a corresponding implication of social
mediation and constraint in the construct of agency.
One problem with representations of agency in sociocultural theory,
however, is that the scope of the concept is often rather difficult to pin
down. At times, it seems to refer simply to action in the broadest sense of
the term, as in Ahearn’s (2001: 112) often-quoted definition of agency as
‘the socioculturally mediated capacity to act’. At others it seems to refer
more narrowly to self-controlled, goal-directed behaviour, as in Lantolf
and Pavlenko’s (2001: 145) reference to learners as agents who ‘actively
engage in constructing the terms and conditions of their own learning’ or
van Lier’s (2007: 47) reference to learners as ‘agents of their own educa-
tional destiny’. In artificial intelligence research, a distinction is made
between agency and autonomy based on the source of goals: ‘autonomous
agents possess goals which are generated from within rather than adopted
from other agents’ (Luck and d’Inverno, 1995: 258). This hierarchical
distinction is useful in conceptualising the competencies of software
agents: agents ‘adopt the goals of the users in the tasks they perform’, while
autonomous agents have the ability to ‘function independently of those
users, and to modify their goals in relation to circumstances’ (p. 260).
Whether a similar hierarchical distinction can be made between agency
and autonomy in learning behaviour is a moot point. It seems important
to recognise, however, if such a distinction is to be made, it should be
made on the understanding that both agency and autonomy are socially-
mediated and constrained.
2.4 The philosophy of personal autonomy

No matter how they are defined, autonomy and agency are both funda-
mentally concerned with the role of individuality in social life and, as we
saw in Chapter 1.6, debates over the role of autonomy in language educa-
tion are often situated within a much broader climate of interest in the role
of the individual in modern social, cultural and economic life. These issues
have been discussed at their most general level in the field of philosophy,
in which there has recently been an upsurge of interest in personal
autonomy. The idea of personal autonomy is rooted in eighteenth and
nineteenth-century European philosophy, especially in the work of
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) (Concept

2.4). The idea of autonomy as a broad educational value derives from this
work and, in particular, from Kant’s ideal of a society of self-governing
individuals and Mill’s ideal of a society based on mutual respect for
individual freedom. In order to make sense of the relationship between
educational and personal autonomy in a modern context, however, it seems
important to recognise that philosophical interest in personal autonomy
has never been as intense as it has been over the past 20 years or so (for
an overview of recent work, see Buss, 2007; Carter, 2007). In this section,
I will focus on two issues that have particular implications for language
teaching and learning: post-modern views of the self and the relationship
between learner autonomy and personal autonomy.
Concept 2.4 The etymology of autonomy

The English word autonomy is etymologically derived from Ancient Greek,
where it referred to the political status of conquered cities that were governed
according to their own laws rather than those of the conquering power. The
first known record comes in 1623 in Henry Cockeram’s English Dictionarie:
or an Interpreter of Hard English Words, where it is defined as the ‘liberty to
live after one’s own law’. Autonomy appeared first as a political concept,
applied to states or institutions, in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Europe
and only later as a philosophical concept applied to individuals. From Kant’s
conception of personal autonomy modern philosophy has inherited the idea
that individuals should be treated as ‘ends’ in themselves, and never as
‘means’ towards other ends. Modern concepts of personal autonomy also draw
on the nineteenth-century philosophy of John Stuart Mill, who used the
term ‘sovereignty’ rather than ‘autonomy’, and his principle that individuals
should be free to act as they wish, so long as their actions do not cause harm
to others.
According to the online Kerneman English Multilingual Dictionary, there are
cognate forms of autonomy in at least 20 European languages: autonomie in
French, Czech, Dutch and Romanian, autonomia in Italian, Polish, Portuguese
and Finnish, avtonomija in Slovenian, autonoomia in Estonian, and so on. The
range of senses covered by each of these cognates differs from language to
language. In French, for example, autonomie can refer to the distance a vehicle
can travel with a full tank of petrol or the battery life of a laptop computer,
a sense that the English autonomy does not have. Autonomy does not translate
so readily into non-European languages, however. Using the traditional
Chinese script used in Hong Kong, Kerneman translates autonomy as ,
or literally ‘the right to self-government’. This is, for example, the word that
is used to refer to the ‘high degree of autonomy’ that Hong Kong currently
enjoys as a Special Administrative Region under Chinese sovereignty. But in
Chinese translations of work on autonomy in language learning the word
is used, which literally means ‘self-learning’ or ‘self-study’.
2.4.1 The post-modern self

According to Raz (1986: 369), autonomy ‘transcends the conceptual point
that personal well-being is partly determined by success in willingly
endorsed pursuits and holds the free choice of goals and relations as an
essential ingredient of individual well-being’. People value personal auton-
omy for its own sake and, for this reason, it is not simply instrumental in
the achievement of well-being, but an aspect of well-being deserving of
protection in its own right. For Young (1986: 81), ‘in exercising autonomy,
we shape our own lives, an engagement valuable in itself ’. Many philoso-
phers hold that the protection of personal autonomy is the fundamental
basis of human rights: without autonomy our lives are less than human.
It is also worth noting that in modern liberal-humanist formulations,
personal autonomy has little to do with the Christian notion of ‘free will’
and has a strongly social character (Quote 2.14). At the same time, it is
rooted in a strong conception of a coherent individual self that has been
challenged from a number of directions.
Raz on personal autonomy
Autonomy is not the natural state that individuals are in when left to exercise
free choice. The ideal of individual autonomy is actually a strong theory of the
good – that the good life is one in which individuals are the authors of their
own lives. Autonomy is socially defined in that the goals, preferences, and
values of individuals, in sum the meanings of individual activities, are derived
from the shared social matrix. Meaningful autonomy requires the existence of
various social goods which the State has the duty to provide and which the
citizens have duties to provide to one another.
Raz (1986: 83)
Atkins’s (2005) reader provides a useful introduction to European

Enlightenment philosophies of the individual self and their post-modern
critics. Here, I want to highlight two major critiques that have come from
the perspectives of globalisation theory and feminism. Gergen’s (1991)
work on the psychology of personal identity argues that the rapid increase
in the number of direct and indirect relationships among individuals under
globalisation has resulted in ‘social saturation’, or the ‘population of the
self ’ with the views and orientations of others. The individual self becomes
multi-layered and characterised by a polyphony of inner voices, imaginary
relationships and internal dialogues to the point where ‘the fully saturated
self becomes no self at all’ (Gergen 1991: 7). Butler’s (1990: 16) feminist
perspective also problematises ‘the presumption that identities are self-
identical, persisting through time as the same, unified and internally
coherent’. Recent feminist work on autonomy has, however, been far more
concerned with the ways in which the supposed attributes of the
autonomous individual are linked to male values of independence, self-
sufficiency and separation from others to the neglect of female values of
dependence and care. Mackenzie and Stoljar (2000: 7), for example,
suggest that the problem with the philosophy of autonomy lies in ‘the
prescriptive conclusion that the goal of human life is the realization of
self-sufficiency and individuality’.
Mackenzie and Stoljar also argue that feminist critiques have never
rejected the concept of autonomy outright, which holds out the possibility
of a refigured conception of autonomy as a ‘relational’ construct. From this
perspective, ‘political autonomy’, based on public freedoms and rights,
receives less emphasis than ‘personal autonomy’, which involves more
private deliberations, decisions and actions. A focus on the private, or per-
sonal, domain leads to an emphasis on ‘autonomy competencies’ (Meyers,
1989) and the ways in which oppressive socialisation may impede their
development. Mackenzie (2000: 144) also emphasises the role of imagin-
ation in the development of self-conceptions guided by critical reflection
on what matters to oneself, and the ways in which the ‘cultural imaginary’,
or the images available in a society for identity work, may impair women’s
abilities to ‘imagine themselves otherwise’.
In a response to Gergen’s (1991) view, Straub et al. (2005: 326) have also
attempted to dissociate autonomy from the ‘substantive’, self-contained
individual, arguing that autonomy is necessarily constrained in modern
societies: ‘At best, there is autonomy for people whose personal and
biographical development is determined by countless contingencies’. But
in contrast to Gergen, they argue that, in the face of the fragmentation of
identity, ‘self-determined intentions, decisions and action presuppose
“knowledge” of who one is (has become) and who one wants to be’ (p. 330).
Because this knowledge is primarily constructed through self-narratives,
they argue, a post-modern theory of autonomous personality depends
upon a theory of narrative identity. From this perspective, autonomy is not
grounded in substantive individual identities, but in identities that become
individual over time through the treatment of the self as a theme in life and
the construction of narratives of its development.
2.4.2 Personal autonomy and learner autonomy

Although there are few formal references to the philosophy of autonomy
in the literature on educational autonomy, it is clear that the liberal-
humanist conception of personal autonomy has provided a strong implicit
model for representations of learner autonomy. The development of
personal autonomy has also been a long-held goal of liberal education
systems, but as Boud (1988: 20) points out, ‘as long as autonomy remains
an abstract concept divorced from any particular situation, it can be an

ideal to which we can aspire, but it is not something that we realistically
expect to emerge from any given course’. A commitment to the fostering
of learner autonomy within educational processes, in other words, takes us
a step further than a more general commitment to the fostering of personal
autonomy as an eventual outcome of these processes. This raises interesting
questions about the relationship between learner autonomy and personal
autonomy, which touch on the role of freedom in learning in the develop-
ment of autonomy in different educational settings (for more detailed
discussion, see Benson, 2000, 2008).
Wall on requirements for autonomy
To realize autonomy, one needs several things. One needs at least (1) the
capacity to form complex intentions and to sustain commitments, (2) the
independence necessary to chart one’s own course through life and to
develop one’s own understanding of what is valuable and worth doing,
(3) the self-consciousness and vigor necessary to take control of one’s affairs,
and (4) access to an environment that provides one with a wide range of valu-
able options. Elements (1) and (3) refer to mental capacities and virtues.
Element (2) refers to one’s relations with other persons who could exercise
power over one. Element (4) refers to the environment in which one lives.
Wall (2003: 308)
Wall’s account of the requirements of personal autonomy (Quote 2.15)

is one of many variations on the theme that autonomy implies freedom
from what we might call ‘internal’ and ‘external’ constraints. Internal
constraints are basically psychological (Elements 1 and 3), while external
constraints are environmental and include constraints imposed by others
(Elements 2 and 4). Personal autonomy is, in this sense, an attribute of
the socially-constituted individual and implies a kind of contract between
the autonomous individual and those who have power to constrain their
autonomy. Individuals must strive to lead autonomous lives and authorities
must strive to respect the freedoms that such lives require. From this
perspective, a good society is one in which individuals strive both for their
own autonomy and the autonomy of others. In Kantian terms, this is a
society in which individuals treat themselves and others as ends, and never
as means towards their own ends or those of society as a whole (however
good these ends may seem to be) (Guyer, 2003).
From a liberal-humanist perspective, therefore, personal autonomy is
an acquired or learned condition. The kind of learning implied in the
development of personal autonomy is not, however, usually specified
beyond the assumption of a need to develop capacities to overcome internal

and external constraints on individual freedom. For Wall (2003: 308), for
example, because the state ‘is generally not an effective instrument for
cultivating mental capacities and virtues’, an autonomy-supportive state
should primarily be concerned with the protection of its subjects’ inde-
pendence. In a footnote, he adds:
There are a few things that the state can effectively do in this regard. For
example, it can do its best to ensure that all children receive an adequate
education. But even here there are serious limits to what the state can do.
Whether a child receives the kind of education that he needs to live an
autonomous life depends more on what his parents do than what his state does.
Presumably, an ‘adequate education’ will be one that leaves individuals
with the capacities they need to lead autonomous lives. But if the state is
not an effective instrument for the cultivation of these capacities, how are
they best developed? Can they be developed within state-sponsored edu-
cational institutions, or are they best developed ‘naturally’, as Rousseau
proposed (Chapter 2.1.1)? If educational institutions do have a role to play,
what is the appropriate balance between training (overcoming internal
constraints) and freedom in learning (overcoming external constraints)?
And assuming that ‘learners’, by definition, lack competence in regard to
what they are about to learn, is other-direction justified in the interests of
their longer-term autonomy?
In response to these kinds of questions, liberal-humanist conceptions of
autonomy have, in principle, favoured freedom in learning over training,
but this preference tends to be hedged, in practice, by considerations of
paternalism. From this point of view, constraints on autonomy are justified
not only when the exercise of one individual’s autonomy inhibits the
autonomy of others, but also when it might inhibit the individual’s own
autonomy in the future. According to Young (1986: 8):
. . . it is necessary to distinguish the occurrent sense of autonomy, the sense
intended when we talk of people acting autonomously in particular situa-
tions, from a further deployment of the term to which we resort when we
wish to make a more comprehensive or dispositional claim about the overall
course of a person’s life.
By this argument, short-term occurrent autonomy is justifiably constrained
by paternalist intervention if it can be shown that the individual would
later agree that the constraint was in the best interests of his or her longer-
term dispositional autonomy:
To maximise autonomy over the course of a lifetime, dispositional autonomy
must be preserved. If it is this conception of autonomy which we would seek
to foster, then strong paternalist interventions will sometimes be needed. The
strong paternalist may thereby be required to violate occurrent autonomy . . .
[and] he will think such forfeitures worthwhile because they succour disposi-
tional autonomy. (Young, 1986: 76)
One test that can applied is to ask whether the individual would agree that
the violation was justified at a later date. Liberal-humanist conceptions of
autonomy are, in this sense, grounded both on the principle of individual
freedom and the principle of the necessity for legitimate constraints on
that freedom.
The problem with such conceptions of autonomy in educational con-
texts is that the necessity for constraint can easily overwhelm the principle
of individual freedom, especially in schools, where there is a general expec-
tation that paternalism is justified either by the youth of the students or by
their inability to make judgements about learning content or activities that
they are yet to experience. Lindley (1986), however, suggests that pater-
nalistic restrictions on educational autonomy generally lack validity and
that compulsory schooling clearly violates children’s personal autonomy.
For Lindley, the question is simply whether or not ‘restrictions on children
are necessary for their own good in general, and specifically to enable them
to develop their potential as adults’ (p. 119). He argues that it is, in fact,
difficult to maintain a difference of principle in this regard between adults
and children above the age of 10 (the age at which individuals are held to
be responsible for their actions in United Kingdom criminal law). Both
must be regarded as ‘persons’ whose autonomy deserves respect. This leaves
the question of whether or not there is good reason to believe that children
would later acknowledge that the constraints imposed by schooling served
their autonomy in the longer-term. Compulsory schooling must be judged,
therefore, ‘according to whether or not it promotes the overall autonomy
interests of children through time’ (p. 135). For Lindley, most schools
would fail this test: ‘an educational system which was geared to promote
widespread autonomy amongst its pupils would provide an environment
which stimulated critical self-awareness, a desire to question received
wisdom, and self-directedness; and most schools are unable to provide this’
(p. 136) (see also Concept 2.5).
Concept 2.5 A Freirean critique of educational paternalism

Educational paternalism can also be challenged from a Freireian perspective
on the grounds that it involves a philosophical dualism that separates indi-
viduals from the societies in which they live. In the liberal-humanist view,
personal autonomy is primarily a concern of individuals and only secondarily
a concern of society, which is more interested in holding personal autonomy
within reasonable bounds. The social problem of autonomy is reduced to
one of determining the degree of freedom allowable to individuals within
the overall constraints of a liberal society. From this perspective, however,
individuals do not collectively constitute the societies of which they are mem-
bers. Rather society appears as an entity that is separate from and, at times,
opposed to its individual members. From a Freireian perspective, on the
other hand, individuals are social beings whose participation in the collective
decisions affecting their lives are legitimately constrained only by the con-
ditions of the decision-making process itself. In other words, autonomy is not
only a question of authoring individual lives, but also one of authoring the
social worlds within which individual lives are collectively lived. From this
participatory perspective, the question of whether individuals would later
acknowledge that violations of their short-term autonomy were in the interests
of their autonomy in the longer term also loses force. Any such acknow-
ledgement would be contingent on the circumstances in which it was sought,
which would necessarily be changed by the violation of autonomy itself. In
practice, constraints on autonomy in compulsory education systems tend to
be systematic and severe. Because autonomy is learned, these constraints are
liable not only to inhibit autonomy in adulthood, but also to influence adult
judgements of what legitimate autonomy for self and others is.
Philosophical debates on the nature of personal autonomy are thus

highly relevant to the theory and practice of autonomy in language learn-
ing. To the extent that we must learn to be autonomous, learner autonomy
is the foundation of personal autonomy. Similarly, to the extent that per-
sonal autonomy is the foundation of human rights, language educators
have a responsibility to provide learners with educational experiences that
help them to develop their personal autonomy within contexts of globalisa-
tion and multilingualism. But it is also evident that autonomy in learning
does not imply absolute freedom in learning and that the degree of free-
dom implied can be contested from different philosophical standpoints.
Liberal-humanist conceptions of personal autonomy appear to offer rela-
tively weak support to the argument for autonomy in learning, if it is
allowed that educational systems exist in order to direct individuals to
acquire socially needed knowledge and skills. Stronger support for free-
dom in learning is found in critical conceptions of personal autonomy
as the right to participate in the decisions that affect one’s life, including
decisions about learning, and to transform the social realities in which
those decisions are made.
2.5 Autonomy in language learning and its sources

Research on autonomy in language learning shares some of its sources
with the humanistic, communicative and task-based approaches to language
education with which it has been closely allied. Samuda and Bygate (2008),
for example, discuss the work of Dewey, Kilpatrick, Freinet, Kolb, Barnes
and Freire, among others, as precursors of task-based learning and teaching.
Autonomy researchers may go further than others in their allegiance to
these sources, however, because autonomy is often viewed as ‘a whole phil-
osophy of education about the development of the self ’ in which learning
is connected to citizenship (Allwright and Hanks, 2009: 45). In the context
of language education, the more convincing arguments for autonomy
are likely to be pedagogical rather than political or philosophical. Yet we
should also recognise that pedagogical decisions in respect to autonomy
are often based upon underlying philosophical assumptions. Philosophical
debates over individual and relational autonomy are, for example, directly
relevant to the question of whether we foster individualistic or collaborative
modes of learning, independence or interdependence (Chapter 1.5). We
may also be inclined to allow more freedom of choice to adult learners than
to younger learners, even when we are convinced that they are equally
likely to exercise their freedom ‘irresponsibly’. This decision is likely to be
influenced less by pedagogical considerations than by our philosophical
understanding of the relative status of adults and young people and the
rights to autonomy that are naturally accorded to them. More generally,
as teachers try to foster autonomy in language learning on a day-to-day
basis they often find themselves in positions where they are constrained to
violate it. A broader understanding of the roots of autonomy beyond the
field of language education will not necessarily change this situation, but it
may help us to understand the often unarticulated, principles on which
pedagogical decisions are based.
Chapter 3
Defining and describing autonomy
Autonomy is often defined as the capacity to take charge of, or responsi-

bility for, one’s own learning. If we wish to describe autonomy in language
learning in more detail, therefore, we will need to say more about what
‘taking charge’ or ‘taking responsibility’ means in the context of language
learning. In this book, I define autonomy as the capacity to take control
of one’s own learning, largely because the construct of ‘control’ appears
to be more open to empirical investigation than the constructs of ‘charge’
or ‘responsibility’. It is also assumed that it is neither necessary nor desir-
able to define autonomy more precisely than this, because control over
learning may take a variety of forms in relation to different dimensions
of the learning process. In other words, it is accepted that autonomy is
a multidimensional capacity that will take different forms for different
individuals, and even for the same individual in different contexts or at
different times.
Little (1990: 7) argues that autonomy is not ‘a single, easily describable
behaviour’ (Quote 3.1). Nevertheless, it is important that we attempt to
describe it for two reasons. First, construct validity is an important pre-
condition for effective research. In order for a construct such as autonomy
to be researchable, it must be describable in terms of observable phenomena.
In language learning research these are typically either behaviours or men-
tal states. While behaviours are often directly observable, mental states
need to be inferred from observable behaviours, elicited introspections or
learning outcomes. Second, programmes or innovations designed to foster
autonomy are likely to be more effective if they are based on a clear under-
standing of the changes they aim to foster. Put simply, whether we are con-
cerned with research or with practice, it is important that we know, and are
able to state, what we mean when we talk about autonomy. This is not to
say that we all should necessarily mean exactly the same thing. Autonomy
58
DEFINING AND DESCRIBING AUTONOMY 59
may be recognised in a variety of forms, but it is important that we are able

to identify the form in which we choose to recognise it in the contexts of
our own research and practice.
Little on what autonomy is not
• Autonomy is not a synonym for self-instruction; in other words, autonomy

is not limited to learning without a teacher.
• In the classroom context, autonomy does not entail an abdication of
responsibility on the part of the teacher; it is not a matter of letting the
learners get on with things as best they can.
• On the other hand, autonomy is not something that teachers do to
learners; that is, it is not another teaching method.
• Autonomy is not a single, easily described behaviour.
• Autonomy is not a steady state achieved by learners.
Little (1990: 7)
3.1 Dimensions of autonomy

One of the earliest and most frequently cited definitions of autonomy is
found in Holec’s (1981: 3) report to the Council of Europe, where auton-
omy is described as ‘the ability to take charge of one’s own learning’. Holec
elaborated on this basic definition as follows:
To take charge of one’s own learning is to have, and to hold, the responsibility
for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning, i.e.:
– determining the objectives;
– defining the contents and progressions;
– selecting methods and techniques to be used;
– monitoring the procedure of acquisition properly speaking (rhythm,
time, place, etc.)
– evaluating what has been acquired.
The autonomous learner is himself capable of making all these decisions con-
cerning the learning with which he is or wishes to be involved.
In this definition, taking charge of one’s own learning is described in terms
of the capacity to make decisions at successive stages of the learning
process. Autonomous learners are able to direct the course of their own
learning by making all the significant decisions concerning its management
and organisation.
Holec’s definition covered the main areas of the learning process

in which one might expect the autonomous learner to exercise control.
The definition was problematic, however, in that it described the decision-
making abilities involved in autonomous learning in technical terms,
leaving open the nature of the cognitive capacities underlying effective
self-management of learning. Although Holec was clearly aware of the
cognitive dimension to autonomy (e.g. Holec, 1985a), his definition did
not make its importance explicit. In contrast, Little (1991: 3) argued that
‘autonomy is not exclusively or even primarily a matter of how learning is
organized’:
Essentially, autonomy is a capacity – for detachment, critical reflection,
decision-making, and independent action. It presupposes, but also entails,
that the learner will develop a particular kind of psychological relation to the
process and content of his learning. The capacity for autonomy will be dis-
played both in the way the learner learns and in the way he or she transfers
what has been learned to wider contexts.
(Little, 1991: 4)
In this definition, the capacity to take responsibility for one’s own learning
is described more in terms of control over the cognitive processes
underlying effective self-management of learning. Little’s definition was
complementary to Holec’s, but added a vital psychological dimension.
Holec’s and Little’s definitions covered two key dimensions of autonomy,
but underplayed a third dimension concerned with control over the con-
tent of learning. Control over learning content has a situational aspect.
Autonomous learners should, in principle, have the freedom to determine
and follow their own learning goals and purposes, if learning is to be
genuinely self-directed. But full self-direction is only feasible if the learner
studies in isolation from others and, because language learning is generally
enhanced by interaction with others, full self-direction tends to be a less
than desirable option. There is also, therefore, a social aspect to control
over learning content, which involves the learner’s ability to negotiate over
goals, purposes, content and resources with others. In an earlier paper
(Benson, 1996: 33), I argued that control over learning necessarily involves
actions that have social consequences:
Greater learner control over the learning process, resources and language
cannot be achieved by each individual acting alone according to his or her
own preferences. Control is a question of collective decision-making rather
than individual choice.
In approaching learner control in this way, I was concerned to emphasise

the political and potentially transformative character of autonomy
(evident, for example, in the writings of Dewey, Freire and Illich), which is
often absent from definitions of autonomy in language learning focused

on the capacities of the individual learner. A commitment to the principle
of learner control of content will generally pose much more of a challenge
to established classroom and institutional power relationships than a
commitment to developing autonomy in regard to self-management and
cognitive processing.
It should be emphasised that any definition of autonomy that attempts to
cover every potential aspect of control over learning risks becoming too long
for practical use. A simple definition of autonomy as the capacity to take
control of one’s learning also establishes a space in which differences of
emphasis can coexist. However, it can be argued that an adequate description
of autonomy in language learning should at least recognise the importance
of three dimensions at which learner control may be exercised: learning
management, cognitive processes and learning content (Figure 3.1).
These three dimensions of control, which will be discussed in more
detail in Chapter 5, are clearly interdependent. Effective learning manage-
ment depends upon control of the cognitive processes involved in learning,
while control of cognitive processes necessarily has consequences for the
self-management of learning. Autonomy also implies that self-management
and control over cognitive processes should involve decisions concerning
the content of learning. As we will see throughout this book, however,
researchers and practitioners often attach more importance to one dimen-
sion of control than they do to others, and for this reason it can be helpful
to consider each dimension separately.
Figure 3.1 Defining autonomy: the capacity to take control over learning
3.2 Versions of autonomy

Although a variety of definitions of learner autonomy have appeared in the
literature, there has been little debate over the exact meaning of the term.
Instead, researchers seem to have found the elasticity of existing definitions
to be more of a help than a hindrance. There have, however, been a
number of attempts to identify different approaches to the application of
the concept in practice as discussion of autonomy has widened. Benson
(1997) was among the first to open this discussion in a paper that identified
technical, psychological and political ‘versions’ of autonomy. Relating
these versions of autonomy to the dimensions of autonomy identified in
this chapter, technical versions would focus mainly on learning manage-
ment, psychological versions on cognitive processes, and political versions
on learning content. In more recent work, I have found the idea of versions
of autonomy less useful, because it often refers only to differences of
emphasis within approaches that are typically oriented to learning man-
agement, cognitive processes and learning content at one and the same
time. As Oxford (2003) pointed out, there is also a tendency to assume
that political versions of autonomy are in some sense more ideologically
sound than psychological or technical versions, whereas approaches to the
development of autonomy are, in practice, best evaluated by reference
to the goals and desires of the learners and contextual conditions.
There have also been several other potentially useful ways of dividing
up the cake of autonomy in the recent literature. Some have looked at
autonomy in terms of stages of development. Littlewood (1996: 81), for
example, developed a three-stage model for the development of autonomy
based on dimensions of language acquisition, learning approach and per-
sonal development. Autonomy in language acquisition involved ‘an ability
to operate independently with the language and use it to communicate
personal meanings in real, unpredictable situations’ (‘autonomy as a com-
municator’). Autonomy in learning approach involved learners’ ‘ability to
take responsibility for their own learning and to apply active, personally
relevant strategies’ (‘autonomy as a learner’). ‘Autonomy as a person’ was
seen as a higher-level goal that potentially emerged from autonomy in
communication and learning approach. At around the same time, Macaro
(1997: 170–172) proposed a similar three-stage model involving ‘autonomy
of language competence’, ‘autonomy of language learning competence’
and ‘autonomy of choice and action’.
Littlewood (1999) also introduced a distinction between ‘proactive’ and
‘reactive’ autonomy, which has been widely cited in the literature. Proactive
autonomy ‘affirms [learners’] individuality and sets up directions which
they themselves have partially created’, while reactive autonomy, ‘does not
create its own directions but, once a direction has been initiated, enables
learners to organise their resources autonomously in order to reach their

goal’ (Littlewood 1999: 75). Littlewood describes reactive autonomy as the
kind that causes learners to learn vocabulary without being pushed, to take
the initiative to do past examination papers or to organise study groups to
complete an assignment. In terms of the model that I have proposed, it
might be understood as involving control over learning management and
cognitive processing, without control over learning content.
Subsequent writers have cut the cake in different ways, focusing less on
stages within the development of autonomy and more on the ways in which
autonomy is conceptualised in pedagogical practice. Distinctions introduced
in the recent literature include Ribé’s (2003) ‘convergence’, ‘divergence–
convergence’ and ‘convergence–divergence’ positions, O’Rourke and
Schwienhorst’s (2003) ‘individual–cognitive’, ‘social–interactive’ and
‘exploratory–participatory’ perspectives, Oxford’s (2003) expanded version
of Benson’s (1997) model, which recognised ‘technical’, ‘psychological’,
‘sociocultural’, and ‘political–critical’ perspectives, and Holliday’s (2003)
‘native–speakerist’, ‘cultural–relativist’ and ‘social’ approaches. Smith (2003),
meanwhile, made a more general distinction between ‘weak’ and ‘strong’
pedagogies for autonomy (Quote 3.2), while Kumaravadivelu (2003) made
a similar distinction between ‘narrow’ and ‘broad’ views of autonomy. Most
recently, Allford and Pachler (2007: 14) have contrasted ‘radical’ and ‘gradu-
alist’ versions of autonomy. In radical versions, the emphasis is on the
learners’ right to autonomy, while in gradualist versions autonomy is a long-
term goal and a product of the acquisition of autonomous learning skills.
Smith on weak and strong pedagogies for autonomy
‘Weak’ versions of pedagogy for autonomy, in this characterization, tend to view

autonomy as a capacity which students currently lack (and so need ‘training’
towards), and/or identify it with a mode of learning (for example, self-access)
which students need to be prepared for. The underlying assumptions tend to
be that students are deficient in autonomy (and/or currently unable to make
effective use of self-access resources), but that autonomy – as conceived in
the mind of the teacher, syllabus designer and/or institution – is nevertheless
a goal worth pursuing with them. . . . A ‘strong version’ of pedagogy for learner
autonomy, on the other hand, is based on the assumption that students are,
to greater or lesser degrees, already autonomous, and already capable of
exercising this capacity.
Smith (2003: 130–1)
For the most part, these models do not intend to dichotomise, but often
aim to highlight choices that might be made within an overall orientation
to autonomy. Smith (2003: 131), for example, associates ‘weak’ pedagogies
with the assumption that students currently lack autonomy and ‘strong’
pedagogies with the assumption that they are already autonomous to some
degree. Ribé (2003: 15) associates ‘convergence’ models of autonomy with
a movement towards shared, other-directed curriculum goals, while ‘diver-
gence’ models are associated with more open approaches to language cur-
ricula in which autonomy ‘lies in the wide range of choices around the
process affecting almost all levels of control, management and strategic
decisions’. In both cases, the distinctions again seem to be related to the
presence or absence of control over learning content (Chapter 5.3).
Most of these models recognise the legitimacy of all of the approaches they
describe. Ribé (2003) argues, for example, that ‘an optimal learning envir-
onment probably requires a mixture of the three perspectives’, while Oxford
(2003: 90) argues that research should employ multiple perspectives and
‘no single perspective should be considered antithetical to any other’. This
reflects both a tendency towards inclusiveness and a tendency to defer to the
need to base pedagogies for autonomy on cultural and contextual conditions.
There is, however, usually an implication that ‘stronger’ versions of autonomy
are more legitimate than ‘weaker’ ones and the modelling process is, indeed,
often a device for critiquing versions of autonomy that are perceived as being
‘mainstream’ because they focus on ‘lower’ levels of autonomy. Central to this
critique is the argument that learners are invariably more capable of making
reasoned decisions about the content of their learning than their teachers
suppose. From this point of view, gradualist, step-by-step approaches, in
which the ‘higher’ levels of autonomy may never be reached, may ultimately
inhibit, rather than foster, the development of autonomy.
The discussion of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ versions of autonomy echoes earlier
discussion of a similar shift from more radical to mainstream approaches
to communicative language teaching in the early 1980s (Howatt, 1984:
287), which suggests a more general tendency in the development of
learner-centred innovations over time. Allwright and Hanks (2009) relate
this tendency both to the interests of commercial language teaching pub-
lishers in packaging and promoting competing methods and the fact that
so many institutions prescribe the use of textbooks that already embody
methods (Quote 3.3).
Allwright and Hanks on packaging methods
Packaging methods, whether ‘mainstream’ or ‘fringe’, is not just a way of

marketing textbooks. It offers control over how teachers teach, even if the
underlying pedagogical ideas do not themselves suggest strong teacher control
in the classroom. In practice, few methodological options involve any serious
relinquishing of teacher control, and they are naturally the ‘unpackagable’ ones.
Allwright and Hanks (2009: 49)
3.3 Measuring autonomy

If we are able to define autonomy and describe it in terms of various
aspects of control over learning, we should also, in principle, be able to
measure the extent to which learners are autonomous. It is unlikely, how-
ever, that we will ever be able to measure autonomy in the same way as we
measure language proficiency and to make this comparison is to raise the
question of why we would want to measure autonomy independently of its
contribution to language proficiency in the first place. There are at least
two good reasons. First, Nunan’s (1997: 192) observation that autonomy is
not an ‘all-or-nothing concept’, but a matter of ‘degree’ is widely cited in
the literature. We also read of students being ‘more’ or ‘less’ autonomous
and of becoming ‘more autonomous’ over time. These ways of talking
about autonomy imply that we have, at least, an intuitive scale of measure-
ment in our minds and, if this is the case, we should surely articulate the
scale that we have in mind. The second reason is more narrowly related to
research. One kind of research that is frequently carried out tries to assess
whether a particular learning programme or activity type contributes to
student autonomy. Another explores relationships between autonomy and
constructs such as motivation or the use of learning strategies. In both
cases, the research is very difficult to carry out without some scale of mea-
surement for autonomy. A third, more problematic, reason is that we may
want to measure autonomy for purposes of student assessment in courses
that specify greater autonomy as a learning outcome. There has been at
least one report of a credit-bearing independent language learning course
in which student autonomy forms part of the assessment (Ravindram,
2000). Again, if we wish to assess autonomy, we will need a scale of mea-
surement, although we will also need to think carefully about whether such
assessments are legitimate in language learning programmes.
Later in this section, I will look at some approaches to measuring auton-
omy that have been described in recent publications, but before doing so,
I want to look at some problems of principle involved in the enterprise.
The first of these concerns the complexity of the construct of autonomy,
which is generally understood as a composite of many other constructs,
none of which are quite the same thing as autonomy itself. When we judge
that learners are ‘more’ or ‘less’ autonomous, therefore, we appear to be
observing certain behaviours or abilities and treating them as indexical of
autonomy. One behaviour of this kind might be the ability to draw up a
study plan. If we observe that students are able to do this well (leaving aside
the difficult question of what a ‘good’ study plan would look like), we could
infer that they are to some degree autonomous. But the ability to make
study plans is, at best, a component of autonomous learning, and possibly
not even a necessary one (Chapter 5.1.1). An initial problem, therefore, is
to determine what the necessary components of autonomy are. There may
also be non-observable components and a second problem is to determine

whether the non-observable components are so central to autonomy that
we may never really be able to measure it all.
Little on the variability of autonomy
It is true, of course, that we recognize autonomous learners by their behaviour:

but that can take numerous different forms, depending on their age, how far
they have progressed with their learning, what they perceive their immediate
learning needs to be, and so on. Autonomy, in other words, can manifest itself
in very different ways.
Little (1991: 4)
A related problem concerns the diversity of behaviours and abilities that

are potentially involved in learner autonomy. Little (1991) suggests that
learners can be autonomous in entirely different ways (Quote 3.4). At the
risk of over-simplification, one learner may be good at drawing up and
following study plans using self-access materials, while another may be
good at creating opportunities for interaction with target language speakers.
Learners may also call upon different aspects of autonomy as different
situations demand them. We might want to say that these learners are
‘equally’ autonomous, although they are, in fact, autonomous in different,
and possibly non-comparable, ways.
Second, it seems that autonomy tends to overlap with a number of con-
structs that have their own integrity in the research literature. Autonomy
appears to be closely related, for example, to language awareness, motivation,
strategy use, learner beliefs and metacognition. The relationship between
autonomy and these constructs often seems to be based either on the presence
of shared components or on the inclusion of one construct within the other.
This is possible because none of these constructs, autonomy included,
denotes a discrete observable attribute. Instead, they designate ways of
thinking about and foregrounding certain aspects of the language learning
processes. If we want to relate autonomy to other constructs in such a way
that we might say that an ‘increase’ in one corresponds to an ‘increase’ in
the other, therefore, we need to find ways of measuring autonomy that
clearly differentiate it from the other constructs that we are interested in.
If there turns out to be a correlation between, for example, autonomy and
motivation on a scale for autonomy that includes motivational components,
we will not have discovered very much at all.
At the end of this section, I will suggest a provisional solution to these
problems of measurement. The following problems seem to be less easily
solved, however. First, as Holec (1981: 3) puts it, autonomy refers to
‘a potential capacity to act in a given situation – in our case – learning, and

not the actual behaviour of an individual in that situation’. Sinclair (1999:
95–6) illustrates this idea with an anecdote about a student working in
a self-access centre, who comes across the unfamiliar phrase power distance.
He gets up from his seat and asks the tutor on duty what it means. Sinclair
asks, ‘How do we know whether this student is demonstrating autonomy or
not?’ An irritated tutor, she suggests, ‘might feel that he is taking the lazy
teacher-dependent way out’, but does she know whether or not the student
has considered alternative strategies before approaching her. It could be,
Sinclair argues, that the student has been using his capacity for autonomy
but the tutor ‘cannot see the process, only the outcome’.
The next problem concerns the nature of autonomy as a developmental
process. We know, for example, that autonomy tends to be ‘domain-specific’
and that it can be ‘lost’ as well as ‘gained’. As Little (1991: 5) argues,
The fact is that autonomy is likely to be hard-won and its permanence can-
not be guaranteed; and the learner who displays a high degree of autonomy
in one area may be non-autonomous in another.
Little (1991: 21) also argues that the development of autonomy in institu-
tional contexts can involve conflicts of expectations that leave learners
disoriented:
Indeed, it is a common experience that attempts to make learners conscious
of the demands of a learning task and the techniques with which they might
approach it, lead in the first instance to disorientation and a sense that learn-
ing has become less rather than more purposeful and efficient.
For Holec (1985a), the development of autonomy involves ‘psychological
deconditioning’, while for Breen and Mann (1997: 143), it may initially be
manifested in ‘individualistic and non-cooperative or competitive ways of
being’ in situations where learners have been socialised into relations of
dependency.
Breen and Mann on the ‘mask of autonomous behaviour’
Learners will generally seek to please me as the teacher. If I ask them to mani-
fest behaviours that they think I perceive as the exercise of autonomy, they
will gradually discover what these behaviours are and will subsequently reveal
them back to me. Put simply, learners will give up their autonomy to put on
the mask of autonomous behaviour.
Breen and Mann (1997: 141)
Lastly, Breen and Mann (1997) use the metaphor of the ‘mask of
autonomous behaviour’ to signal the possibility that students will learn
how to display autonomy, without necessarily becoming more autonomous

in a deeper sense (Quote 3.5). Like the problem of the uneven develop-
ment of learner autonomy, this problem relates to the distinction between
autonomous behaviour and autonomy as a capacity. In general, we infer
capacities from corresponding behaviours, knowing that our inferences
may be unreliable. In the case of autonomy, the capacity can be hidden
behind misleading behaviour or simulated as a desired response. If we are
to measure learner autonomy reliably, we will somehow have to capture
both the meaning of behaviours and their authenticity in relation to an
underlying capacity for autonomy.
It would be fair to say that there has been no great progress in solving
problems associated with the measurement of autonomy, partly because
the insertion of autonomy into the goals of education systems has not yet
been translated into a requirement to assess it, and partly due to a sense
that ‘testing itself is anti-autonomy’ (Champagne et al., 2001: 49). In a
recent paper, however, I have discussed several studies that describe ways
of measuring, or at least identifying the presence of, autonomy in the con-
text of research (Benson, 2010). Rowsell and Libben’s (1994) study used
discourse analysis of student journals to identify and count instances of
autonomous behaviour in use of self-instructional materials (Chapter 16.6,
Case Study). Simmons and Wheeler (1995) also used discourse analysis to
analyse student roles and decision-making procedures during action meet-
ings in a course organised on process syllabus principles. Sinclair (1999)
reported ongoing research on an assessment procedure and scale, based on
metacognitive awareness, to be used during assessment sessions in self-
access learning. The assessment of autonomy was to be based mainly on
students’ rationales and awareness of alternative strategies. Lai (2001: 35)
designed two rating scales for use in self-access learning programmes, one
to measure ‘process control at the task or micro level’ and the other to
measure ‘self-direction at the overall process or macro level’. These scales
were principally used to assess the quality of planning and reflectivity
found in study plans and weekly logs. Rivers (2001) studied the self-
directed learning behaviours of adult students studying Georgian and
Kazakh at a U.S. university by analysing ethnographic data for style
conflicts, requests for modifications to the course, and learning behaviours
(Chapter 16.4, Case Study).
Although none of these studies claims to report a reliable instrument for
measuring degrees of autonomy, they do point to the possibility of design-
ing workable procedures for research projects. One shared characteristic of
these instruments and procedures is that they are context-sensitive and
apparently designed for single use. This seems important, because a more
generalised instrument would almost certainly fail to capture the multiple
ways in which it is possible to be an autonomous language learner. There
is also a risk in moving too far beyond descriptive assessments of autonomy
carried out for the purpose of specific research projects. The growing
expectation that language education will produce autonomous learners has
not yet filtered down into accountability mechanisms. Self-access centres,
for example, are often held accountable for their contribution to language
proficiency, but seldom for their contribution to learner autonomy (Morrison,
2005). But it is possible that, in educational climates in which there is a
close relationship between the value of educational achievements and their
measurability, we will increasingly be encouraged to think of autonomy as
being both measurable and testable. We might then find ourselves trapped
in a logic that leads from the idea that autonomy is measurable to the con-
struction of tests, and from the construction of tests to their implementation
in student assessment. This is a direction that teachers would no doubt
want to resist, not simply because a requirement for autonomy is funda-
mentally opposed to the principle of autonomy itself, but also because
such a requirement would encourage students to wear Breen and Mann’s
‘mask of autonomy’ and divert teachers’ attention from fostering genuine
autonomy to separating the genuine from its inauthentic display.
3.4 Autonomy and culture
Riley’s questions on autonomy and culture
• Are the principles and practice on which ‘autonomous’ and ‘self-directed’

learning schemes are based ethnocentric?
• Are there any ethnic or social groups whose cultural background predis-
poses them for or against such approaches?
Riley (1988: 13)
If autonomy takes different forms for different individuals, and even for
the same individual in different contexts of learning, its manifestations are
also liable to vary according to cultural context. However, debates on
autonomy and culture have also asked whether a concept that is largely
grounded in Western discourses on philosophy, psychology and education
can be relevant to non-Western contexts at all. Concerns about the cultural
appropriateness of the idea of autonomy in non-Western contexts were
first raised by Riley (1988) at a time when discussion of the concept was
largely confined to Europe (Quote 3.6). Riley’s concerns were directed at
the fate of non-European students in European educational institutions
that adopted autonomy as one of their goals. In the 1990s, these concerns
gained a renewed importance as the idea of autonomy spread around the

world with much of the discussion focusing on its relevance to Asian
students (Palfreyman 2003a; Smith 2001).
One of the more substantial contributions to this debate came from
Pennycook (1997), who critiqued learner autonomy as an idea that was
embedded in European Enlightenment conceptions of the individual and
spread around the world through the global spread of English language
teaching (ELT). Focusing his critique mainly on ‘mainstream’ conceptions
of autonomy that foreground individual psyschology and learning strate-
gies, he drew on feminist and post-colonial theory to develop the view that
autonomy should, in the context of ELT, be more a matter of helping
students to ‘find a voice in English’ and ‘confront a range of cultural
constructions as they learn English’ (Pennycook 1997: 48). Holliday (2003,
2005) also sees autonomy as a central construct in dominant ELT discourses,
which oppose the active Western student to the passive non-Western
‘Other’. Holliday’s (2003: 117) notion of ‘social autonomy’, based on the
assumption that ‘autonomy resides in the social worlds of the students,
which they bring with them from their lives outside the classroom’ also
departs radically from conventional conceptions of autonomy in language
learning. Most recently, Schmenk (2005: 112) has argued that the pro-
motion of autonomy as a universal good depends upon a ‘glossing over’ of
questions concerning ‘what autonomy might entail in specific social, cul-
tural, or institutional learning contexts’, which ‘leaves the concept devoid
of specific characteristics and thus facilitates its homogenization’. Schmenk
argues that the concept of autonomy has value, nevertheless, provided that
language educators ‘admit that autonomy is not a universal and neutral
concept and that it encompasses a critical awareness of one’s own possibili-
ties and limitations within particular contexts’ (p.115).
Although cultural appropriateness is often seen as the Achilles’ heel of
autonomy, it is worth noting that even critics such as Pennycook, Holliday
and Schmenk do not reject the idea of autonomy altogether. The most
vigorous defence of the universal relevance of the principles of learner
autonomy has come from Little (1999), who takes the view that they are
grounded in assumptions about the psychology of learning that are not
culturally-specific. Like others, however, Little also suggests that the ways
in which teachers will go about fostering autonomy should be contextually
appropriate. The problem raised here is whether a legitimate distinction
can be made between the principle of autonomy in language learning and
the pedagogical practices associated with it. In one recent critique of the
appropriateness of autonomy in African contexts, for example, Sonaiya’s
(2002) argument is directed mainly at the replacement of teaching by
computer-assisted language learning, which is viewed, perhaps unjustifiably,
as a pedagogical expression of autonomy.
There has also been some criticism of the use of national or ethnic
cultural categories in this debate. Aoki and Smith (1999: 23) argue that,
‘arguments against the aspirations of people and/or for the political status
quo in a particular context can easily be masked by stereotyping or argu-
ments against cultural imperialism’. In both European and non-European
settings, the idea of autonomy represents a challenge to cultural and edu-
cational tradition. The notion that cultural traits are fixed is inimical to the
idea of autonomy, which implies that learning should be a process in which
individuals contribute to the transformation of culture. Aoki and Smith
(1999: 21) argue that,
It is important to recognize that autonomy is not an approach enforcing a
particular way of learning. It is, rather, an educational goal, as Holec (1981)
explicitly states. Objections to autonomy based on students’ current incapacity
to learn in a wholly self-directed manner therefore lack validity in any context.
To the extent that education contributes to the development of culture, the
promotion of autonomy can also be seen as a culturally legitimate goal in
the sense that autonomous learners are likely to be the most able to con-
tribute to cultural development and transformation.
Sung Dynasty advocates of autonomy
Pierson (1996) argues that learning attitudes in Hong Kong favouring teacher
authority and rote learning are as much a legacy of colonial education policies
as they are of Chinese cultural values. He cites two Sung Dynasty scholars in
support of the contention that the idea of autonomy in learning has roots in
Chinese thought:
The youth who is bright and memorizes a large amount of information is not to
be admired; but he who thinks carefully and searches for truth diligently is to be
admired.
Lu Tung-lai (1137–81)
If you are in doubt, think it out by yourself. Do not depend on others for expla-
nations. Suppose there was no one you could ask, should you stop learning? If
you could get rid of the habit of being dependent on others, you will make your
advancement in your study.
Chu Hsi (1130–1200)
Palfreyman and Smith’s (2003) collection of papers represents an import-

ant step forward by carrying the discussion of autonomy and culture
beyond appropriate pedagogies and national/ethnic categories. Palfreyman
(2003b), for example, discusses the different ways in which stakeholders
involved in an attempt to implement autonomy in a Turkish university
understood and represented the concept, while Aoki and Hamakawa (2003)
explore issues of autonomy from a feminist cultural perspective. The
growing number of empirical studies of Asian students’ responses to
pedagogies associated with autonomy also represents a step forward.
Although the findings of these studies are mixed, they show that the
opportunity to direct their own learning is valued by many Asian students.
Huang’s (2010) ethnographic study of student language learning and life
at a provincial university in China is especially valuable in the way that it
teases out students’ aspirations for autonomy within a framework of expec-
tations for community and care. An issue that deserves further attention
is the sense in which relationships between foreign language learning
and identity imply inter-cultural learning (Sercu 2002) and challenges to
culturally-conditioned conceptions of the self that both draw upon and
foster learner autonomy (Benson, Chik and Lim 2003; Riley 2003).
Chapter 4
Control as a natural attribute

of learning
For many of its advocates, learner autonomy is a natural attribute.

Thomson (1996), for example, has argued that we are born self-directed
learners. As young children, we take control over the learning of our
mother tongue, but as learning becomes more complex and is channelled
through the institution of the school, we appear to give up much of our
autonomy. When they learn foreign languages as teenagers or adults, many
people find self-directed learning difficult and prefer to be directed by
teachers and learning materials. The idea that autonomy is a natural
attribute, suppressed by formal education, is characteristic of thinkers such
as Rousseau and Illich (Chapter 2.1). Many researchers on autonomy
would argue, however, that the learning tasks prescribed by modern edu-
cation systems (literacy in particular) require a higher degree of autonomy
that must somehow be acquired through institutionalised learning.
Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence that learners naturally exer-
cise control over their learning even in relation to these more complex
tasks and within the context of learning institutions. By ‘naturally’, here,
I mean simply that they do so of their own volition and without any
special training in self-directed learning.
Evidence that learners have this natural tendency to take control of
various aspects of their learning is important to the theory of autonomy for
two main reasons. First, the validity of the concept of autonomy depends
in part on our ability to ground it in observable behaviours and mental
states. Second, if autonomy is not to be an abstract ideal, it must be built
upon capacities that come naturally to most, if not all, learners in everyday
contexts of language learning.
The kinds of evidence that we are concerned with can be found in
research concerned with three hypotheses:
• Learners routinely initiate and manage their own learning both outside
and within the context of formal instruction.
73
74 TE AC HI NG AND RESEARC H I N G AUT O NO MY
• Learners receiving instruction tend to follow their own learning agendas

rather than those of their teachers.
• Learners tend to exercise control over psychological factors influencing
their learning, especially those concerned with motivation, affective
state, and beliefs or preferences.
The evidence found in these areas of research often reveals that learner
control is ‘episodic’, ‘private’ to the learner, and possibly ‘ineffective’ in
terms of the learner’s goals. Such behaviour does not, therefore, constitute
evidence that learners are naturally autonomous, if autonomy is under-
stood as a systematic capacity for control over learning. It does, however,
suggest that the seeds of autonomy can be found in behaviour that occurs
independently of any formal efforts by teachers to foster it.
4.1 Self-management in learning
Further reading
Bekerman, Z., Burbules, N.C. and Silberman-Keller, D. (eds) (2006) Learning in
Places: The Informal Education Reader. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Research on self-directed learning began in the early 1960s with empirical

studies of the ways in which adults go about learning in their everyday
lives. In the best known of these studies, Tough (1971) interviewed 66
adults about their ‘learning projects’ and found that, although the number
of projects varied according to the subject’s occupation, the typical adult
reported being involved in around eight different learning projects in the
year leading up to the interview. Of these projects, 68 per cent were
planned by the individuals themselves. Surveys from the 1960s onwards
have consistently shown that most adults in North America and Europe
engage in informal self-directed learning with little variation among social
groups. They also spend considerable amounts of time on their informal
learning projects, Tough’s (1978) average of 10 hours per week spent on
self-directed learning was a typical finding, although Livingstone (2006:
211) argues that the wording of surveys usually leads researchers to under-
estimate the actual time spent on informal learning. Using an expanded
definition of informal learning – ‘anything people do to gain knowledge,
skill, or understanding from learning about their health or hobbies, unpaid
or paid work, or anything else that interests them outside of organized
courses’ – Livingstone’s (1999) New Approaches to Lifelong Learning survey
found that Canadian adults spent an average of 15 hours on informal learning
CONTROL AS A NATURAL ATTRIBUTE OF LEARNING 75
activities. Tough also found that adults often studied in self-organised

‘autonomous learning groups’ (Quote 4.1). The tradition of self-educating
communities dates back to nineteenth century workers organisations, such
as the Manchester Mechanics (Wrigley, 1982). More recently, there has been
interest in online ‘self-educating communities’ organised around almost
every conceivable topic and skill and characterised by ‘an overt commitment
to sharing information, initiating newcomers, and extending their collective
knowledge through such processes as shared problem-solving, experimen-
tation, and independent inquiry’ (Burbules, 2006).
Tough on autonomous learning groups
In some small and medium-sized groups that meet frequently, the members
themselves plan the group learning sessions. The entire group, or a small
committee or even a single member selected by the group, is responsible for
planning each session. Instead of relying on an outsider or a set of materials
to guide its learning, the group itself accepts the responsibility for planning. . . .
The range and diversity of autonomous learning groups is surprising. Many
bible study groups, investment clubs, current affairs groups, Alcoholics
Anonymous chapters, book review clubs, local consumer associations, literary
and philosophical groups, local historical societies, science clubs, conservation
and nature groups, and rock-collecting clubs could be included. Groups are
also formed to learn about cross-country motor-cycle riding, collecting buttons,
and casting soldiers. . . . Autonomous learning groups exist for almost all ages.
In our exploratory interviewing in Toronto, for example, we found a naturalist
club of 12 year old boys in which each boy had an area of specialty (birds,
astronomy, or whatever). At the other end of the age scale was an 85-year-
old woman responsible for a weekly meeting of about 10 women to hear
speakers on the United Nations and other international topics.
Tough (1971: 143–5)
Although learning foreign languages does not appear among the learn-
ing projects identified in Tough’s (1971) survey, we know that adults often
do learn foreign languages under their own direction, with varying degrees
of success. Jones (1998), for example, identified 70 self-instructed learners
registered at a foreign language study laboratory at the University of
Newcastle in the United Kingdom. While his study showed that self-
instruction from beginner level was associated with high drop-out rates
and low proficiency levels, the fact that they were prepared to attempt
self-instruction is evidence that they were prepared to initiate and direct
their own language learning. Umino (1999, 2005) has also investigated the
widespread use of broadcast self-instructional foreign language learning
materials in Japanese homes. There have also been several studies of
incidental foreign language learning using Internet resources, including

Black’s (2005, 2007) studies of English language learners in online ‘fan
fiction’ communities, and Lam’s (2004, 2006) studies of the Internet practices
of young Chinese migrants in the United States. The amount of self-directed
foreign language learning activity, both online and offline, is difficult to
estimate, but it is almost certainly much larger than the few research
studies in the literature would suggest. There are, for example, countless
self-organised online bulletin boards and discussion groups devoted to for-
eign language learning that have barely been touched upon in research.
In contrast to many of the learning projects identified in adult learning
studies, acquiring proficiency in a foreign language is a relatively complex
long-term achievement that is unlikely to be realised through self-instruction
alone. However, there is some evidence that most language-learning
careers include phases of self-instruction. Many language learners also cre-
ate naturalistic learning situations for themselves and reflect upon them as
language-learning experiences – a process that can be called ‘self-directed
naturalistic learning’ (Concept 4.1). Often these phases run concurrently
with classroom learning. Schmidt and Frota’s (1986) longitudinal study of
Schmidt’s learning of Portuguese, for example, illustrates how these three
modes of learning interacted during the subject’s residence in Brazil.
Proficient adult language learners also often display self-directive attitudes
towards formal instruction. For learners such as Schmidt, choosing to
follow a course of instruction appears to be less a sign of dependency than
a rational decision made within a plan of learning that is self-directed over-
all. In a very different context, Lamb (2004) makes a similar observation
about young Indonesian English learners’ use of additional private English
lessons as a supplement to school English classes.
Concept 4.1 Self-instruction, self-directed naturalistic learning and

out-of-class learning
Jones (1998: 378) defines self-instruction as ‘a deliberate long-term learning
project instigated, planned, and carried out by the learner alone, without
teacher intervention’. In this strong sense, self-instruction often implies that
the learner studies alone, with little or no contact with teachers or speakers
of the target language.
Self-instruction can also be understood as any deliberate effort by the
learner to acquire or master language content or skills. In this weaker sense,
self-instruction is episodic, and may take place inside or outside the classroom
(Dickinson, 1987: 5). When researchers argue that autonomous learning is
not a synonym of self-instruction (e.g. Little, 1990; Riley, 1986), they are
generally referring to the stronger sense of the term: long-term self-initiated
learning in isolation from teachers and other learners. Autonomy does, how-
ever, imply the ability to engage in self-instruction in the weaker, episodic sense.
Naturalistic language learning occurs through direct communication with

users of the target language. The term is usually used for situations where the
learner is living with members of the target language community and learns
mainly through spoken interaction, although it could also be extended to
situations in which learning takes place mainly through interaction with target
language texts. The difference between naturalistic learning and self-instruction
seems to be the degree of deliberate intention to acquire language content or
skills at the time of the learning event itself. Learners may also create natur-
alistic learning situations for themselves with the intention of learning the
language, although at the time of the learning event, the focus of attention is
on communication or on learning something other than the language itself.
For situations of this kind, I use the term self-directed naturalistic learning.
Out-of-class learning refers to any kind of learning that takes place outside
the classroom, which could involve self-instruction, naturalistic learning or
self-directed naturalistic learning. Most language learning research to date
has focused on the classroom and the study of out-of-class learning is a rela-
tively new area of research with considerable implications for the theory of
autonomy (Chapter 8.5).
Language learners also appear to engage in self-instruction and self-

directed naturalistic learning even when their learning is primarily
classroom-based. In a study of 44 learners who had developed high levels
of foreign language competence, Nunan (1989, 1991) found that virtually
all the learners attributed their success in part to the activation of their
language outside the classroom. Pickard’s (1995) descriptive study used
retrospective interviews and questionnaires to find out how proficient
German learners of English studying at the University of Humberside
used out-of-class learning in their schooldays. He found that the students
generally had a wide repertoire of out-of-class strategies, that reading
newspapers and novels and listening to the radio figured prominently
among them, and that these out-of-class activities ‘stem from the learners’
own volition rather than from a teacher’ (p. 37). The overwhelming
dominance of classroom-based studies in the field of language education
creates the impression that foreign languages are mainly learned in class-
rooms. Partly because it is very often a ‘private’ activity (Hyland, 2004), out-
of-class language learning tends to remain hidden, but the few studies that
have been published suggest that it probably plays a much more important
role in language learning than is typically supposed (Chapter 8.5).
Studies of the role of instruction in second language acquisition also
offer some evidence for the importance of self-direction in the acquisition
of proficiency. Long (1983) reviewed 11 studies on the effectiveness of
instruction and found that only six demonstrated that it was beneficial.
Nunan (1995) reviewed 13 studies and found that the evidence was incon-
clusive, while de Graaff (1997: 250) found that out of 20 studies published
in the late 1980s and early 1990s, only nine showed ‘a clear positive effect
of some kind of explicit instruction’. One of the problems of drawing
general conclusions from such studies, however, is that they often focus on
learning under highly controlled conditions. De Graaff’s own study, for
example, claims to confirm the hypothesis that explicit instruction
facilitates the acquisition of L2 grammar on the basis of tests conducted on
students following a computer-controlled self-study course in an artificial
language. As Nunan (1995: 251) points out, the research instruments used
in many of the studies on the effectiveness of instruction are ‘relatively
blunt’ and leave open crucial questions about the nature of the instruction.
The idea that foreign language acquisition proceeds best through natu-
ralistic learning is supported by Krashen (1982), who argues that languages
are acquired in order to be used only through exposure to comprehensible
input under non-threatening conditions. Krashen also argues that speech
emerges as a consequence of exposure and that production practice and
instruction in the rules of the language do not help acquisition. In a recent
contribution to the literature Krashen (2006: 2) has connected his com-
prehensible input hypothesis to autonomy, suggesting that the ‘autonomous
language acquirer’ might be characterised as one who ‘understands how
language is acquired’ and ‘is able to get the input necessary for language
acquisition, whether formal programs are available or not’. Prabhu (1987:
1) argues similarly that ‘the development of competence in a second
language requires not systematisation of language inputs or maximisation
of planned practice, but rather the creation of conditions in which learners
engage in an effort to cope with communication’.
Ellis (1994: 216), however, suggests that the empirical evidence for a
strong version of the natural hypothesis is weak, citing longitudinal studies
of migrants who often fail to achieve a level of proficiency beyond that
needed for their immediate communicative needs. The extent to which
naturalistic language learning succeeds is, however, clearly influenced by
factors such as the goals of the learners, their social status and the degree
to which they are accepted by the target language community. Success is
also likely to be influenced by the learner’s capacity to create and take
advantage of naturalistic learning situations, which is often constrained by
relationships of power between the learner and interlocutors in target
language communities (Bremer et al., 1996; Norton, 2000). In his review
of research on the effectiveness of formal instruction, Ellis (1994: 617)
observes that the most likely hypothesis is that foreign language
acquisition proceeds most rapidly through a combination of instruction
and exposure to the target language. The benefits of instruction appear to
lie principally in increased accuracy and accelerated progress through nat-
ural developmental sequences. He also suggests that there is little research
evidence to support the claim that instruction is a necessary condition for
second language acquisition (Quote 4.2).
Ellis on the necessity for instruction
There is little, if any, support for the claim that classroom learners must have
formal instruction in order to learn the L2. Despite reservations regarding ‘the
permissive pedagogy of non-intervention’, there is general recognition that
much of the language learning that takes place in the classroom takes place
‘naturally’, as a result of learners processing input to which they are exposed.
Ellis (1994: 657)
Evidence from the field of adult learning suggests that learners routinely
initiate and self-manage learning projects outside the context of formal
education both individually and collaboratively. Like any other kind of
learning, language learning is in no sense dependent on the instructional
management structures provided by educational institutions. Research
also suggests that self-instruction is not an especially effective method of
learning a language, possibly because many self-instructed learners lack
opportunities for collaboration and communication. On the other hand,
there is no strong evidence that instruction is either necessary or effective.
Although the research evidence is by no means conclusive, it seems rea-
sonable to conclude that most learners who achieve proficiency in a foreign
language do so by employing a variety of modes of learning within which
self-direction plays an important role. Even in the classroom, self-
instructional processes appear to be at work. Irrespective of the evidence
for the effectiveness of self-instruction, it is clear that learners who achieve
proficiency in foreign languages tend to take some degree of control
over the overall direction of their learning. Moreover, if high levels of
proficiency cannot be achieved through instruction alone, a capacity to
initiate and manage one’s own learning must play a role.
4.2 Learner agendas in the classroom

Further evidence for learner control as a natural attribute of learning
comes from research on the relationship between learning and instruction
in classroom settings, which suggests that, even in the classroom, learners
tend to follow their own agendas rather than those of their teachers
(Quote 4.3). According to Block (1996), the idea of a mismatch between
learning and instruction dates back to Corder (1967) and Dakin (1973: 16),
who wrote of an ‘inbuilt syllabus’ and argued that ‘though the teacher
may control the experiences the learner is exposed to, it is the learner
who selects what is learnt from them’. The idea that teachers should
take account of learners’ autonomous behaviour in the classroom was reit-

erated by Allwright (1984, 1988) and pursued by Nunan (1995). Empirical
evidence of mismatches between learning and instruction in language
classrooms is reported by Barkhuizen (1998), Block (1996), Breen (1991)
and Slimani (1992).
Nunan on learner agendas
I should like to argue that the principal reason for the mismatch between
teachers and learners, which gives rise to a disparity between what is taught
and what is learned, is that there is a mismatch between the pedagogical
agenda of the teacher and that of the learner. While the teacher is busily
teaching one thing, the learner is very often focusing on something else.
Nunan (1995: 135)
In Breen’s (1991) study, 106 graduate applied linguistics students were

assigned roles of teacher, observer and learners in artificially constructed
language lessons. At the end of each lesson the participants wrote about
what had happened in the class. Breen found that there were considerable
differences among participants’ reports on the techniques used by the
teacher to help learners with the new language. Slimani’s (1992) study
investigated what a group of 13 Algerian EFL learners claimed to have
learned within an authentic programme of study. Focusing on ‘uptake’, or
what learners claimed to have learned at the end of a lesson, Slimani asked
participants to write down what they had learned after each of six lessons
that she observed and recorded. She found that the learners were more
likely to claim to have learned items initiated by themselves than items
initiated by the teacher. She also found that they were more likely to claim
to have learned items initiated by other learners than those initiated by
themselves.
Block (1996) asked six MBA students and their teacher to keep oral diaries
in their native languages during a series of English classes. The learners
were asked in their diaries to respond to questions on the activities that
stood out in class and their purpose, on what they had learned and on how
the teacher had helped them to learn. Again, Block observed considerable
variation among the accounts. He concluded that the rich data furnished
by the oral diaries provided ‘ample evidence that learners are constantly
attempting to make sense out of classroom instruction’ (p. 192).
Barkhuizen (1998) also found significant differences between ESL learners’
and teachers’ perceptions of classroom activities in a South African high
school and concluded that learners should play a greater part in the class-
room decision-making process.
Studies of learners’ and teachers’ reports of classroom events provide

evidence that learners tend not to respond directly to classroom instruc-
tion, but rather treat it as an experience to be interpreted. As such they
furnish evidence of ‘autonomy of learner thought’ (Block, 1996: 168).
Even when subject to direct instruction in classroom settings, therefore,
learners appear to take some degree of control over their learning. This is
perhaps related to Ellis’s (1994: 657) hypothesis that much of the language
learning that takes place in the classroom takes place ‘naturally’ as a result
of learners processing input to which they are exposed. Although the
teacher may provide much of the input, it is ultimately the learners who
decide what is processed and learned. From a sociocultural theory per-
spective (Chapter 2.3.4), Block’s ‘autonomy of learner thought’ would be
understood as the learner’s ‘agency’, as it is in Roebuck’s (2000) study of
the ways in which students’ approaches to tasks are influenced by the
experiences and goals that they bring to them.
Evidence that learners do not simply learn what teachers teach or carry
out tasks in the ways that teachers expect them to be carried out is evidence
of control, but not necessarily evidence of autonomy, which is something
more than the episodic exercise of learner control. In a sense, autonomy
implies the development of a longer-term learning agenda, or an overall
sense of direction that allows the learner to make informed micro-level
decisions inside and outside the classroom. Until recently, there was little
research evidence on how learner agendas work in the longer term, but this
has begun to change with the publication of a number of biographical
studies documenting longer-term language learning processes, which have
given substance to Lantolf and Pavlenko’s (2001: 145) view of learners as
people who ‘actively engage in constructing the terms and conditions of
their own learning’. On the evidence of these studies, sustained efforts at
language learning are often characterised by a capacity to exercise control
within given contexts of learning and a growing capacity to select these
contexts that comes about, in part, as a consequence of decisions made
in pursuit of long-held linguistic and non-linguistic goals (Cotterall, 2005;
Malcolm, 2005; Shedivy, 2004). From this perspective, the exercise of learner
agency in the classroom may be symptomatic of higher (and no doubt
variable) levels of autonomy that guide learners’ interpretations of the
meaning of classroom events and their relevance to longer-term learning.
4.3 Control of psychological factors influencing

learning
The ways in which we learn languages and the outcomes of our learning
efforts are influenced by a variety of individual difference variables. Some
of these variables describe relatively stable conditions that are not readily
amenable to change, while others describe conditions that are more
amenable to contextual influences and learner control. Learning strategy
preferences are often listed among individual difference variables, but
Dörnyei (2005: 162) questions whether they should be, because they are
‘an aspect of the learning process rather than being learner attributes
proper’. Strategy preferences are clearly subject to learner control, but,
following Dörnyei, strategy use can also be viewed as a form of control
over language learning in its own right (Chapter 5.1.2). This section is,
therefore, concerned with evidence that language learners naturally exer-
cise control over three major variables associated with individual difference
in the literature – motivation, emotions and beliefs.
Concept 4.2 Individual differences

The term ‘individual differences’ ties together a number of independent
fields of inquiry concerned with psychological variables in language learning
(Dörnyei, 2005; Ehrman et al., 2003; Ellis, 2004; Larsen-Freeman, 2001).
These can be divided into variables that are typically assumed to be innate,
such as gender, age, language learning aptitude, personality and learning
styles, and variables that are assumed to be acquired, such as motivation,
affective state, and learning beliefs or preferences. The innate-acquired
distinction can also be expressed in other ways: as, for example, a distinction
between biologically-determined and socially-constructed, context-free and
context-sensitive, or fixed and mutable attributes. Viewed as binary distinc-
tions these are all somewhat problematic. Gender, age, language learning
aptitude, personality and learning styles can be viewed as biologically-fixed,
context-free variables, but their effects are clearly socially-constructed and
context sensitive. In the case of gender, for example, biological sex may be of
less significance than culturally-determined expectations of males and females
and the distribution of opportunities for language learning. Ellis (1994:
472–3) suggests that individual variables form a continuum according to how
mutable they are. Language aptitude, for example, is generally considered
stable, while motivation is likely to change as a result of learning experiences.
Some factors, he argues, also vary according to the extent of the learner’s
control over them. While there has been a good deal of research on rela-
tionships among variables and between individual difference variables and
strategy use (Benson and Gao, 2008), there has been less research on the
ways in which these variables are subject to learner control.
To date, however, research does not provide conclusive evidence on the
mutability of individual variables in learning, their interrelationships, or the
role of experience, training and self-control in change. Learner control over
individual variables in language learning is therefore an important research
area for the theory of autonomy.
4.3.1 Controlling motivation
Further reading
Dörnyei, Z. and Ushioda, E. (2010) Teaching and Researching Motivation. 2nd edition.
London: Longman.
Research on motivation was for many years dominated by Gardner and

Lambert’s (1972) integrative/instrumental paradigm, which identified the
involvement of attitudes towards the target language community as the
feature that distinguished language learning motivation from general
learning motivation. More recent research has drawn on cognitive theories
of motivation in general learning, which focus on ‘the individual’s thoughts
and beliefs (and recently also emotions) that are transformed into action’
rather than inner forces such as instinct, volition, will and physical energy
(Dörnyei, 1998: 118). Among these theories, attribution theory and self-
determination theory seem particularly relevant to control over motivation.
Attribution theory is concerned with learners’ perceptions of the reasons
for success and failure in learning. Research designed to elicit learners’
opinions on the reasons for success and failure in learning has revealed four
major types of attributions concerned with ability, task difficulty, effort and
luck (Dickinson, 1995). The ‘stability’ of these attributions is crucial to
motivation. According to Weiner (1984: 25):
Success at academic tests and tasks attributed to stable factors such as high
ability results in higher future expectancies than does success ascribed to
unstable factors such as luck. In a similar manner, failure attributed to stable
factors such as low aptitude results in lower future expectancies than does
failure ascribed to unstable factors such as low effort.
There is also evidence that learners who attribute success to stable factors
and failure to unstable factors are more likely to take on challenging tasks,
to be positively motivated by success and to view intelligence as mutable.
Dickinson (1995: 172), thus argues that attribution theory,
. . . provides evidence to show that learners who believe that they have con-
trol over their learning – that by accepting new challenges they can increase
their ability to perform learning tasks and so increase their intelligence –
tend to be more successful than others.
Weiner also reports research suggesting that learners’ attributions for
failure can be modified through informational feedback. This suggests that
learners may also exercise control over their motivation by modifying their
own attributions: for example, by blaming failure on lack of effort or task
difficulty instead of low ability or bad luck.
Self-determination theory emphasises the power of intrinsic motivation

in learning and the importance of a sense of personal autonomy to its
development (Deci and Flaste, 1995; Deci and Ryan, 2000). Learners who
are intrinsically motivated carry out learning activities for the pleasure of
learning, for the satisfaction of achievement, or to experience stimulation
(Vallerand, 1997). Extrinsically motivated learners carry out activities for
reasons other than their intrinsic interest (e.g. for external reward) or
because they are subject to external or internalised pressure. It is argued
that intrinsic motivation is promoted by ‘informational’, rather than
‘controlling’, structures and events and by situations in which the locus of
control lies with the learner. According to Deci (1978: 198), ‘intrinsic
motivation implies self-direction’, and in later research extrinsic motiva-
tion was also viewed as a continuum from externally controlled to self-
determined (Deci et al., 1991). As in attribution theory, the link between
learner control and motivation implies the possibility of learners modify-
ing their own motivations: by willfully ‘taking an interest’ in language
learning, for example, learners may be able to transform self-determined
extrinsic motivation into intrinsic motivation.
Under the influence of self-determination theory, autonomy has begun
to play an increasingly important role in work on language learning moti-
vation. Dörnyei and Csizér (1998), for example, list learner autonomy as
one of ‘ten commandments’ for motivating learners. Dörnyei’s (2001:
102–108) book on motivational strategies includes a section on ‘creating
learner autonomy’, covering various techniques for enhancing learners’
sense of control over their learning. Noels and her colleagues have also
incorporated self-determination theory into their model of language learn-
ing motivation: their research points to relationships between teacher
support for student autonomy and students’ sense of self-determination
(Noels, Clément and Pelletier, 1999; Noels et al., 2000) (Concept 4.3).
Research on autonomy has also provided evidence that motivation is
enhanced when learners take more control over their learning (Lamb,
2001; Sakui, 2002; Ushioda, 2003, 2007). Spratt, Humphrey and Chan
(2002), on the other hand, claim that it is motivation that precedes auton-
omy. Although the correlational evidence in their study says little about the
direction of the relationship, it suggests that we should be cautious in
assuming that control over learning processes will enhance motivation
independently of a broader willingness to engage in language learning.
Concept 4.3 Motivation and teacher control in the classroom

Kim Noels and her associates used a questionnaire to investigate links among
motivational orientations, the extent to which teachers were perceived to
support student autonomy and learning outcomes on a summer French
immersion course in Canada:
Correlational analyses determined that stronger feelings of intrinsic motivation

were related to positive language learning outcomes, including greater motiva-
tional intensity, greater self-evaluations of competence, and a reduction in
anxiety. Moreover, perceptions of the teacher’s communicative style were
related to intrinsic motivation, such that the more controlling and the less
informative students perceived the teacher to be, the lower students’ intrinsic
motivation was.
Noels, Clément and Pelletier (1999: 23)
While attribution theory and self-determination theory link motivation

to learner control, neither offers a comprehensive account of language
learning motivation, which is increasingly seen as complex, multidimen-
sional, situated and dynamic (Dörnyei, 1998; Williams and Burden, 1997).
Motivation research has also been criticised for failing to take account of
the social dimensions of language learning. Pierce (1995: 17), for example,
prefers the term ‘investment’ to ‘motivation’ arguing that, ‘if learners
invest in a second language, they do so with the understanding that they
will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material resources, which will
in turn increase the value of their cultural capital’. The return on invest-
ment must be seen as commensurate with the effort expended on learning
the second language. If this is the case, control over motivation may
crucially involve control over the content of language learning and the
purposes to which it is put.
Drawing largely on self-determination theory, Ushioda’s earlier work
emphasised the crucial role of self-motivation in autonomy (Ushioda 1996;
also, Dörnyei, 2001: 109–16), while her more recent work places intrinsic
motivation within a Vygotskyan framework in which social mediation and
social environment come to the fore (Ushioda, 2003, 2007). Ushioda also
links self-regulation to motivation, arguing that ‘self-regulated learning
can occur only when the ability to control strategic thinking processes is
accompanied by the wish to do so’ (Ushioda, 2007: 15). In sociocultural
terms, this ability is mediated through processes of task-focused dialogical
interaction involving cognitive and motivational ‘scaffolding’. The key to
these processes, she argues, is ‘a social environment that supports learners’
sense of autonomy and intrinsic motivation to pursue optimal challenges
through the zone of proximal development’ (ibid.). A further link to
autonomy can be found in what has been called the ‘L2 motivational self
system’ (Dörnyei and Ushioda, 2009) based on Markus and Nurius’s (1986)
concept of ‘possible selves’. In brief, it is argued that motivation is driven
by internal representations of the attributes a person would ideally like
to possess (the ‘ideal’ self ) and complementary representations of the
attributes that a person believes they ought to possess (the ‘ought-to’ self ).
According to Ushioda and Dörnyei (2009: 4), ‘if proficiency in the target
language is part and parcel of one’s ideal or ought-to self, this will serve as
a powerful motivator to learn the language, because of our psycho-

logical desire to reduce the discrepancy between our current and possible
future selves’. From this perspective, motivated language learning appears
largely to be a matter of the learner’s self-directed orientation towards a
projected autonomous second language using self.
While the link between autonomy and motivation is well-established
at a theoretical level, the important issue here is whether or not learners
also exercise control over their own motivation, or ‘motivate themselves’.
Although the empirical evidence on this question remains limited, there has
been growing interest in self-motivation in motivation research. Ushioda
(1996: 54) reported a number of examples of self-motivational strategies,
arguing that, in the face of negative affective experiences, learners ‘who
know how to limit the motivational damage and take self-motivational
initiatives will be at a considerable advantage’ (Quote 4.4). Theoretical
perspectives on self-motivation have also emerged from Dörnyei’s (2003)
‘process-oriented approach’ and recent work on ‘willingness to communicate’.
Ushioda on motivational thinking
Ushioda’s study of autonomy and motivation includes a number of examples

of students describing how they motivate themselves. The following example
is from a student of French:
‘I’m not always permanently well-motivated. I think when I feel that I just can’t
be bothered doing it, I just leave it. And then after that, it doesn’t take very long
for me to get involved again, because all I’d have to do would be watch the
French news and listen to it. And really just start thinking about why I’m doing it
and how much I like it. And say – oh well, you know, I really should go back to
it and keep it up.’
Data of this kind, drawn from interviews or learner journals, can tell us a great
deal about the ways in which learners go about influencing their motivation
to learn.
Ushioda (1996: 54)
In Dörnyei’s (2003: 18) process-oriented approach to L2 motivation

research, the motivational process describes ‘how initial wishes and desires
are first transformed into goals and then into operationalized intentions,
and how these intentions are enacted, leading (hopefully) to the accom-
plishment of the goal and concluded by the final evaluation of the process’.
This process corresponds to at least three distinct temporal phases: a
‘preactional stage’ in which motivation is generated, leading to the selec-
tion of goals and tasks; an ‘actional stage’, in which motivation must be
maintained and protected; and a ‘postactional stage’ in which retrospective

evaluation influences motivation to pursue activities in the future. Self-
motivating strategies come into play at the actional stage, which seems to
presuppose capacities for planning, monitoring and evaluating learning
often associated with autonomy. Following Kuhl (1987), Dörnyei describes
five ‘action control’ strategies:
• ‘commitment control strategies’ help preserve or increase original goal
commitments,
• ‘metacognitive control strategies’ control concentration and curtail
procrastination,
• ‘satiation control strategies’ add interest and eliminate boredom,
• ‘emotion control strategies’ manage disruptive emotions and general
helpful emotions,
• ‘environmental control strategies’ bring environmental influences in
line with the pursuit of goals.
Willingness to communicate (WTC) has emerged as specific domain of
motivation research concerned with the question of why ‘when presented
with the opportunity to use their second language (L2), some people
choose to speak up and others remain silent’ (MacIntyre, 2007: 564).
Although MacIntyre views WTC as an individual difference variable, his
use of the phrase ‘choose to speak up’ is significant because he also sees
WTC as a matter of ‘volition’. MacIntyre’s discussion of WTC is also of
interest for its distinctions among ‘trait’, ‘situation-specific’ and ‘state’
levels of individual difference variables. For MacIntyre, trait refers to broad,
typical patterns of enduring behaviour, situation-specific refers to typical
patterns that occur in certain situations but not others, and state to expe-
riences rooted in particular moments in time. A person might be unwilling
to speak, for example, as a general rule (trait), in large groups (situation-
specific), or on a particular occasion when she feels she has nothing to say
(state). On any particular occasion, trait, situation-specific and state vari-
ables will all be important, but at the state level the decision to speak will
ultimately be a volitional process. ‘The process of exercising volition,’ he
argues, ‘provides a way to specify how motivational tendencies are enacted
in the moment-to-moment choices we make, such as choosing to speak up
or to remain quiet’ (p. 569). In this sense, WTC is a process involving con-
trol over learning that lies between motivational tendencies and actual
behaviour. Earlier, I suggested that different individual difference variables
have different degrees of stability, with motivation, affect and beliefs being
among the most mutable variables. But each variable also has its own scale
of stability, with mutability being most evident at MacIntyre’s ‘state level’,
where it is, in principle, volitional or subject to the learner’s control.
4.3.2 Controlling emotions
Further reading
Arnold, J. (ed.) (1999) Affect in Language Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Scovel (2001: 140) suggests that emotion, or affective state, is potentially ‘the
most influential force in language acquisition’ and, at the same time, ‘the area
that SLA researchers understand the least’. Much of the research on affect
has focused on anxiety, which has been recognised as a key factor inhibiting
successful language learning (Horwitz and Young, 1991; MacIntyre and
Gardner, 1991) and this research has tended to focus on the classification of
forms of anxiety and the effects of classroom environments, rather than on
learners’ own efforts to control their anxieties (Concept 4.4). This has begun
to change somewhat, however, under the influence of psychological research
on the self-regulation of emotions (Gross, 1998), a broader view of affective
variables in language learning (Arnold, 1999), and a better understanding
of the emotional dimensions of autonomy and independent learning (Aoki,
1999; Hurd, 2007b, 2008). Oxford (1990: 140) has argued that ‘good lan-
guage learners are often those who know how to control their emotions
and attitudes about learning’ by using affective strategies such as lowering
anxiety, encouraging themselves and ‘taking their emotional temperatures’.
To date, however, affective strategies have received little attention in
research. Two recent studies provide some evidence of their importance.
So and Domínguez (2005) report a collaborative biographical case study
of Domínguez’s difficult first few months as a Spanish–German bilingual
using English as a third language in the United States. Focusing on her use
of ‘emotion regulatory processes’, they showed how she used strategies in
all of Gross’s (1998) five conceptual categories as she became more com-
fortable in her learning and use of English. These included initially avoid-
ing situations in which she needed to use English (situation selection),
seeking out a Spanish-speaking peer group for socialisation while looking
for other opportunities to improve her English (situation modification),
recognising that she needed to be less demanding of herself (attention
deployment), comparing her English to that of other non-native speakers
and focusing on communication rather than grammatical correctness (cog-
nitive change), and telling herself that although it would be tough she
knew that she would improve (response modulation) (pp. 52–3).
In a think-aloud study of affective strategy use among lower-intermediate
distance students of French in the United Kingdom, Hurd (2007b: 253)
found that the students used some strategies to cope with emotional aspects
of their study, but that the frequency of use was low. The strategies
identified from think-aloud protocols included positive self-talk, skipping

text, re-reading, carrying on regardless of obstacles, consulting answer
keys, not dwelling on problems, taking breaks, reflecting on possibilities,
taking notes to reduce anxieties caused by memory lapses, and checking
back for reassurance. Both of these studies suggest that language learners
are aware of the emotional side of language learning and are capable of
using strategies to control their emotions. These appear to include strate-
gies to modify emotional responses as well as strategies to limit the effects
of negative emotions. They also appear to be of two basic kinds: strategies
involving self-talk or reassurance and strategies that are more concerned
with managing learning in ways that reduce its emotional intensity.
Concept 4.4 Controlling anxiety

In her PhD thesis on foreign language anxiety in Hong Kong secondary
schools, Walker (1997) observed that anxieties connected with speaking
English in the classroom tended to increase rather than diminish during stu-
dents’ secondary school careers. High anxiety is associated with the students’
feelings that they should speak accurately according to the requirements of
the teacher rather than their own learning needs. In interviews, students
reported a number of strategies for controlling their anxiety, including:
• telling oneself not to mind classmates’ laughter
• imagining oneself having a friendly chat with the class
• standing up slowly to signal that you need help
• telling a classmate that you feel afraid
• telling yourself that ‘it won’t take long’
• looking for support in the teacher’s eye (p. 124).
Environmental factors within the classroom may reduce the effectiveness of
such strategies, however, and Walker’s main conclusion is that teachers
should provide environmental, emotional and linguistic support. Interview
data can be an important source of data on strategies for controlling anxiety,
a relatively unexplored area in research, but Walker’s study also shows that
data on strategies must be interpreted in the context of environmental factors
that influence their effectiveness.
4.3.3 Controlling beliefs
Further reading
Kalaja, P. and Barcelos, A.M.F. (eds) (2003) Beliefs about SLA: New Research Approaches.
Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Studies in the area of learner beliefs have shown that learners hold a wide
variety of beliefs about language and language learning and that these may
influence learning attitudes and behaviour. It has also been hypothesised
that certain beliefs may be enabling while others may be disabling (Horwitz,
1987, 1988). In an early study, Wenden (1986b, 1987) interviewed 25 adults
of various nationalities studying ESL at an American university and found
that they held a variety of beliefs related to the importance of using the
language, learning about the language, and personal or affective factors.
Wenden also found that, although the interviewees varied greatly in the
beliefs they expressed, each appeared to have a preferred set of beliefs
within one of the three categories she identified. Some of this earlier
research has been criticised for an apparent implication that beliefs about
language learning are relatively fixed and only subject to change through
pedagogical intervention, while more recent research has tended to view
beliefs as dynamic, contextually-situated and often contradictory (Kalaja
and Barcelos, 2003).
Little and Singleton (1990) observed that attitudes towards language
learning among a random sample of foreign language students at Trinity
College, Dublin, were shaped by previous experiences of education and
language learning. Analysing statements made in interviews by Hong Kong
university students, Benson and Lor (1998) also found that beliefs were
related to previous experiences, but not necessarily conditioned by them and
observed a qualitatively different pattern of beliefs to Wenden (1986b, 1987).
They hypothesised that individuals’ beliefs are likely to be constrained
within a range of beliefs available to the groups to which they belong and
that they may be amenable to modification through reflection on the expe-
riences and beliefs of themselves and others within these groups.
Research in the area of learner beliefs and preferences tends to assume
that changes in learning behaviour will be deeper and more effective if they
are accompanied by higher order changes in the learners’ cognitive repre-
sentations of the learning process. Wenden (1986a: 9) reports on a course
designed to help learners think about their beliefs, arguing that:
The value of activities in which younger and older adults reflect upon their
beliefs about language learning lies in the fact that such activities can surface
for examination, evaluation, and possible change and/or modification of the
expectations that adult learners bring to their language learning.
Little and Singleton (1990) argue that it is possible to help learners to

explore their own preferences and styles and shape them to the learning
task. Learners may change their beliefs and preferences in response to new
information or changes in their learning environments that cause them to
see that their existing beliefs are untenable. Benson and Lor (1999) have
also argued that learners’ reported beliefs and preferences are likely to be
conditioned both by a higher order of conceptions concerned with the
nature of language and language learning and by practical responses to

immediate contexts of learning. A person’s beliefs about learning a particu-
lar language may not be susceptible to change at a deep level, unless they
also change the way they think of the language as an object of learning, for
example, from being a subject studied at school to a practical means of
communication outside school. However we understand beliefs about lan-
guage learning, it is clear that they change over time and that learners play
an important controlling role in these changes. Changes in beliefs are
evidently conditioned by experience and dialogue with others, but they
also depend on individual reflection, which can be understood as a process
involving self-control of cognitive processes. Malcolm’s (2005) biographi-
cal study of the evolution of an Arabic ESL learner’s beliefs about reading
provides strong evidence of the interplay of these three elements.
4.4 The seeds of autonomy

The aim of this chapter has been to identify research evidence to support
the hypothesis that control is a natural feature of language learning. If this
hypothesis holds true, we can say that learner autonomy is not simply an
ideal, but something that can grow from seeds that may already be present
in students’ learning. We have observed that, in a wide variety of learning
situations, people initiate and manage their own learning, set their own
priorities and agendas, and struggle to control psychological factors
influencing their learning. This is not to say that these learners are neces-
sarily autonomous, as independent efforts to control learning are often
episodic and ineffective. Autonomy implies not only the attempt to take
control of one’s own learning from time to time, but also the capacity to do
this systematically and effectively in terms of self-determined goals and
purposes. Similarly, fostering autonomy does not mean simply leaving
learners to their own devices, but implies a more active process of guidance
and encouragement to help learners extend and systematise the capacities
that they already possess.
We have good reason to believe that autonomy can grow from the seeds
of control that we are able to observe in the everyday activity of language
learning. At the same time, it has been argued that autonomy implies
systematic and effective control. In order to recognise the various forms
that autonomy may take, we therefore need to identify behaviours and
states associated with control over learning and the ways in which they are
interrelated. In Chapter 3.1, I suggested that these behaviours and states
are related to three dimensions of control: learning management, cognitive
processes and learning content. Chapter 5 will explore these dimensions of
control over learning in more detail.
Chapter 5
Dimensions of control
In Chapter 3, I defined learner autonomy as the capacity to control one’s

own learning and suggested that it is difficult to define autonomy more
precisely than this because learning can be controlled in a variety of
ways. Chapter 4 detailed some of the ways in which learners control their
learning without being asked to and without any special training. How-
ever, autonomy implies more than learners naturally controlling their
learning. Autonomy is a capacity that can be developed and in order to
understand how it can be developed we need a broader picture of the
potential for learner control over language learning. The objective of
this chapter is to explore the possibility of describing language learner
autonomy more comprehensively in terms of this potential. I have also
suggested that the forms that learner autonomy takes will differ according
to the person and the context. If it turns out that we are able to develop
a comprehensive list of the components of autonomy in language learning,
therefore, it is likely that we will also be able to describe the autonomous
learner as someone whose learning has some of these components, but
not necessarily all of them. The discussion will be organised under the
headings of control over learning management, cognitive processing and
learning content, although, as we will see, these categories tend to spill
over into each other.
5.1 Control over learning management

Control over learning management can be described in terms of behavi-
ours involved in the planning, organisation and evaluation of learning.
Learning management is mainly a matter of observable behaviour, but the
problem with descriptions of these behaviours is that they tend to describe
92
DI M E NS I O NS O F C O NT R O L 93
what autonomous learners need to be able to do, but not the mental
capacities that underlie these abilities. Moreover, to say that autonomous
learners are, for example, able to plan their language learning, select
resources and allocate time to their learning over relatively long periods of
time is to describe elements of tasks, rather than the capabilities that allow
learners to complete them successfully. The focus here, therefore, is mainly
on the cognitive and attitudinal factors that appear to underlie learning
management, which have been discussed and classified in the literature on
adult self-directed learning and learning strategies.
5.1.1 The adult self-directed learner
Further reading
Candy, P.C. (1991) Self-direction for Lifelong Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass,
ch. 5.
In an often cited but yet to be replicated study, Gibbons et al. (1980)

examined the biographies of 20 public or historical figures (including Walt
Disney, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pablo Picasso and Harry Houdini) who
became experts in their fields without formal training. They concluded
that: (1) self-educated experts possess a much greater diversity of skills
than are generally found in formal schooling; (2) their expertise grows out
of extra-curricular activity and school plays a minimal or negative role;
(3) they focus on their area of expertise rather than develop less in-depth
knowledge in a variety of areas; (4) they have an active, experiential orien-
tation to learning; and (5) they are able to pursue their learning in spite of
great odds, failure and public disapproval. Brookfield (1981) interviewed
less well-known individuals who had become acknowledged experts in
diverse fields, including organic gardening, chess, philosophy and pigeon
racing. He identified three shared attitudes among the interviewees:
(1) they viewed their learning as ongoing with no identified end point;
(2) (in contrast to the findings of Gibbons et al., 1980) they did not limit
their learning to their area of expertise; and (3) they believed that they
were part of a larger ‘fellowship of learning’. Brookfield also found that the
experts in his study held both cooperative and competitive attitudes
towards learning. They were willing to share their knowledge and skills
with peers, but at the same time they valued awards and other indicators
of success.
Concept 5.1 Planned and unplanned self-directed learning

Spear and Mocker (1984) found that preplanning was not the norm in a study
of the learning projects of 78 non-expert adult learners. Instead they found
four different characteristic organising circumstances for self-directed learn-
ing projects: (1) learners enter the learning situation with little knowledge of
what needs to be learned or how to learn and assume that the means for
learning will be available to them within the situation itself; (2) they carry out
learning tasks on a frequent and regular basis but do not necessarily view
themselves as being engaged in a learning process; (3) learning consists of a
non-deliberate series of events which appear to represent a progression, but
the logic of the progression is not foreseen in advance; and (4) learning con-
sists of a much longer series of unrelated learning experiences which are later
seen as coherent by the learner. They concluded:
Because self-directed learning occurs in a natural environment dominated by
chance elements and is in contrast to the artificial and controlled elements
which characterize formal instructional environments, it seems useful to inves-
tigate the possibly differing effects of the natural environment on the learning
process. This is opposed to seeking to understand self-directed learning by
imposing what is known about formal learning upon it.
Spear and Mocker (1984: 9)
Although they are informative about the factors in successfully managed

self-directed learning, expertise studies are, of necessity, studies of extraor-
dinary individuals. Spear and Mocker’s (1984) study of adult learners who
had not completed high school is of interest, therefore, for its finding that
planning was not the norm in their learning projects (Concept 5.1).
Livingstone (2006: 217) also argues that self-directed learning can be
‘planned in a very deliberate way or it can be stimulated with no prior
intent’ and that many activities that result in learning ‘begin in an ad hoc,
incidental manner and are only consciously recognised after the fact’.
Researchers in the field of self-directed learning have devised a number of
scales designed to measure the capacity for autonomous learning (Brockett
and Hiemstra, 1991; Candy, 1991), of which the best known is the Self-
directed Learning Readiness Scale (SDLRS), a questionnaire developed by
Lucy M. Guglielmino in 1977. The questionnaire, which was designed to
assess the extent to which individuals report that they possess skills and
attitudes associated with self-directed learning, has been used extensively
in research on adult learning in North America. It has also been the sub-
ject of some controversy in the literature (Bonham, 1991; Field, 1989;
Guglielmino, 1989).
The SDLRS was designed through a three-round Delphi survey involv-
ing 14 individuals considered to be experts on self-directed learning,
including Malcolm Knowles and Allen Tough. The Delphi survey process
is designed to elicit expert opinion and move in the direction of consensus

by allowing participants to see the results of earlier survey rounds and
change their opinions if they wish. The version of the questionnaire most
often used in subsequent research consisted of 58 items on a 5-point Likert
scale. Guglielmino’s (1977) study of 307 adult learners identified eight
factors underlying readiness for self-directed learning: openness to learning
opportunities, self-concept as an effective learner, initiative and indepen-
dence in learning, informed acceptance of responsibility for one’s learning,
love of learning, creativity, future orientation, and ability to use basic study
and problem-solving skills (Candy, 1991: 150). The SDLRS has subse-
quently been used in two main ways: to investigate relationships between
readiness for self-directed learning and other variables, and as a diagnostic
tool for measuring learners’ perceptions of their readiness for self-directed
learning.
The SDLRS represents one way of identifying the attitudes and skills
associated with autonomy: survey expert opinion, devise a research instru-
ment based on the results and test the reliability of the instrument on
various populations. Many studies have found the SDLRS to be reliable,
but some researchers have questioned the validity of the construct it mea-
sures. For Field (1989), who considered that the SDLRS was so problem-
atic that it should no longer be used, the basic problem lay in the fact that
neither readiness nor self-directed learning had been adequately defined at
the outset. According to Field, given the degree of conceptual confusion
over the concept of self-directed learning, use of the Delphi survey
technique ‘may do no more than transfer this confusion into a set of items’
(p. 129). Bonham (1991: 92) also argues that high scores on the SDLRS
‘seem to represent a positive attitude toward learning in general and not
specifically toward the kind of learning called self-directed’. The opposite
of the eight factors identified by Guglielmino may therefore be a dislike of
learning rather than other-directedness. Nevertheless, instruments such as
the SDLRS ‘are now accepted as part of the adult teachers armory’
(Brookfield, 2009: 215) and at least one instrument of this kind has been
developed to profile the behavioural intentions underlying autonomous
language learning, although its application has not yet been reported
(Confessore and Park, 2004; Confessore, Park and Idobro, 2005).
The difficulty of measuring autonomy as a capacity to exercise control over
learning was discussed in Chapter 3.2. The debate on the SDLRS also sug-
gests that the process is fraught with theoretical and methodological difficul-
ties. In particular, the SDLRS recognises that readiness for self-management
in learning involves attitudinal factors, but it fails to specify these factors in
terms of readily observable cognitive processes. An interesting attempt to
design a survey in the context of language learning that performs a similar
function was made by Cotterall (1995). Cotterall defined autonomy as ‘the
extent to which learners demonstrate the ability to use a set of tactics for
taking control of their learning’ (p. 195) – a definition couched in terms of

learning management skills. She also recognised, however, that learners’
readiness to use these tactics is influenced by their beliefs about language
learning. Cotterall’s survey therefore used learner beliefs as the basis for
measuring readiness for autonomy, and in the first application of the ques-
tionnaire, six underlying factors were identified. In subsequent studies,
however, Cotterall (1999) reported difficulties in replicating the clusters of
beliefs on which these factors were based. Her research suggests that we
are still some distance from being able to identify the factors of attitude or
belief on which successful self-management in learning are based.
5.1.2 Learning strategies
Further reading
Hurd, S. and Lewis, T. (eds) (2008) Language Learning Strategies in Independent
Settings. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Cohen on learning strategies
In an earlier volume on language learning, I defined learning strategies as

‘learning processes which are consciously selected by the learner’. The element
of choice is important here because this is what gives a strategy its special
character. These are also moves which the learner is at least partially aware of,
even if full attention is not being given to them . . . It still seems appropriate to
me to link the notion of consciousness to the definition of strategies, though
as we will see below, this is a controversial issue. In my view, the element of
consciousness is what distinguishes strategies from those processes that are
not strategic.
Cohen (1998: 4)
Research on the behaviours involved in autonomous language learning

has to a large extent drawn upon research on learning strategies, defined by
Cohen (1998), one of the leading researchers in the field, as ‘learning pro-
cesses which are consciously selected by the learner’ (Quote 5.1). Research
on language learning strategies has taken three main directions: (1) identifica-
tion and classification of strategies; (2) correlation of strategy use with other
individual difference variables and learning outcomes; and (3) strategy
training (Chapter 10). As Cohen points out, his view that strategies must
be consciously selected is not universal, but if we accept this view,
taxonomies of learning strategies may be a logical place from which to

begin a description of the ways in which learning can be controlled.
Autonomy might also be described largely in terms of the capacity to
make use of strategies that are clearly associated with the idea of control
of learning.
In an early schema, Wenden (1983) classified the strategies used by
adult foreign language learners to direct their own learning into three
categories: (1) knowing what language and language learning involves;
(2) planning the content and methods of learning; and (3) self-evaluation
of progress and the learning experience. She also found that adult learners
pose questions to themselves in regard to each category and make deci-
sions on the basis of the answers they give themselves. This observation
is of lasting value because it suggests that all strategy use is, in a sense,
founded upon reflection on the learning process. Based on systematic
research within the theoretical framework of information processing
theory, O’Malley and Chamot (1990) proposed a more detailed schema
based on three major categories: cognitive, metacognitive and social/
affective strategies. Cognitive strategies are operations carried out directly
on the material to be learned whereas metacognitive strategies make use
of knowledge of cognitive processes to regulate the learning process.
Social/affective strategies involve the ways in which learners interact with
others and control themselves in order to enhance their learning. In the
most extensive taxonomy to date, Oxford (1990) divides strategies into
direct strategies, which involve mental processing of the target language,
and indirect strategies, which support learning through ‘focusing, plan-
ning, evaluating, seeking opportunities, controlling anxiety, increasing
cooperation and empathy and other means’ (p. 151). Indirect strategies
are subdivided into three categories: metacognitive, social and affective.
It is these indirect strategies, rather than strategies in general, that are
the potential components of autonomy, because they are concerned with
control over the learning process rather than control over language or
learning materials.
According to O’Malley and Chamot (1990: 137), metacognitive strate-
gies involve ‘thinking about the learning process, planning for learning,
monitoring the learning task, and evaluating how well one has learned’,
behaviours that have been closely associated with autonomy in the litera-
ture. Based on a longitudinal study of American students of Spanish and
Russian using a think-aloud methodology, Chamot et al. (1988) came up
with an extensive list of metacognitive strategies, which O’Malley and
Chamot organised into seven groups (Concept 5.2). This list could also be
described as a taxonomy of the mental operations underlying observable
behaviours involved in the self-management of learning, although they
tend to be described simply as internal correlates of these observable
behaviours.
Concept 5.2 Metacognitive strategies

Metacognitive strategies describe mental operations used by learners in the
self-management of their learning. O’Malley and Chamot (1990: 138)
organise these into seven major groups:
1. Planning: Previewing the organizing concept or principle of an anticipated
learning task (advance organisation); proposing strategies for handling an
upcoming task; generating a plan for the parts, sequence, main ideas, or
language functions to be used in handling a task (organisational planning).
2. Directed attention: Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning
task and to ignore irrelevant distractors; maintaining attention during task
execution.
3. Selective attention: Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of
language input or situational details that assist in performance of a task;
attending to specific aspects of language input during task execution.
4. Self-management: Understanding the conditions that help one successfully
accomplish language tasks and arranging for the presence of those con-
ditions; controlling one’s language performance to maximize use of what
is already known.
5. Self-monitoring: Checking, verifying, or correcting one’s comprehension
or performance in the course of a language task.
6. Problem identification: Explicitly identifying the central point needing
resolution in a task or identifying an aspect of the task that hinders its
successful completion.
7. Self-evaluation: Checking the outcomes of one’s own language performance
against an internal measure of completeness and accuracy; checking one’s
language repertoire, strategy use, or ability to perform the task at hand.
Chamot et al. (1988) identified only four social and affective strategies,
while Oxford (1990) provided a more extensive taxonomy (Concept 5.3).
In Oxford’s taxonomy, social strategies are essentially actions taken in rela-
tion to others, while affective strategies are actions taken in relation to self.
Social strategies are clearly behavioural and seem to be mostly concerned
with creating opportunities for learning through interaction with others.
Affective strategies also seem to be behavioural, although their effects are
clearly cognitive, and to have a self-motivational dimension (Chapter 4.3.1).
Concept 5.3 Social and affective strategies

Social and affective strategies describe actions taken by the learner to control
aspects of the learning situation related to others and to self. Social and affec-
tive strategies are also related to the learner’s attitudes towards language as
an object of learning. Oxford (1990: 21) lists the following strategies:
Social strategies
A. Asking questions:
1. Asking for clarification or verification
2. Asking for correction
B. Cooperating with others:
1. Cooperating with peers
2. Cooperating with proficient users of the new language
C. Empathising with others:
1. Developing cultural understanding
2. Becoming aware of others’ thoughts and feelings
Affective strategies
A. Lowering your anxiety:
1. Using progressive relaxation, deep breathing, or meditation
2. Using music
3. Using laughter
B. Encouraging yourself:
1. Making positive statements
2. Taking risks wisely
3. Rewarding yourself
C. Taking your emotional temperature:
1. Listening to your body
2. Using a checklist
3. Writing a language learning diary
4. Discussing your feelings with someone else
Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) has been
the most widely used instrument in the field of language learning strategy
research and the sections designed to elicit subjects’ use of metacognitive,
affective and social strategies could, in principle, be used to assess the
degree to which students report that they take control of their own learn-
ing. The idea that strategic learning can be broken down into taxonomies,
however, may be a product of the prevalence of questionnaire research in
the field, which has tended to represent strategies as discrete and static
variables (Gao, 2004). Tseng, Dörnyei and Schmitt (2006: 81) also argue
that ‘it is not what learners do that makes them strategic learners but rather
the fact that they put creative effort into trying to improve their learning’
and call for a shift in the focus of research from strategies to ‘the self-
regulatory process itself and the specific learner capacity underlying it’.
Within the field of autonomy, Little (2000a) takes a similar view, arguing
that what matters is the learner’s ‘strategic control’ over language learning,
while Macaro (2008: 54) describes ‘autonomy of language learning com-
petence’ as ‘having the awareness, the knowledge, and the experience of
strategy use, together with the metacognition to evaluate the effectiveness

not only of individual strategies, not only specific clusters against a task, but
also how all these map onto a much broader canvas of language learning
over time’. While these comments point to the importance of identifying
the more general capacities beneath strategy use, research is yet to specify
exactly what these capacities may be. There is also a risk in the more general
approach of losing the focus on identification and description of observ-
able language learning behaviours that has been one of the strengths of
strategy research.
5.2 Control over cognitive processing

As I use the term here, learning management refers to observable behaviours,
while control over learning management refers to the cognitive competences
underlying these behaviours. The same can be said of control over learn-
ing content, which also has observable and cognitive aspects (Chapter 5.3).
Control over cognitive processing, on the other hand, is purely cognitive in
the sense that it is not concerned with direct control of behaviour, but with
control over the cognitive processes through which learning management and
content are controlled. O’Malley and Chamot’s (1990: 138) metacognitive
strategies include, for example, ‘understanding the conditions that help
one successfully accomplish language tasks and arranging for the presence
of those conditions’. Here there is a more or less direct correspondence
between a cognitive competence (understanding the conditions that assist
language learning) and an observable learning management behaviour
(arranging for the presence of those conditions). We can also ask, however,
what kinds of cognitive competence are needed in order for a learner to
develop an understanding of the conditions that assist language learning.
Although the answers to this kind of question are as yet not well understood,
we can hypothesise that they will be fewer in number than the cognitive
competences that directly underlie learning management behaviours and
that they will be directly concerned with control over cognition itself. The
areas of research that hold most promise in this respect appear to be those
concerned with attention, reflection and metacognitive knowledge. These
are also underdeveloped areas of interest within the field of autonomy,
which nevertheless offer the possibility of a relatively concise account of
the psychological factors underpinning control over language learning.
5.2.1 Attention
Cognitive approaches to second language acquisition broadly assume that
acquisition is dependent on the learner’s active mental engagement with
Figure 5.1 The psychology of autonomous learning
linguistic input (Quote 5.2). One of the most widely discussed cognitive
approaches has developed out of Schmidt’s (1990) ‘noticing hypothesis’,
which holds that learners must first demonstrate conscious apprehension
and awareness of a particular linguistic form before any processing of it can
take place. Schmidt’s work has been criticised for a degree of looseness in
its use of terms such as consciousness, awareness and attention and for the
empirical evidence on which his work was based (principally the author’s own
diary study reported in Schmidt and Frota, 1986). Nevertheless, the general
thrust of his argument has been accepted by subsequent researchers and
several studies offer theoretical and empirical support for the hypothesis that
noticing and attention are vital to second language acquisition (Bialystok,
1994; Robinson, 2003; Tomlin and Villa, 1994; Wickens, 2007).
Tomlin and Villa on attention
Humans, like other cognizing organisms, are bombarded constantly with

overwhelming amounts of sensory and cognitive information. It is the human
attention systems that reduce and control that influx of information. Within the
more narrowly defined problem of SLA, we find the learner also overwhelmed
by incoming L2 input, and it is a virtual certainty that attention is employed to
help sort out that input and to bring order to the chaos threatening to, and
sometimes succeeding in, overwhelming the learner.
Tomlin and Villa (1994: 184)
Developing Schmidt’s hypothesis, Tomlin and Villa (1994) argue that

the attentional system is crucial in ‘sorting out’ the chaos of L2 input. They
object, however, to Schmidt’s emphasis on the importance of noticing,
which they argue ‘may not be as critical a factor for SLA as other processes,
specifically detection and orientation, attentional processes that can be dis-

sociated from awareness’ (p. 185). Orientation is defined as the direction
of attentional resources to a type or class of sensory information at the
expense of others, while detection is defined as the process that selects, or
engages, a particular and specific bit of information within a type. Accord-
ing to Tomlin and Villa (1994: 189), the key functions in second language
acquisition belong to the domain of attention rather than awareness, and
are subject to control:
At the neuroanatomical level, control of attention is exerted by the voluntary
reactivation of areas that perform the task automatically. At the functional
level, either by personal choice, or via instruction, or covert cues, people are
able to regulate how much processing specific aspects of stimuli will receive.
Although contextual factors also influence attention, language learners are
in principle able to exercise a degree of control over what they attend to in
linguistic input.
Bialystok (1994: 158), whose objective is to identify ‘a minimum set of
cognitive operations that are responsible for the acquisition and use of
language’, uses a somewhat different framework built around two cognitive
processing components: analysis and control. Her framework assumes that
‘an orderly mental world’, consisting of representations and processes that
constitute operations on representations, is fundamental to the long-term
development of proficiency in a second language. According to Bialystok
(1994: 159):
The reason that thought evolves, or that language proficiency increases, is
that mental representations develop. Analysis is the process by which mental
representations that were loosely organized around meanings (knowledge of
the world) become rearranged into explicit representations that are organized
around formal structures.
The process of analysis also underlies the phenomenological experience by
which implicit knowledge becomes explicit.
Control is ‘the process of selective attention that is carried out in real
time’ and, Bialystok argues (p. 160):
Because cognition originates in mental representations, then there must be
a means of focusing attention on the specific representation, or aspect of
a representation, relevant to a particular purpose.
Bialystok also considers consciousness and awareness to be concerned with
attention, or the interaction between analysis and control (p. 165):
Designated in this way, the problem of consciousness is redefined as the
problem of awareness. Awareness is the result of the interaction between
analysis and control. Analyzed representations can be attended to by means
of control of processing in precise ways. More analyzed representations are
more articulated, and they allow attention to be brought to more detailed

and more precise specifications of those representations. Sometimes these
details concern rules or structures and sometimes they concern processes or
procedures. This process of focusing attention onto specific aspects of the
representation gives rise to the subjective feeling of awareness that has been
called consciousness.
Bialystok’s view of the role of attention in second language acquisition is
broader than that of other researchers, because it is concerned not simply
with input but with analysed representations derived from input. It is also
developmental, because it is the direction of attention towards mental
representations that leads to the development of proficiency.
A more recent approach to the role of attentional processes in second
language acquisition comes from Wickens (2007), who uses two psycho-
logical models, the ‘SEEV’ selective attention model and the ‘Multiple
Resources Model’ of divided attention. Both of these models are based on
an underlying human information processing model in which attentional
resources are applied at various stages of cognition from the perception of
input, through transfer from working to long-term memory, to response
selection and execution. Control of attention is evident in the SEEV model
as attentional resources are variably allocated to these stages according
to the salience of events (S), the effort needed to attend to them (E),
expectancy of what we will see or hear (E), and the value of information
(V). In the Multiple Resources Model attentional resources are allocated
to competing tasks: for example, when a second language user needs to
listen to a lecture and take notes. In Wickens’s model control is primarily
a matter of the allocation of attentional resources, a process described
elsewhere in the psychological literature as ‘executive control’. His models
also differ from others in the second language acquisition literature in that
they focus on the distribution of attentional resources across various stages
of cognition and competing tasks, suggesting that control of attention
plays a role not only in relation to input processing, but also in relation
to the cognitive organisation of language knowledge and the production
of output.
The idea that attention is a key process in second language acquisition
is relatively recent and, at present, research is characterised by a search for
conceptual and terminological clarity. However, researchers on autonomy
do not need to take a position within current theoretical debates in order
to recognise the importance of the hypothesis that control over attentional
resources is crucial to second language acquisition. If attention is a pre-
condition of acquisition, effective language learning may begin with the
learner taking control over what is attended to in input. It may also be the
case that the processes identified with control over learning management
and content in this chapter can be seen as broader manifestations of con-
trol over attentional resources.
5.2.2 Reflection
Further reading
Boud, D., Keough, R. and Walker, D. (eds) (1985) Reflection: Turning Experience into
Learning. London: Kogan Page.
Little on reflection and autonomy
The growth and exercise of general behavioural autonomy may or may not
entail processes of conscious reflection. In this regard human beings differ
from one another as to their genetic endowment and the domestic, social and
cultural environments in which they are born. But if we make the develop-
ment of autonomy a central concern of formal learning, conscious reflection
will necessarily play a central role from the beginning, for the simple reason
that all formal learning is the result of deliberate intention.
Little (1997: 94)
A number of researchers have described reflection as a key psycholog-

ical component of autonomy and, for Little (1997), conscious reflection on
the learning process is a distinctive characteristic of autonomous learning.
Reflection may also be a key cognitive process underlying self-management
in learning if action is seen as its logical outcome. Reflection is a complex
construct, however, and there has to date been relatively little research on
its role in language learning.
Concern with the importance of reflection in learning dates back at least
as far as Dewey (1933: 9), whose definition of reflection has been widely
quoted:
Active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form
of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further
conclusions to which it tends constitutes reflective thought . . . it includes
a conscious and voluntary effort to establish belief upon a firm basis of evi-
dence and rationality.
In retrospect, however, Dewey’s definition seems somewhat idealised in its
emphasis on evidence and rationality and its failure to view reflection as
‘socially conditioned and affective in nature’ (Harris, 1990: 113). Boud et
al. (1985: 19) define reflection as ‘a generic term for those intellectual and
affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences
in order to lead to a new understanding and appreciation’, while Louden
(1991: 149) defines it more broadly still as ‘a mental process which takes
place out of the stream of action, looking forward or (usually) back to
actions that have taken place’.
A number of researchers working in adult or professional learning con-

texts have attempted to identify different levels and forms of reflection.
Mezirow (1981), for example, has identified seven levels of reflection:
reflectivity, affective, discriminant, judgemental, conceptual, psychic and
theoretical. Louden (1991) discusses four forms:
• Introspection: deliberate contemplation of a past event at some distance
from the stream of action.
• Replay and rehearsal: where events are reworked in our heads again and
again.
• Enquiry: where there is a deliberate and explicit connection between
thinking and doing.
• Spontaneity: tacit reflection, which takes place within the stream of
experience.
Reflection has also been conceptualised as one phase within cyclical processes
of learning in which it plays a crucial role. Kohonen’s (1992) experiential
language-learning model, for example, describes a cycle of learning involv-
ing concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation
and active experimentation leading to further reflection on experience.
Smyth’s (1991) ‘emancipatory reflective learning’ model involves a similar
cycle together with a focus on how actions are constrained by relationships
of power and learners conceptions of what is possible (Concept 5.4).
Concept 5.4 Emancipatory reflective learning

In emancipatory reflective learning models, reflection also implies action.
Smyth (1991), for example, represents the process of reflection as a series of
moments and questions:
• Describe: What do I do?
• Inform: What does this description mean?
• Confront: How did I come to be like this?
• Reconstruct: How might I do things differently?
For the third moment, which is seen as the most problematic because it
involves questioning the legitimacy of current practice, Smyth provides a
series of questions:
• What do my practices say about my assumptions and beliefs?
• Where did these ideas come from?
• What social practices are expressed in these ideas?
• What is it that causes me to maintain my theories?
• What views of power do they embody?
• Whose interests seem to be served by my practices?
• What is it that constrains my views of what is possible?
Reflection leading to action can be understood as a cognitive basis for

control over learning management, especially if it is carried out collectively
for the purpose of change. It seems clear, however, that questioning funda-
mental beliefs is exceptional and occurs naturally only at moments of
crisis or change, as a result of a deliberate decision to expose assumptions
to doubt, or as a result of external intervention. In the recent literature on
transformative learning, self-directed learning has been critiqued for its
failure to lead to this kind of questioning, which is increasingly viewed as
requiring the intervention of teaching (Brookfield, 2009).
On the basis of research, therefore, we can say that we know several
things about reflection:
• It is a mental process involving rational thought, emotion and judgement.
• It may be consciously initiated by the reflector or by others, or it may be
prompted by a disturbance in the normal pattern of feelings or events.
• It is context-bound. We must reflect on something in some specific
situation and under specific constraints.
• It is goal-oriented. Although the goals of reflection vary, they generally
involve learning.
• It can be retrospective, introspective or prospective.
• It can be modelled as a cyclical process involving the deconstruction and
reconstruction of assumptions or beliefs.
• It may or may not lead to action or deep change in the learner. Reflec-
tion leading to deep change is liable to be difficult and even painful.
The relationship between reflection and autonomy lies in the cognitive
and behavioural processes by which individuals take control of the stream
of experience they are subject to. According to Candy (1991: 389) reflec-
tion is a key internal mechanism for the development of control, because
learners must be able to recognise connections between strategies and out-
comes in order to control their learning. Candy proposes reflective journal
writing and group discussion of beliefs about approaches to learning as
means towards this end. To date, reflection has been seen as particularly
important in adult learning and professional education, where experience
of practice can serve as a focal point of learning. Although there has been
relatively little research on reflection in language learning, its relevance is
clear if language learning is viewed as a practice that engages both intellect
and emotion.
Kohonen on reflection and deep learning
Only experience that is reflected upon seriously will yield its full measure of
learning, and reflection must in turn be followed by testing new hypotheses
in order to obtain further experience. It can be argued, in fact, that theoretical
concepts will not become part of the individual’s frame of reference until they
have been experienced meaningfully on a subjective emotional level. Reflection
plays an important role in this process by providing a bridge, as it were,
between experience and theoretical conceptualization. The process of learn-
ing is seen as the recycling of experience at deeper levels of understanding
and interpretation. This view entails the idea of lifelong learning.
Kohonen (1992: 17)
Reflection has been discussed in the context of autonomous language

learning in three main ways: at the level of language, at the level of the
learning process, and as a means of ‘deconditioning’. Kohonen (1992)
views deep learning as a process of hypothesis generation and testing in
which reflection plays a crucial role (Quote 5.4). Applied to language
learning, the experiential model implies ‘learner reflection on language
structure and explicit teaching of the systemic structure of the target lan-
guage, aiming at control of the language’ (p. 29). In this sense, reflection
is oriented towards the content of language learning and principally con-
tributes to the learner’s autonomy as a language user. At the same time,
Kohonen argues that autonomous learners need to gain an understanding
of the language learning process (p. 24):
Raising the awareness of one’s own learning and gaining an understanding of
the processes involved is thus an important key to the development of
autonomous learning. Conscious reflection on learning experiences and the
sharing of such reflections with other learners in cooperative groups makes
it possible to increase one’s awareness of learning.
In this sense, reflection is oriented towards the learning process and con-
tributes to the learner’s autonomy as a language learner.
Reflection also plays an important role in Leni Dam’s autonomous
language-learning classrooms in both of the senses discussed so far. Using
the term ‘evaluation’ in much the same way as others use the term con-
scious reflection, Dam (1995: 49) argues that:
Evaluation plays a pivotal role in the development of learner autonomy. The
function of evaluation is on the one hand to ensure that work undertaken is
discussed and revised, and on the other to establish a basis of experience and
awareness that can be used in planning further learning. It is a recurrent

activity between the teacher and individual learners, groups of learners, or
the whole class. It can also be undertaken by the learners themselves.
Students are encouraged to bring examples of language noticed outside class
into class for discussion, to write new language on posters, in learning
diaries, and so on. They are also asked to conduct short oral evaluations at
the end of each class and longer written evaluations at the end of each term.
Collective reflections on the learning process exercise an influence on the
future organisation of the learning process within the classroom.
Reflection has also been seen as a tool for ‘deconditioning’ learners from
learning habits or ways of thinking about learning that are inimical to
autonomy. For some researchers, the fact that previous learning experi-
ences may predispose learners to resist autonomy means that autonomy
should not be imposed, but introduced gradually and at the learners’ own
pace (Nunan, 1997). One of the problems with gradualist approaches,
however, is the lack of strong empirical evidence that learners are, in fact,
more likely to accept the idea of autonomy more readily if it is introduced
gradually. The relationship between the rate at which ideas of autonomy
are introduced and their uptake by learners is an issue that might be
addressed through research on reflection.
Candy on deconditioning
[I]f, indeed, the disinclination or inability to accept responsibility is actually a

learned phenomenon, akin to learned helplessness, then one could argue that
it would be possible, and perhaps even desirable, to jolt adult students out of
their compliance and passivity. This may be achieved gradually, through the
progressive devolution of control to the learners, or it may be sudden.
Candy (1991: 376)
For other researchers, the crucial issue is to help learners to confront

their ideas about learning that lead them to resist the idea of autonomy,
either gradually or more suddenly (Quote 5.5). In both cases, the process
of confrontation involves reflection on existing beliefs and practices. In the
context of language learning, Holec (1980: 41) refers to the psychological
level of learner training for autonomy as ‘a gradual deconditioning of the
learner’, which can take place only if the learner (1) ‘manages to re-
examine all his prejudices and preconceptions about language learning and
his role in it’; and (2) ‘is sufficiently well-informed concerning the new
approach so that he can see for himself its advantages and disadvantages,
but above all so that he will have a clearer idea of what his place and role
in it will be, as well as what is to be expected of the other components of
the system’. According to Holec, therefore, deep reflection on beliefs and
practices interacts with the learner’s expanding knowledge base in the
development of autonomy.
Reflection is evidently an important component of autonomous
language learning at a number of levels. It may even be the case that the
autonomous learner is essentially one who is capable of reflection at appro-
priate moments in the learning process and of acting upon the results.
However, to date we know very little about what language learners reflect
upon and how they go about doing it. Learner journal studies indicate that
writing about language learning is a useful tool for reflection (e.g. Bailey,
1983; Matsumoto, 1989, 1996), but in view of what we have seen of its
complexity, a great deal remains to be learned about the nature of
reflection in language learning and its relationship to autonomy.
5.2.3 Metacognitive knowledge
Further reading
Wenden, A. (1998) ‘Metacognitive knowledge and language learning’, Applied
Linguistics, 19 (4): 515–37.
The notion of ‘metacognitive knowledge’, introduced into the literature

on autonomy in language learning by Wenden (1995), adds a further
dimension to our understanding of control over cognitive processing
(Quote 5.6). Wenden observes that planning, monitoring and evaluation
are the three main strategies identified in the literature on autonomy and
self-regulation. She is concerned, however, that the use of these strategies
does not in itself define autonomy. Citing Perkins and Salomon (1989),
Wenden (1995: 188) argues that, ‘if they fail to make contact with a rich
knowledge base, these three strategies are weak’. Wenden refers to this
knowledge base as metacognitive knowledge, which she defines as ‘the
stable, statable and sometimes fallible knowledge learners acquire about
themselves as learners and the learning process’ (p. 185). Metacognition
describes the processes by which metacognitive knowledge is deployed.
Wenden describes three kinds of metacognitive knowledge: person, strate-
gic and task knowledge. Of these, the most relevant to the idea of control
over the learning process is task knowledge.
Wenden on metacognitive knowledge and autonomy
For the greater part, language instructors will view their goal as the provision
of instruction that facilitates the development of linguistic autonomy. However,
this research suggests that learners also need guidance in improving and
expanding their knowledge about learning so that they may also become
more autonomous in their approach to the learning of their new language.
The following four procedures that define awareness raising activities for
(metacognitive) knowledge acquisition may be used as a guide in devising
tasks and materials for this purpose . . .
(1) elicitation of learners’ metacognitive knowledge and beliefs
(2) articulation of what has come to awareness
(3) confrontation with alternative views
(4) reflection on the appropriateness of revising, expanding one’s knowledge.
Wenden (1998: 531)
Wenden defines task knowledge as ‘what learners need to know about

(i) the purpose of a task, (ii) the task’s demands, and (iii) implicit in these
considerations, a determination of the kind of task it is’ (p. 185). Task
knowledge is thus understood as metacognitive knowledge contextualised
within the task at hand. It is implicated in the decision to carry out a learn-
ing task, decisions about content, progression, pace, place and time of
learning, the selection and use of cognitive strategies and the criteria
selected for evaluation. Wenden (1995: 189) notes, for example, that expert
learners construct mental representations of task demands in order to
determine how best to go about completing them. These representations
include task goals and subgoals, possible states through which the task will
pass on its way to completion and the constraints under which the task is
to be done. Decisions about planning, monitoring and evaluation of learn-
ing, therefore, always occur within some context of task and are dependent
upon task knowledge, which is derived from experience. In the context of
language learning, a task may be as as narrow as learning a new word or as
broad as the entire process of learning the target language. Whatever the
task, the learner must draw on her knowledge of language and language
learning in order to complete it.
For Camilleri (2000: 351), knowing how to learn involves three aspects:
a conceptual understanding of the learning process of learning, a positive
attitude to learning, and a metalanguage. Metalanguage ‘enables one to talk
to oneself and to others about the learning process’ and is thus bound up
with both metacognitive knowledge and reflection. If we link task knowledge
to Bialystok’s (1994) framework of analysis and control, the metacognitive
knowledge that is brought to bear in the process of planning, monitoring

and evaluating language learning appears to be fundamentally metalin-
guistic and consists of analysed representations that are brought to con-
sciousness and made available for further analysis through the direction of
attentional resources. As Bialystok points out, these representations may
concern rules and structures or processes and procedures (p. 165). In both
cases, the representations are necessarily metalinguistic because they are
derived from the experience of processing linguistic input. In other words,
control over language learning appears to depend on the mobilisation of
the learner’s metalinguistic knowledge base.
Little (1997) develops a similar argument in relation to autonomy and
language awareness based on Karmiloff-Smith’s (1992) model of ‘representa-
tional redescription’, which describes learning as a process of representation
and re-representation of knowledge at varying levels of explicitness. Little
notes that language awareness refers to two apparently distinct phenomena:
(1) a possibly innate awareness that is independent of conscious reflection
on language; and (2) knowledge of language acquired through formal or
informal learning. Little argues that as we move from implicit to explicit
knowledge, or the more we are able to verbalise our knowledge of lan-
guage, the greater the likelihood that it will derive from external as well as
internal sources (p. 97). The development of language awareness involves,
in other words, interaction between implicit (internally derived) and explicit
(externally derived) processes. Little observes that fostering autonomy
means both ‘to enable learners to maximise their potential for learning
via critical reflection and self-evaluation, and to enable them to become
independent and self-reliant users of their target language’ (pp. 98–9).
However, he also argues that these learning-to-learn goals and language-
learning goals are interrelated (p. 99):
In practice these concerns are not easily separable; for the truly autonomous
learner, each occasion of language use is an occasion of language learning,
and vice versa. Proficiency in spontaneous use of the spoken language
requires the gradual development of language awareness in the sense that
knowledge about the target language provides the indispensable basis for
critical reflection and analysis.
Learning language and learning how to learn language both build on lan-
guage awareness, or the development of the learner’s implicit and explicit
metalinguistic knowledge base.
5.2.4 The importance of control over cognitive processes

The importance of control over cognitive processes in the description of
autonomy lies in Little’s (1991: 4) observation that autonomy presupposes
that the learner ‘will develop a particular kind of psychological relation to
the process and content of his learning’. Learners who are asked to take
greater control of their learning, or who are forced by circumstances to do

so, may be able to self-manage their learning, but they will not necessarily
have the cognitive competencies that will make self-management system-
atic or effective. As Breen and Mann (1997: 141) put it, they may put on
‘the mask of autonomy’, but they will not necessarily be autonomous learn-
ers. The nature of the autonomous learner’s psychological relation to the
learning process is often described in general attitudinal terms or in terms
of capacities for ‘detachment’, ‘critical thinking’, ‘creativity’, and so on.
Here, I have hypothesised that it may be described more precisely as a
capacity to control certain cognitive processes that are central to the man-
agement of language learning. Current research suggests that attention,
reflection and the development of metacognitive knowledge are among the
more important processes on which further research is needed.
5.3 Control over learning content

Control of learning content is an aspect of control over learning manage-
ment, which is concerned with the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of language learning,
rather than the ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘how’. It is discussed separately here for
two reasons. First, there is good reason to believe that control over content
is fundamental to autonomy in learning. If learners self-manage method-
ological aspects of their learning, but do not learn what they want to learn,
their learning may not be authentically self-directed. Second, in institutional
contexts, there are usually social and political dimensions to control of learn-
ing content. Thus, when teachers ask students to take more responsibility
for their learning, they are often referring to methodological aspects, rather
than content. The desire to take control over learning content can also
bring students into conflict with teachers and institutions and will often
involve control over the collective situation of students’ learning and the
use of capacities for social interaction that are distinct from those required
in the individual management of learning methods (Quote 5.7).
Macaro on the implications of autonomy of choice
The implications of autonomy of choice, as posited in both the instructed and

naturalistic contexts above, are profound and may not be at all palatable to
certain people and certain institutions. One implication is that the whole thrust
of integrative orientation is cast aside for personal and instrumental goals . . .
Language users of English may become increasingly self-assertive about the
kind of proficiency that they wish to attain. If they percieve that communica-
tion is advanced by a different variety of English they may well shift their
language learning goals from those of traditional language curricula. If they

perceive that they can communicate effectively through codeswitching in cer-
tain communites, or in particular commercial situations, they may want to
develop a competence in that particular style of communication. These goals,
generated through free choice, are likely to be much more specific and
explicit, appear to be much more attainable and are likely to influence perfo-
mance more decisively.
Macaro (2008: 58–9)
This distinction is also relevant to at least two of the categorisations of

different approaches to autonomy discussed in Chapter 3.2. In Littlewood’s
(1999) distinction between proactive and reactive autonomy, proactive
autonomy appears to involve learners setting their own directions in terms
of what they will learn, while reactive autonomy might be described as
control over methods of learning content that has been set by others. In
Ribé’s (2003) distinction between ‘convergence’, ‘divergence–convergence’
and ‘convergence–divergence’ positions, convergence and divergence refer
to whether, when learning a foreign language, everybody is ultimately
learning the same thing or whether each person is learning something
unique to themselves. If we take the view that language learning involves
convergence towards common learning goals, the case for learner control
over content is somewhat weakened. If we accept that individual learners
construct their own language systems out of the resources of the target
language, the case is strengthened considerably.
Setting goals and determining what will be learned come first within the
logical sequence of learning self-management tasks. In addition, other ele-
ments of planning, selection of resources, task design, progress monitoring
and self-assessment are performed in relation to specific goals and content.
If the goals and content are self-determined, subsequent phases of learning
become aspects of the solution to learning problems that are authentic in
the sense that they are the learner’s own. It is also the interplay between
self-determined methods and self-determined goals that gives autonomy
a dynamic and developmental character. If goals and content are other-
determined, self-direction at the level of methods may be reduced to a choice
of the most appropriate method of completing tasks that lack authenticity
in terms of the learner’s own perceived learning needs. The exercise of
autonomy itself may be reduced to the routine application of tried and
tested methods of completing prescribed tasks outside the classroom.
From a constructivist point of view (Chapter 2.3), all effective learning
begins from the learner’s existing knowledge and develops through the
interpretation of experience. Again, learning is more authentic and effective
if it begins from a problem that the learner immediately faces, because new
knowledge will be more effectively integrated with existing meaning systems.

Self-determination of learning content also has motivational implications.
Norton (1997), for example, holds that language learning motivation
depends on the development of a sense of ‘ownership’ of the second lan-
guage, which is intimately bound up with the learner’s identity as a second
language user. If the language to be learned is to become the learner’s own,
the locus of control over learning content should lie with the learner rather
than with the teacher, the textbook or the syllabus.
It is also often observed that language learners who successfully master
prescribed content are not necessarily the best users of the language in
practical communicative contexts. Ramadevi (1992: 1), for example, observes
that, when college level learners of English in India are unable to use the
language with ease, they are ‘deprived in a more serious way than merely
being able to communicate, or use the language for academic purposes; this
deprivation could be characterized as not being able to get out of language
use, adequately, the services of an abstract tool of innovative thinking’. She
suggests that autonomy is not simply a question of learners choosing from
the linguistic core syllabus, but also a question of ‘making active decisions
about choices from areas of experience they would like to deal in and the
particular meanings that they would like to explore’ (p. 92). Pennycook
(1997) has argued forcefully that autonomy means helping learners to
acquire a ‘voice’ in the foreign language that corresponds to their own
cultural and ideological standpoints. From this standpoint, autonomy is
a question of knowing what one wants to learn, or knowing what has be
learned in order to interpret and convey meanings that are uniquely one’s
own. This also implies a broader awareness of and control over the pur-
poses of language learning. As Macaro (2008: 59) puts it, ‘having a choice
in their own language learning means the language learner or user taking
control not only of the language being learnt, but also of the goal and pur-
pose of that learning’, because ‘autonomy resides in being able to say what
you want to say rather than producing the language of others’ (p. 60).
Kenny on autonomy as the expression of self
Autonomy is not just a matter of permitting choice in learning situations, or

making pupils responsible for the activities they undertake, but of allowing and
encouraging learners, through processes deliberately set up for the purpose,
to begin to express who they are, what they think, and what they would like
to do, in terms of work they initiate and define for themselves. This is holistic
learning and it transcends the subject disciplines.
Kenny (1993: 440)
For Kenny (1993), autonomy in the context of foreign language learning

implies that the learners must be able to define the overall nature of the
language-learning task for themselves (Quote 5.8). Kenny argues that
‘chaining a learner to some subject discipline is a restriction of that learner’s
autonomy, for it acts as a control on discovery, and on the production of
knowledge’ (p. 433). As long as the learning task is defined as the acquisition
of a body of knowledge concerned with language, it does not particularly
matter whether this knowledge is transmitted by a teacher or acquired
independently by the learners. For Kenny, autonomy implies that the
learners use language rather than study it and that ‘the curriculum becomes
a way of organizing what the learner wants to do, rather than a sequencing
of knowledge’ (p. 435). Kenny’s argument is ultimately related to two specific
characteristics of language learning as a process of learning to communicate:
(1) that foreign languages are often learned as a means to learn something
else; and (2) that using a foreign language can be a means of learning the
language itself. Control over the content of language learning thus implies
a capacity to evaluate one’s broad learning purposes and their relationship
to language acquisition. It is as much a matter of determining the contexts
of experience within which learning will take place, as it is a matter of
determining the linguistic content to be learned.
According to Little (1996: 204), autonomy ‘facilitates target language
use in the larger world that lies beyond the immediate learning environment’
and ‘allows the learner to take maximum advantage of the language-learning
opportunities that continually arise in language use’. Thus, to the extent
that control extends to the domain of content, autonomy in formal educa-
tional contexts projects learning beyond the curriculum towards more
authentic contexts of language use. However, this may also entail a new set
of problems for the learner, for, as Little again argues, ‘learning can only
proceed via interaction, so that the freedoms by which we recognize learner
autonomy are always constrained by the learner’s dependence on the
support and cooperation of others’. Paradoxically, learners who succeed in
taking control of the content of their language learning may be rewarded
by academic failure if their own goals depart too far from those of the
curriculum.
Unless the learners are entirely self-instructed, control over learning
content will necessarily involve the learners in social interactions regard-
ing the right to determine and implement their own learning goals. These
interactions may take place with other learners in the collective negotia-
tion of learning goals and tasks, or with teachers and higher authorities
in the negotiation of the curriculum. Negotiations of the second type do
not necessarily imply conflict, although in practice formal education sys-
tems tend to constrain learner control over content within the framework
of curricula. Cotterall (2008: 111) illustrates the tensions over control of
learning content that can arise in an anecdote about an English for

Academic Purposes programme in which she was involved. The students
were highly proficient postgraduates intending to enrol on master’s or
doctoral programmes and their frequent comments and questions on
relationships between course activities and the situations for which they
were preparing suggested they had a high degree of autonomy. After about
five weeks, a group of students approached their teacher and suggested
that they might only attend the lessons that they thought suited their
purposes. In addition, they proposed developing individual study pro-
grammes based on their own assessments of their needs. Cotterall states
her view that the modifications they proposed would have significantly
increased the benefit they obtained from the course, but she also notes that
the change did not take place because their sponsor would not agree to
their proposal.
In such situations, teachers may be able to create spaces for learner
control over content (in projects, self-access, extra-curricular activities,
and so on), but the effectiveness of their initiatives may be blunted if
the curriculum and assessment tasks are unresponsive to divergent goals
and outcomes. Control over the content of learning requires, more
than any other aspect of autonomy, that teachers and education authori-
ties provide contexts for learning in which diversity is encouraged and
rewarded. It also requires that learners develop their own capacities to
participate in social interactions concerning their learning, to negotiate
for the right to self-determine its broad direction, and perhaps to par-
ticipate in the transformation of the educational structures in which they
learn.
The political dimension of autonomy is perhaps its most controversial
aspect. The idea of autonomy in language learning is in part rooted in
proposals for radical educational reform in the work of Dewey, Freire,
Illich and others. But many researchers and practitioners have sought to
find ways of conceptualising and fostering autonomy independently of the
need for educational reform. Elsewhere, I have argued that this is partly
a consequence of researchers conceptualising autonomy from the teacher’s
perspective of what can be made to work within conventional classrooms,
as opposed to the learner’s perspective, which is likely to be more con-
cerned with purpose and content (Benson, 2008). The importance of
control over learning content, however, also lies within the realm of learn-
ing theory. In motivation theory, for example, it is the self-determination
of content and the possibility of achieving self-determined goals, rather
than control over learning methods, that promotes intrinsic motivation
and learning (Chapter 4.3.1). If control over methods without control over
content represents an inauthentic form of autonomy, we may need to
accept that autonomy necessarily involves challenges within the social and
political domains of learning.
5.4 Describing the autonomous learner

The main focus of this chapter is the question of whether or not we are
able to draw up a list of the components of language learner autonomy.
And, if we are able to draw up such a list, how many of these components
would a learner need to possess in order to count as autonomous? Are
there, perhaps, a set of core components that constitute learner autonomy?
Or should we, instead, adopt a more holistic view, which does not attempt
to break autonomy down into its component parts?
Concept 5.4 Profiling the autonomous learner

Candy (1991: 459–66) has listed more than 100 competencies associated with
autonomy in learning under 13 headings. According to Candy, autonomous
learners are:
• methodical/disciplined
• logical/analytical
• reflective/self-aware
• curious/open/motivated
• flexible
• interdependent/interpersonally competent
• persistent/responsible
• venturesome/creative
• confident/have a positive self-concept
• independent/self-sufficient
• skilled in seeking/retrieving information
• knowledgeable about/skilled in learning
• able to develop/use evaluation criteria.
One of the most substantial attempts to list the characteristics of the

autonomous learner comes from beyond the field of language education in
Candy’s (1991) list of more than 100 competencies linked to autonomous
learning in the educational literature (Concept 5.4). In the context of
language education, Breen and Mann (1997: 134–6) offer a reduced set of
characteristics, suggesting that autonomous learners:
• see their relationship to what is to be learned, to how they will learn and
to the resources available as one in which they are in charge or in control;
• are in an authentic relationship to the language they are learning and
have a genuine desire to learn that particular language;
• have a robust sense of self that is unlikely to be undermined by any
actual or assumed negative assessments of themselves or their work;
• are able to step back from what they are doing and reflect upon it in
order to make decisions about what they next need to do and experience;
• are alert to change and able to change in an adaptable, resourceful and
opportunistic way;
• have a capacity to learn that is independent of the educational processes
in which they are engaged;
• are able to make use of the environment they find themselves in
strategically;
• are able to negotiate between the strategic meeting of their own needs
and responding to the needs and desires of other group members.
One observation that can be made about these kinds of checklists is that
the components described are often of very different orders, ranging from
skills to aspects of attitude and personality. This raises an initial question
of whether the autonomous learner is someone who has acquired certain
attributes or simply a person with a certain personality and approach to
learning and life. It is also possible that both are involved and, if so, we will
need to separate out the attributes that make up autonomy from the fac-
tors of attitude and personality that may predispose individuals towards
their acquisition. We will also need to distinguish the attributes that are
specific to autonomous learning from those that simply describe ‘good’
learning. Lastly, it seems important that we make a distinction between
description of what autonomous learners are capable of doing and descrip-
tion of the psychological competencies that underlie these capabilities.
One of the main arguments of this chapter is that we can describe what
autonomous learners are capable of doing in terms of control over various
aspects of their learning. While it is difficult to say how many aspects of
learning need to be under the learner’s control in order for the learner to
be considered autonomous, there must at least be some degree of control
over the content of learning. Whether learners are able to control the con-
tent of their learning or not is partly a matter of their own capabilities, but
also partly a matter of the circumstances in which they are learning. The
capacity to control one’s learning is, in principle, independent of the act
of controlling it, but it also seems unlikely that someone will develop this
capacity without ever having had the opportunity to exercise it. This
points, perhaps, to a more holistic view of learner autonomy as a broad
capacity to control those aspects of learning that are particularly salient to
the learner, the learner’s goals and purposes, and the context of teaching
and learning. The question remains of whether we are able to identify
certain core competencies that underlie this broad capacity to control
learning flexibly in response to contextual needs and constraints. If such
competencies do exist, they are probably best described at a relatively
broad psychological level and are likely to involve direction of attentional
resources, reflection and metacognitive knowledge.
Chapter 6
Conclusion
For many language teachers, autonomy is a good idea in theory, but

somewhat idealistic in practice. Section I has explored the history of the
concept of autonomy, its sources beyond the field of language education,
its definitions and the nature of its component parts. On the basis of the
evidence discussed in this section, there are several things that we can say
about autonomy in language learning that suggest that it is not as idealis-
tic as it may appear at first sight:
• Autonomy has a long and respected tradition in educational, psycho-
logical and philosophical thought. In particular, research within the
psychology of learning provides strong grounds for believing that
autonomy is essential to effective learning.
• The concept of autonomy in language learning is well researched at the
level of theory and practice and has proved itself to be adaptable and
responsive to change.
• The construct of autonomy is supported by evidence that learners
naturally tend to exercise control over their learning both generally and
in the field of language learning.
• Autonomy as a systematic capacity for effective control over various
aspects and levels of the learning process is capable of description.
Although we are yet to arrive at a non-controversial account of the con-
struct of autonomy and of the relative importance of various dimensions
of control (and perhaps we never will), the potential forms of control
that comprise autonomy have been well-researched, both within and
beyond the field of autonomy.
The assumption advanced by Dickinson (1995) that autonomy is beneficial
to learning (Quote 6.1) does, therefore, appear to be supported by con-
vincing arguments.
119
Dickinson on the effectiveness of autonomous learning
In recommending autonomy to learners, we are making the assumption that

taking an active, independent attitude to learning and independently under-
taking a learning task, is beneficial to learning; that somehow, personal
involvement in decision making leads to more effective learning. This is not a
universal view. Some teachers and researchers either articulate or demon-
strate beliefs which are in conflict with those concerning learner autonomy.
Thus the claims of the desirability and effectiveness of learner autonomy need
to be justified through convincing arguments.
Dickinson (1995: 165)
The fact that we have gone some way towards demonstrating the valid-
ity of the construct of autonomy and its role in effective language learning
does not mean, however, that we have demonstrated the possibility of
fostering it among learners in practice. For many teachers, the obstacles
to autonomy lie less in the abilities or willingness of students than in the
social and political problems involved in altering established routines for
teaching and learning. In the course of its development, autonomy has
been associated with a number of language-teaching practices that have
been claimed to foster it. Evidence for the effectiveness of these practices
and criteria by which their effectiveness may be judged will be the topic of
Section II.
Section
II Autonomy in practice
This section will:

• explain how practitioners and researchers can better demonstrate the
effectiveness of their work in the field of autonomy;
• describe the main areas of practice associated with autonomy in
language learning;
• discuss evidence for effectiveness within these areas of practice in
terms of autonomy and better language learning.
Chapter 7
Fostering autonomy
Questions are often asked about the ‘effectiveness’ of autonomy and

autonomous learning. If autonomy is defined as the capacity to control
one’s own learning, and autonomous learning as learning that demonstrates
this capacity (Concept 7.1), this is rather like asking whether a driver who
demonstrates a capacity to control a vehicle is an effective driver or not.
Just as controlling the vehicle is an essential part of effective driving,
controlling one’s own learning processes is an essential part of effective
learning. It is difficult to see, in other words, how autonomous learners
who are in control of their learning can be anything other than effective
learners. The question that we should be asking about effectiveness, there-
fore, is whether it is possible for us to find effective ways of fostering
autonomy and putting learners in control of their language learning.
Effectiveness is, in this sense, a matter of whether or not the energies that
we expend yield a reward, not only in terms of the learners’ autonomy, but
also in terms of their proficiency and ability to learn languages.
Concept 7.1 Autonomy and autonomous learning

Autonomy has been defined as the capacity to take control over one’s own
learning. However, the terms ‘autonomy’ and ‘autonomous learning’ are
often used in ways that can cause confusion when we ask questions about
effectiveness. To avoid confusion, it is helpful to distinguish three terms:
autonomy as a learner attribute, autonomous learning as a mode of learning, and
autonomous learning programmes as educational practices designed to foster
autonomy.
In this book, autonomy refers to a capacity that learners possess and display
to various degrees in different contexts. It is primarily an attribute of learners,
although its development and display will be affected by factors in learning
123
situations. Most researchers agree that autonomy cannot be ‘taught’ or

‘learned’. For this reason, the term ‘fostering autonomy’ is often used to refer
to educational initiatives that are designed to stimulate or support the ‘develop-
ment’ of autonomy among learners.
Autonomous learning refers to learning in which learners demonstrate a
capacity to control their learning. Autonomous learning programmes are edu-
cational initiatives designed to foster this capacity or allow it to flourish and,
in general, the use of this term signals no more than a claim or intention.
The fact that a person is participating in such a scheme does not necessarily
mean that they are autonomous or engaged in autonomous learning. In addi-
tion to programmes designed to foster autonomy, we also have programmes,
such as distance learning programmes, where autonomy seems to be more of
a requirement than an intended outcome. In programmes of this kind it
seems especially important to avoid the assumption that the students are
autonomous or engaged in autonomous learning simply because they are
participating in the programme.
These are important questions for two reasons. First, the idea of auton-
omy in language learning is now associated with a variety of alternatives to
the conventional model of the language classroom in which learning is
primarily a consequence of instruction. Second, there is no clear cut evi-
dence to date that any of these alternatives are more or less effective than
the others. In contrast to questions about the effectiveness of autonomy
and autonomous learning per se, therefore, questions about the effective-
ness of particular areas of practice in fostering autonomy are both valuable
and researchable. In Chapters 8–13, these areas of practice are discussed
under six broad headings: resource-based, technology-based, learner-
based, classroom-based, curriculum-based and teacher-based approaches
(Figure 7.1 and Concept 7.2).
The first question to ask of the effectiveness of any practice that claims
to foster autonomy is: ‘How does this practice help learners take greater
control over their learning?’ This question can be divided into two parts:
• What opportunities do the modes of learning implied within the practice
offer for learner control?
• How does the implementation of the practice enable learners to take
advantage of these opportunities?
A second, equally important question is: ‘How does the practice improve
language learning?’ This question can also be divided into two parts:
• In what ways does the practice improve language proficiency?
• How does it help learners to become more effective language learners?
F O S T E R I NG A U T O NO M Y 125
Figure 7.1 Autonomy in language learning and related areas of practice
Concept 7.2 Approaches to the development of autonomy

Practices associated with the development of autonomy can be classified
under six broad headings.
• Resource-based approaches emphasise independent interaction with learning
materials.
• Technology-based approaches emphasise independent interaction with educa-
tional technologies.
• Learner-based approaches emphasise the direct production of behavioural
and psychological changes in the learner.
• Classroom-based approaches emphasise learner control over the planning and
evaluation of classroom learning.
• Curriculum-based approaches extend the idea of learner control to the
curriculum as a whole.
• Teacher-based approaches emphasise the role of the teacher and teacher

education in the practice of fostering autonomy among learners.
This classification is largely a matter of the focus of different areas of practice
in relation to autonomy. Self-access, tandem learning, distance education,
self-instruction and out-of-class learning, for example, come under the head-
ing of ‘resource-based approaches’, because they treat independent interaction
with language learning resources as the focal point for the development of
autonomy. In practice, however, many of the areas of practice associated with
autonomy involve more than one focus. They may also be combined both
within programmes and in long-term experiences of language learning.
Claims for the effectiveness of one approach or area of practice over others,
therefore, need to be tempered by an awareness that they are rarely experi-
enced in isolation from each other.
As we saw in Section I, there are good theoretical reasons to suppose

that autonomous language learners are better language learners. Yet
research has, to date, failed to provide convincing empirical evidence to
match practitioners’ experience-based intuitions that the practices associ-
ated with autonomy are effective either in helping learners to take greater
control over their learning or in improving their language learning. This
is partly, because, research related to practice in the field of autonomy has
tended to describe practices without any real evaluation of their effective-
ness, although there has been a substantial increase in the number of
data-based evaluative studies over the past ten years. Two points should be
borne in mind, however, in assessing this research. First, experience-based,
intuitive data may ultimately prove a better guide than formally collected
empirical data, both because of the complexity of autonomy as a meas-
urable construct and the difficulty of isolating the effects of pedagogical
practices from those of the host of other factors involved in any language
learning enterprise. Second, the areas of practice that we are concerned
with are not exclusively designed in order to foster autonomy and in some
cases, such as distance education, autonomy presents itself more as a
problem posed by structural necessity than a deliberately chosen goal.
This section is, therefore, mainly concerned with what research does
and does not tell us about the effectiveness of the various areas of practice
associated with autonomy, but it is equally concerned with the challenges
that practitioners face in each area and the ways in which issues of auton-
omy are implicated in these challenges.
Chapter 8
Resource-based approaches
In this chapter, resource-based learning serves as a cover term for

approaches such as self-access, tandem learning, distance learning, self-
instruction, and out-of-class learning, that share a focus on the learners’
independent interaction with physical, human or digital language learning
resources. These approaches offer opportunities for learners to self-direct
their learning and develop the skills and dispositions associated with
autonomy through experimentation and discovery. CALL and online
learning are also forms of resource-based learning, but these are covered
separately, as technology-based approaches, in Chapter 9. This distinction
has blurred somewhat with the incorporation of digital resources into
resource-based learning, but it is retained here to mark off approaches in
which there is a claim that the interaction with the technology itself, rather
than the access it gives to learning resources, is the significant factor in the
development of autonomy. The use of new technologies also leads to
convergence among different forms of resource-based learning, which are
increasingly identified by situational features, rather than the modes of
learning they entail. For this reason, I will begin with a brief outline of the
distinctive situational features of these approaches, and then move on to
a discussion of autonomy-related issues that cut across them.
8.1 Self-access
Further reading
Gardner, D. and Miller, L. (1999) Establishing Self-Access: From Theory to Practice.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
127
Sheerin (1991: 143) defined self-access as ‘a way of describing materials that

are designed and organized in such a way that students can select and work
on tasks on their own’, while Gardner and Miller (1999) have defined it
more broadly as an environment for learning involving resources, teachers,
learners and the systems within which they are organised (Quote 8.1). At the
core of the idea of self-access language learning are self-access centres
(often called ‘language resource centres’ or ‘independent language learning
centres’), which often function as quasi-independent units within language
teaching departments with their own philosophy and routines for engag-
ing learners in language study. For this reason, Cotterall and Reinders’s
(2001: 25) definition of self-access language learning as ‘learning that takes
place in a Self-Access Centre’ may be the best that we have, although many
self-access centres now also offer online resources for use outside the centre.
Gardner and Miller on self-access language learning
Self-access is probably the most widely used and recognised term for an
approach to encouraging autonomy . . . Self-access language learning is
an approach to learning language, not an approach to teaching language.
There are misconceptions in the literature about self-access. It is sometimes
seen as a collection of materials and sometimes as a system for organising
resources. We see it as an integration of a number of elements which com-
bine to provide a unique learning environment. Each learner interacts with the
environment in a unique way.
Gardner and Miller (1999: 9–11)
A self-access centre can be broadly defined as a purpose-designed

facility in which learning resources are made directly available to learners.
These resources typically include audio, video and computer workstations,
audiotapes, videotapes and DVDs, computer software and print materials
and, increasingly, access to the Internet or satellite TV. Many self-access
centres also contain areas for group work, a help desk and advising services,
while some offer services such as one-to-one writing support and language-
learning exchanges. Many self-access centres have their own web sites and
offer services and resources online. While some are generously financed
and make use of the latest communications technologies, others make use
of whatever resources are at hand. While there is a growing emphasis on
technology in research on self-access centres, it is perhaps important to
bear in mind that the basic principle of self-access is the provision of learn-
ing resources for free access, which can be achieved to equally good effect
using a selection of reading texts in the corner of a classroom as it can from
a state-of-the-art language learning facility (Concept 8.1).
RE S O U R C E - B A S E D A P P R O A C HE S 129
Concept 8.1 High and low tech self-access

The level of technology used in self-access centres varies greatly, but appears
to have little direct relationship to the effectiveness of self-access learning.
In their study of 46 centres, Lázaro and Reinders (2007) found that most
used technology to provide language content, rather than to support the
learning process. The three centres they identified as more intensive users of
technology did, however, use it mainly for learning process support. In
addition to the more technologically advanced centres, which have become
well-known partly through their access to technology, there are also those
that run with far fewer resources, which are rarely described in the literature
largely because they operate beyond the radar of academic research. Waite
(1994) provided an exceptional account of one such centre at the Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua. Its facilities consisted of
• Six listening booths and six other work spaces along two walls.
• A free-standing box with compartments for work cards.
• An adjoining table for audiocassettes.
• Ordinary cassette players secured by chains installed in the listening
booths.
• Reference dictionaries secured to lecterns.
• Additional materials for language development, listening and reading, and
a selection of course books.
Waite (1994: 241) concluded that ‘the establishment of quite basic, low-tech,
self-access facilities can have a disproportionate effect on the provision of
language support within an institution, allowing a small team to respond to
the needs of their students, their colleagues, and the institution with
increased flexibility and appropriateness’.
Historically, self-access centres have been a route through which

teachers have developed an interest in autonomy and, in spite of the shift
towards classroom-based autonomy in the 1990s, they continue to serve as
a focal point for research, particularly in the area of language advising
(Chapter 13.3), which has a broader relevance for resource-based learning.
Well-established centres can be found at CRAPEL at the University of
Nancy, the University of Cambridge and the University of Hull, which
were all opened in the 1970s, and at several universities in Hong Kong that
set up self-access centres in the early 1990s. More recently, the ELSAC at
the University of Auckland and the self-access centre at Kanda University
of International Studies in Japan have also become important sites for
innovation and research (Chapter 18). Although self-access is strongly
associated with universities, it is now spreading into secondary schools
through initiatives such as the 80 Students’ English Access Rooms that
were set up in secondary schools across Thailand as a result of a Ministry

of Education directive in 2004 (Darasawang, Singhasiri and Keyuravong,
2007).
Self-access centres often face problems related to their institutional
status as they are typically set up in situations in which funding authorities
see one-off capital expenditures as a viable alternative to more expensive
ongoing expenditures on teacher salaries. But, as Gardner and Miller
(1999: 31) point out, pedagogical input is a key element in successful
self-access. The stronger centres are typically well-staffed and are able to
provide language advising services (Mozzon-McPherson and Vismans,
2001; Rubin, 2007). The Centre d’Autoaprenentatge de Llengües at the
Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona, for example, has eight staff, including
an academic director, a manager, two full-time and two part-time language
counsellors, a secretary and a clerical officer (Victori, 2007). This level of
commitment to staffing is rare, however, and many centres struggle to keep
their advising services alive.
Self-access centre staff can also include teachers running classes that
incorporate self-access, although as Toogood and Pemberton (2007) point
out, this can create its own difficulties. Describing a self-access centre based
English course for around 600 engineering students taught by 10 teachers
at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, they explain that
many long-serving staff would opt not to teach the course and, as a result,
most of the teachers were new staff on 11-month contracts, who were
assigned to the course and often inexperienced in or unsympathetic to self-
access. The possibility of integrating self-instructional work into assessed
curricula within a supportive institutional framework is, nevertheless, one
of the strengths of self-access as a resource-based approach. Gardner (2007),
for example, describes an arrangement in which half of a class attends
the first hour of a two-hour class, while the other half attends the second
hour. Each group uses the other hour for self-access work, which could be
carried out in the self-access centre or elsewhere, during the class period
or at a time that suited them.
Students can have mixed responses to self-access time, however. Fisher,
Hafner and Young’s (2007) evaluation study of a 48-hour course at the City
University of Hong Kong, which included a 12-hour independent learning
component, revealed that some students equated the independent learning
with homework, others expecting the teacher to tell them what to do, and
others identifying it with complete freedom. The lack of fit between
the in-class and out-of-class components of the course was identified as a
weakness and following the evaluation the course shifted to an approach in
which support for independent learning was woven throughout the course.
The location of self-access centres within language teaching departments
is one of the main strengths of self-access, because it creates opportunities
for self-instruction within environments where advisors, classroom teachers
and other learners are readily available for face-to-face interaction. Reports
of courses that integrate self-access work into coursework are less frequent,
however, than reports of independent ‘self-access language learning’
initiatives. This elevation of ‘self-access language learning’ to a category of
learning in its own right may ultimately prove to be counterproductive.
The role that self-access centres can play within a curriculum that adopts
autonomy as one of its goals may turn out to be a more important issue
than the effectiveness of the centres themselves.
8.2 Tandem learning
Further reading
Lewis, T. and Walker, L. (eds) (2003) Autonomous Language Learning in Tandem.
Sheffield: Academic & Electronic Press.
Lewis (2005: 165) describes tandem learning as an arrangement in which

‘two people who are learning each others’ language work together to help
one another’. Originally designed to work through face-to-face meetings,
tandem learning has grown in importance with the use of email and the
web (Kötter, 2002) and, more recently, person-to-person voice and video
technologies such as Skype (Mullen, Appel and Shanklin, 2009). Tandem
learning often takes the form of class exchange projects, organised by
teachers in different countries who might create a partnership between,
say, a class of German-speaking learners of French and a class of French-
speaking learners of German. These projects are often highly structured,
with much of the work taking place during lesson time. Tandem learning
can also be more loosely organised, with the institution simply putting
individual speakers of different languages in contact with each other and
leaving the nature of the partnership up to the partners. This kind of
service, which often involves a minimal level of additional support, is often
offered in self-access centres; Mozzon-McPherson (2007: 77), for example,
reports that advisors in the centre at the University of Hull arrange more
than 250 tandem exchanges per year. The International Tandem Network
also offers a free online service that arranges tandem learning partnerships
for language learners (Chapter 18). As an indication of the level of interest
in tandem learning, The International Tandem Network website lists
partner universities and schools in 18 countries around the world, while
Lewis (2005) reports that 22 United Kingdom universities offer tandem
learning to their students.
Brammerts on tandem learning
Learning in tandem is based on simple principles which can be followed by

people unfamiliar with the methodology. It offers solutions in the current
discussion surrounding lifelong, open, self-directed and co-operative learning.
It combines learning with authentic intercultural communication and, there-
fore, language learning with learning in other areas. It is easily adapted to
a variety of curricular demands and learning conditions. Through the new
information and communication technologies, it can be implemented with
a growing number of learners (email tandem learning).
Brammerts (2003: 28)
Two main arguments are made for the effectiveness of tandem learning.
Lewis (2003: 16) bases his case on SLA theory and, in particular, Swain,
Brooks and Tocalli-Beller’s (2002) review of studies on peer–peer dialogue,
which argues that ‘acquisition occurs in interaction’ and ‘peer collaborative
dialogue mediates second language learning’. This implies that the main
function of tandem learning is to create opportunities for authentic target
language use and the negotiation of form and meaning. Other researchers
emphasise the idea of students learning from each other in tandem exchan-
ges. Brammerts (2003: 29) describes tandem learning as ‘a learning partner-
ship, to which each partner brings certain skills and abilities which the other
partner seeks to acquire, and in which both partners support each other in
their learning’. For Little (2003b: 42), the reciprocal social organisation of
tandem learning ‘imposes autonomous behaviour’ and, as learners rise to
the challenge of organising productive partnerships, reflective abilities and
metalinguistic awareness are stimulated. In support of this theoretical
argument, Little cites Appel’s (1999) earlier tandem study, in which partici-
pants accounted for their enhanced metalinguistic awareness by the fact
that they had to work hard to explain their own language to their partners.
As a further argument, Brammerts (2003: 28) points out that tandem
learning is based on ‘simple principles’ and ‘easily adapted’ to a variety of
situations (Quote 8.2). It also focuses directly on the access to the human
resources for authentic peer interaction that has often proved problematic
for other resource-based approaches. Lewis (2003), however, points out
that although practitioners’ experience and theoretical inference provide
good evidence for the effectiveness of tandem learning, there are relatively
few data-based studies in the area. Little’s (2003b: 42) comment that the
partnerships in which the learners do not rise to the challenge of autonomy
‘will soon collapse’ also points to the need for research on the difficulties
involved in maintaining productive tandem partnerships and the reasons
why they often fail.
8.3 Distance learning
Further reading
White, C. (2003) Language Learning in Distance Education. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Unlike self-access and tandem learning, which are often viewed as means
to the end of learner autonomy, distance learning and self-instruction
are viewed more as situations in which learners are required to learn
autonomously. In distance learning and self-instruction learners spend
little or no time in educational institutions and mostly study at home, at
work or wherever they happen to be. Both tend to be based on the use of
purpose-designed self-instructional materials and while distance learning
clearly involves self-instruction, it also implies a course of study mediated
by a remote educational institution, often leading to a qualification of some
kind. Although the term self-instruction is used in several ways in the lit-
erature (Concept 4.1), it is reserved here for language learning projects
that are organised by learners outside the context of formal education.
Unlike self-instruction, distance learning also implies contact with a teacher,
although ‘the teacher is not available to set up and oversee learning activ-
ities and to intervene when problems are struck’ (White, 1995: 208).
Concept 8.2 Why students choose distance learning

It is often assumed that distance learners would gladly join the world of
classroom language learning if only they were given the choice. However, it
is clear that many people find distance learning more convenient, or perhaps
less anxiety-provoking, than attending classes, while others simply prefer
to study at home or at work. Hurd (2007a: 491) investigated the reasons
why students chose to study foreign languages at a distance at the Open
University in the United Kingdom and found that practical reasons were
the driver for nearly two-thirds of the students, while around a third ‘appear
to have been already well disposed towards learning at a distance from the
outset and believed that it had major benefits’.
The idea of learner autonomy has been influential in distance education

since the 1970s, through Moore’s (1972) theory of ‘transactional distance’, in
which distance is viewed as a pedagogical space constituted by relationships
between the degree of structure in the course, opportunities for learner–
teacher interaction, and the degree of learner autonomy. The greater the
transactional distance (i.e. less structure, less interaction), the more the
course will call upon the learner’s autonomy. Until relatively recently, how-
ever, there was little research on distance language learning, a situation
that began to change with White’s (1995) comparison of strategy use among
distance and classroom learners at a New Zealand university, which found
that the distance learners made greater use of self-management strategies.
White suggested that distance learners may ‘respond to the demands of
a self-instruction mode of study by developing a knowledge of how they
can manage the process of language learning for themselves’ (p. 217). The
challenges of distance language learning, in other words, might stimulate
the development of learner autonomy. Much of the subsequent research,
however, has tended to focus on distance learners’ lack of autonomy and
White (2003: 150) has more recently argued that ‘while language learning
at a distance may require learners to be more autonomous . . . it would be
wrong to assume that the distance mode per se gives rise to learner auton-
omy’ (see also, Andrade and Bunker, 2009; Vanijdee, 2003).
Solutions to the problem of autonomy have partly focused on course-
ware design, especially where course designers are constrained to build
courses around print materials delivered by mail. Hurd, Beaven and
Ortega (2001: 342) noted that opportunities for experimentation in course
delivery at the Open University in the United Kingdom were limited by
the university’s commitment to serve all potential students and a tradition
of providing students with all the materials they need in order to complete
their studies. They went on to describe a number of innovations intro-
duced into a comprehensive set of materials for a Spanish language course
that were designed both to enhance the students awareness of strategic
options and provide meaningful contexts for choice and decision-making
(Concept 8.3). In a more recent study, Murphy (2008b) discussed the ways
in which Open University course materials have shifted their focus towards
the development of reflection and metacognitive strategies. Notably, in
addition to strategy tips, techniques or examples, there are more language
practice activities where students can experience strategies for themselves.
There has also been a shift in interactive material from a focus on com-
municative performance to greater recognition of the role of interaction in
the parallel development of cognitive processes.
Concept 8.3 Redesigning distance learning materials

A number of innovations have been introduced into Spanish Diploma course
materials at the Open University in the United Kingdom in order to foster
autonomy among distance students.
1. Objectives clearly explained so that students can feel they have ownership
of the syllabus, and so they can plan their learning.
2. The possibility of doing further work on areas of specific difficulty –
individualised homework.
3. Activities or tasks that enable students to transfer what they have learned
to other contexts (in particular to contexts that are relevant to their own
needs and interests).
4. Learner training that is specific enough to enable students to solve specific
problems whenever and wherever they appear. Constant and varied sug-
gestions for learning strategies so students can experiment and find those
that work best for them.
5. Opportunities for students to think about how they learn – in the form of
a learning diary.
6. Opportunities for self-evaluation and self-assessment, both through
course activities and tasks, and through the formal assessment strategy.
7. Opportunities for students to relate what they are learning to what they
already know, in the form of language awareness activities.
Hurd, Beaven and Ortega (2001: 353)
Echoing Moore (1972), however, White (2003: 396) argues that distance
language courses are not just a matter of providing courseware, but are
‘complex in totality’, involving ‘interaction, guidance, feedback, support,
the development of a learning environment and of relationships within that
environment’. The most recent developments in the debate on autonomy
and control in distance learning, she suggests, are concerned with ‘collab-
orative control’ of learning experiences through meaningful interaction
with other learners and teachers. The assumption here is that traditional
modes of course delivery isolate the learner, whereas new technologies offer
opportunities for more collaborative learning (Wang, 2004). The literature
includes a number of accounts of experiments using new technologies,
including Lamy and Goodfellow’s (1999) work with asynchronous confer-
encing, which, they argue, facilitates a kind of ‘slow-motion’ conversation
that may encourage reflective practice, and Hampel and Hauck’s (2004)
work with online tutorials using audio-graphics conferencing tools. As
reported in the literature to date, however, opportunities for distance
language learners to work with such tools remain limited.
Distance language learning was not designed to foster autonomy or
even better language learning, but to provide structured language learning
opportunities for people who are unable or prefer not to enrol on classroom-
based courses. In many parts of the world, this sector of the population is
growing rapidly and includes the vast majority of people who are beyond
school age and in need of foreign language learning for professional pur-
poses or career advancement. The numbers involved in distance language
learning courses can also be very large. Vanijdee (2003), for example, reports
that the Foundation English course at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open
University in Thailand has over 15,000 registrations per year. In the light
of such large numbers, it is perhaps understandable that distance language
educators tend to think of fostering autonomy in terms of the production

of innovative materials and the introduction of new technologies. In this
context, one interesting recent development has been a focus on learner
factors in studies that tend to show that distance learners are often more
autonomous than might be thought (Hurd, 2006, 2007a; Sataporn and
Lamb, 2005; Vanijdee, 2003).
Vanijdee (2003), for example, identified two types of distance learners.
The majority were ‘self sufficient’ learners, who were able to follow the
course but displayed a limited degree of learner autonomy, while a smaller
but substantial group were ‘dynamic’ learners, who were more proactive in
making choices and decisions about their learning. Sataporn and Lamb’s
(2005) qualitative study of the experiences of two distance learners study-
ing at the same university in Thailand showed how they were autonomous
in different ways: one self-reliant, prepared to make sacrifices, with firm
views on how he learns best, but inclined to follow the course instructions
slavishly; the other aware of her own learning needs, critical of the mate-
rials, and capable of making choices and decisions about their use. And in
an interesting return to the findings of White’s (1995) earlier study, Hurd
(2006) found that increased confidence and self-regulation were among
the beneficial outcomes of distance learning reported by learners, which
suggests that the demands of distance learning may lead participants to
develop a degree of autonomy.
8.4 Self-instruction
Further reading
Fernández-Toro, M. (1999) Training Learners for Self-instruction. London: CILT
Umino on self-instruction in the home
The particular ways in which the rooms in a house are structured, the types of
daily routines a family goes through, or the relationships they have amongst
themselves can all influence how learners go about attending to the [broadcast
language learning] series and whether they will be able to maintain it. This
influence of a home-culture has not been addressed in the literature on
self-instruction, but is certainly a factor contributing to success and failure of
this mode of learning.
Umino (2005: 147)
Self-instruction is used here, in a narrow sense, to describe various ways

in which people ‘teach themselves’ foreign languages. To date there has
been very little research on self-instructed language-learning and Jones
(1993: 453) even went so far as to suggest that academic opinion of teach-
yourself courses is so disparaging as to render them ‘unworthy of attention
by the serious researcher’. Self-instruction plays an important role in
language learning, however, in three major sectors. A glance at the lan-
guage shelves of any major bookstore shows that there is clearly a demand
for published ‘teach-yourself’ books and audio materials, although there is
little evidence on how they are used (Roberts, 1995). Broadcast language
learning programmes are also popular in various parts of the world. Lastly,
there is also a growing trend for universities to offer individualised self-
instructional language courses using published or in-house materials. Each
of these sectors has generated a certain amount of research.
In one of the few surveys of self-instructed language learning to date,
Fernández-Toro and Jones (1996: 209) interviewed 70 adult learners in the
United Kingdom about their experiences and found that:
Self-instruction seems to raise proficiency, but only after a firm classwork
grounding – in other words, it appears to ‘kick in’ at roughly intermediate
level, i.e. once the learner is able to cope with real-life texts and interactions.
It also appears that, like distance learners, self-instructed learners require
a high degree of autonomy in order to succeed. Jones’s (1994) study of his
own learning of Hungarian showed that he reached intermediate level only
by switching to ‘largely autonomous strategies once two related thresholds
had been crossed: the ability to guess significant amounts of new lexis from
the underlying building-blocks, and the ability to cope with authentic
reading texts’ ( Jones, 1993: 466). Self-instructional materials, however,
appear to do little to foster autonomy among their users. In a survey of 40
teach-yourself packages, Jones (1993: 465) found that ‘learner autonomy
and strategy development rarely occurs’ and that all the packages assumed
that the user would follow a page-by-page route.
Fernández-Toro and Jones (1996: 209) noted high ‘drop-out’ rates among
self-instructed learners, a problem that Umino (1999, 2005) has addressed
in studies of users of popular radio and TV language courses in Japan.
Umino’s (1999) survey respondents identified a number of advantages to
using broadcast materials, including regularity of study, low cost, learning
at home, recording programmes, frequency of the lessons, and ease of access.
The problems they identified were lack of interactivity, lack of control over
the time and pace of learning, lack of pressure, difficulty of catching up on
missed lessons and a tendency to become passive. Interestingly, isolation
was not identified as a disadvantage and Umino’s (2005) follow-up qualita-
tive study suggested that this may be because broadcast materials are often
used in the home, with family members forming a kind of self-help group.
Umino identified home culture as an important factor in persistence,
noting that some of her interviewees had experienced disruption to their

learning when they left home to live alone at university.
Concept 8.4 Self-instruction on campus

While self-instruction has conventionally been distinguished from distance
learning by the use of self-instructional materials outside the context of formal
education and qualifications, this distinction is becoming increasingly blurred
as a growing number of universities offer self-instructed language learning
courses on campus. Dunkel, Brill and Kohl (2002: 97), for example, report
that the National Association of Self-instructional Language Programs
(NASILP) in the United States has 114 institutional members providing
self-managed programs in 73 different languages to over 9,100 students.
The NASILP model includes standardised learning materials, which have
developed from print, through audio to CD-ROM over the years, regular
oral practice with locally-hired native speakers, and oral examinations by
accredited instructors. Brown (2006) provides a detailed account of self-
instructional language courses at a US university which were based on print
materials and regular face-to-face meetings and tests with instructors. Analy-
sing interview data from successful and unsuccessful self-instructed learners,
Brown identified ‘internal locus of learning’, or the belief that learning is a
process that takes place within oneself, as a primary factor in success.
The effectiveness of self-instruction is difficult to assess, partly because

there has been so little research and partly because there is a tendency to
focus on the limitations of self-instructional materials, rather than their use
in broader self-instructional projects. One observation that can be made is
that it is virtually impossible to achieve a high degree of proficiency using
self-instructional materials alone, because these materials rarely provide
enough of the language to go beyond beginner level. They typically focus
either on grammar, basic vocabulary and pronunciation, or on interactional
phrases that might be useful in overseas travel. As Jones’s (1994) study showed,
in order to go beyond this point, self-instructed learners must develop the
kinds of strategies for learning from authentic materials and situations that are
emphasised in Fernández-Toro (1999) and Fernández-Toro and Jones (2001)
guides to self-instructed language learning. Rowsell and Libben’s (1994)
quasi-experimental study also shows that learners who cope well with self-
instruction are creative in finding ways of overcoming the more evident
drawbacks of self-instructional materials (Chapter 16.6, Case Study).
8.5 Out-of-class learning

In recent literature, the term ‘out-of-class learning’ has mainly been used
to refer to activities that supplement classroom learning. While these
might, in principle, include homework, self-access work, extra-curricular

activities and the use of self-instructional materials, the term is reserved
here for activities that have no direct relationship to schooling. Used in
this sense, out-of-class learning is typically initiated by the learner, makes
use of authentic resources, and involves pleasure and interest, as well as
language learning. In these respects, much out-of-class learning takes the
form of ‘self-directed naturalistic learning’, in which the learner engages in
language use for pleasure or interest, but also with the broader intention
of learning. Again, there is relatively little research in this area, although it
is widely acknowledged that out-of-class learning makes a significant con-
tribution to higher levels of language proficiency.
Gao on English corners in China.
‘English corners’ refer to regular meetings that English learners voluntarily orga-
nize in public places to practise spoken English. . . . Many major cities have at
least one English corner and most universities and colleges also have campus
English corners. . . . In most English corners, there is little organization and par-
ticipants simply know that they can come and speak English to other learners
at particular times. They may talk to complete strangers or make friends with
people through practising English together at will. In recent years, smaller
English corners, which often designate themselves as ‘clubs’, have appeared
and boomed in Chinese tea houses and coffee shops. For instance, the city
where I grew up has at least six English clubs, each having some 30 to 60
regular participants.
Gao (2009: 60–1)
Because out-of-class learning is generally student-initiated and hidden

from teachers’ view, studies characteristically reveal that students show
more initiative in creating opportunities for learning and using foreign
languages than their teachers give credit for. Hyland (2004), for example,
showed that Hong Kong learners of English, who are frequently criticised
for failing to use English outside the classroom, actively engaged in out-
of-class learning activities, although they tended to prefer ‘private’ activi-
ties over those that involve speaking English (Chapter 16.1, Case Study).
Gao’s studies of mainland Chinese students’ out-of-class activities, on the
other hand, suggest a preference for more social activities: Gao, Cheng and
Kelly (2008) discuss the motivations behind a self-organised weekly English
discussion club for mainland Chinese postgraduate students, Gao (2009)
discusses the phenomenon of self-organised ‘English corners’ (Quote 8.4),
while Gao (2007) explores a discussion forum attached to a self-organised
‘English café’ from a community of practices perspective (Chapter 16.2,
Case Study). Lam’s (2004, 2006) studies of the online activities of young
Chinese-speaking migrants in the United States and Black’s (2005, 2007)
studies of English language use and learning on fan fiction sites also hint
at the growing role of Internet-based communities and spaces in out-of-
class learning.
Concept 8.5 Study abroad

Study abroad programmes typically involve out-of-class learning although its
role is yet to be teased out from that of classroom instruction in reason.
In an interesting longitudinal study, Pearson (2004) found that overseas stu-
dents on a pre-sessional English course at a New Zealand university varied
greatly in the degree to which they engaged in out-of-class learning and their
degree of engagement with the community outside the university. One
Chinese student flatted with local native speaking students, had a rich expo-
sure to English through membership of a music club, farm-stay experience,
and attending church, while another flatted with other Chinese students, had
no local contacts other than her former home-stay mother, and mainly used
the self-access centre at the university to complete her homework, rather
than make use of its authentic language resources. This contrast reflects
findings in other studies that have highlighted the limited opportunities for
interaction that many foreign language users experience in both study abroad
(DeKeyser, 2007; Rivers, 1998) and migration settings (Bremer et al., 1996;
Norton, 2000).
In contrast to the other modes of resource-based learning discussed in

this chapter (which also take place outside classrooms), out-of-class learn-
ing is not a structured arrangement for teaching and learning. Because it
implicitly involves self-initiated, authentic target language use, there is a
prima facie case for its effectiveness in fostering autonomy and target
language competence. Like the other modes of resource-based learning,
however, out-of-class learning seems to require autonomy and, for this
reason, there is typically a good deal of variation in the degree to which
individuals within a group engage in out-of-class learning. Murray’s life
history studies of entirely self-directed language learners in Japan, for
example, tend to show that self-directed learners are, above all, exceptional
people, who have a strong sense of their autonomy (Murray, 2008a, 2008b;
Murray and Kojima, 2007). Like Gao, however, Murray emphasises the
role of participation in real and imagined communities of practice, as well
as the role of popular culture as a medium for out-of-class learning and
as a broader motivational element in self-directed language learning
projects. Murray has also consistently emphasised that these learners do
develop their own learning strategies over the course of their learning
careers.
8.6 The effectiveness of resource-based learning

In principle, resource-based language learning fosters autonomy by pro-
viding learners with opportunities to direct their own learning. However,
the research evidence suggests that the opportunity to direct one’s own
learning does not in itself lead to greater autonomy or better language
learning. Indeed, the idea that successful resource-based learning depends
on the learner’s autonomy has been a persistent theme in this chapter. There
is also some empirical evidence that people engaged in resource-based
learning often divide into two autonomy-related groups: for example,
‘dynamic’ and ‘self-sufficient’ distance learners (Vanijdee, 2003) or self-
instructed learners with internal or external ‘locus of learning’ (Brown,
2006). It is probable, in other words, that resource-based learning works
best for a minority of learners who already have a relatively high degree of
autonomy together with the skills they need for self-directed learning.
Although there is some evidence that learners can develop autonomy
through participation in resource-based learning, the problem again is
whether this applies most to those who are already autonomous to some
degree. This line of argument is problematic, however, to the extent that
it makes several assumptions about resource-based learning that can be
challenged. The remainder of this chapter examines these assumptions
under the headings of collaboration, structure and support, and skills.
8.6.1 Collaboration in resource-based learning
Little on isolation in resource-based learning
Given that all human learning has its roots in social interaction, the require-
ment of many self-access, open and distance learning schemes that learners
work on their own poses a fundamental problem that is all too rarely acknow-
ledged, far less grappled with at a theoretical level. The problem is, of course,
particularly acute in the case of language learning, whose naturalistic version
is always mediated through social interaction.
Little (2000a: 28)
Rowsell and Libben (1994: 668) begin their study on self-instruction

with the observation that ‘learning in isolation is a poor way to acquire a
language’. Little (2000a) expresses a similar concern that resource-based
learning requires students to ‘work on their own’. For Little, this is a the-
oretical problem because, from his Vygotskyan point of view, the develop-
ment of higher order thinking and autonomy itself are products of social
interaction. If social interaction is removed from language learning the
possibilities for the development of autonomy, and even learning a lan-

guage to any degree of proficiency, are drastically reduced. Little (2003b)
is a supporter of tandem language learning precisely for the reason that it
directly focuses on peer interaction, in which each partner plays the role of
more capable other in respect to their own first language.
In reaction to this concern, it is important to stress that the resources
in resource-based learning need not necessarily be inert or text-based.
Tandem learning is treated as a mode of resource-based learning here, for
example, because it exploits direct interaction with technological and
human resources to facilitate the kinds of interactions that are not readily
available in conventional classrooms. It can also be argued that even the
use of self-instructional print and audio texts is a form of social interaction
that is mediated through the texts. Lastly, it would be wrong to equate self-
access, distance learning and self-instruction with working in isolation,
when in many cases the act of studying is undertaken in the presence of
others. The meaning of ‘working on one’s own’, in other words, needs to
be carefully unpicked in relation to the concept of ‘isolation’.
Nevertheless, the effectiveness of resource-based learning appears to
depend in part upon its capacity to provide experiences of collaboration, or
at least a sense of the presence and involvement of others in one’s language
learning. These experiences can be facilitated by resource-based learning pro-
viders: self-access centres, for example, typically provide facilities for group
work and discussion, while some distance education providers are now using
technology to bring groups of students together, as well as to facilitate
tutor–student interaction. The ways in which resource-based learners them-
selves construct social contexts for their learning also deserves more attention
in research. Reporting on the implementation of a large scale initiative to
provide computer-based basic English language training for new immigrants
to the United Kingdom using open-access computer centres, Ibarz and Webb
(2007) describe two interesting examples of this. One of the most appreciated
features of the computer software was the facility to participate in dialogues
with characters in the video presentations: although these dialogues were
recognised as artificial, learners appreciated the opportunity to speak English
in a stress-free environment. Second, Ibarz and Webb describe how more
motivated learners ‘reconstructed the learning environment’, which was
essentially laid out as a self-access computer lab, ‘as a place for sociability
and interactivity to practise and develop language skills’ (p. 222).
8.6.2 Structure and support in resource-based learning

A second sense in which resource-based learners are often thought to work
on their own refers to the absence of teachers. Again this can be a miscon-
ception because self-access, distance and self-instructional materials often
adopt a teacherly voice and teachers are often present in resource-based
learning environments. What this concern highlights, however, is that
going beyond the use of instructional materials calls for a capacity to con-
struct learning opportunities from resources and situations that are not
necessarily intended for the purpose of teaching and learning. In tandem
learning, for example, Otto (2003: 79–80) notes that the ‘learner not only
needs a certain repertoire of language learning strategies but he must also
be able to control and to modify this repertoire constantly’. The observa-
tion that many learners lack this capacity at the outset of resource-based
learning creates a need for structure and support, which is typically pro-
vided within the environment. As Brammerts (2003: 34) observes, ‘all our
experiences show that learners work particularly successfully in tandem
when they have learnt effective learning strategies and techniques, or when
their work is directly guided by a learning advisor who helps them develop
autonomous learning skills’.
This also means that many resource-based language learning schemes
have a hybrid character: for Müller-Hartmann (2000: 596), for example,
tandem learning is ‘characterised by the poles of traditional classroom
learning and self-instruction’ and a balance ‘between the amount of external
structuring and steering and the autonomy of the learners’. This observation
applies to most institutionally organised resource-based learning environ-
ments, in which the provision of learner training, text-based guides and
advising are increasingly seen as factors related to effectiveness. The forms
of support largely depend on the nature of the environment. Self-access
centres, for example, characteristically make use of teaching staff in the
roles of materials writers, advisors and learner trainers, whereas in distance
learning and self-instruction, providers are more often constrained to
embed support within materials.
8.6.3 Skills in resource-based learning
Littlewood on self-access and language skills
Controlled learning through recorded exercises, computer programs, and so

on forms part of a self-access ‘tradition’ that reaches back to the early days of
the language laboratory . . . . [S]elf-access work can also contribute in important
ways in the domain of receptive skills, where the initiative for generating
meaning lies within the printed or recorded materials rather than with the
student. The most problematic area is . . . in the domain of productive skills,
where the learner requires the kind of message-based feedback that a human
respondent normally provides. Until cost-effective ways are found of simulat-
ing the essential aspects of the human response (in particular, its creativity
and unpredictability), self-access work will be most effective when it comple-
ments other forms of learning within an integrated language course.
Littlewood (1997: 88–9)
A third sense of working on one’s own relates to concerns about the

range and balance of language learning skills that can be achieved in
resource-based learning. In a comment that applies to resource-based
learning more generally, Littlewood (1997: 91) argued that self-access
needs to be located within a theoretical framework that helps us to be
‘aware not only of the strengths of self-access as a means for encouraging
autonomy in learning and communication but also of its limitations’.
He suggested that self-access is strong in the domain of receptive skills,
pre-communicative work and communicative practice and weaker in the
domain of authentic communication (Quote 8.5). This suggests a possible
model for the integration of self-access and classroom work in which
different functions are allocated to each area. Technological developments
are, of course, creating new possibilities to expand the domains that resource-
based learning can cover. The use of email and voice technologies in
tandem learning and distance learning are good examples of this.
Littlewood’s argument also highlights the point that particular modes of
resource-based learning become problematic mainly when they are viewed
as the sum total of a person’s language learning activities. This view is
in part a legacy of methods comparison studies in language education
research that have tended to isolate and reify methods as language educa-
tion panaceas. In practice, people rarely learn languages by one means
alone, which means that the ways in which different modes of learning
complement each other will often be a more important issue than the
effectiveness of any particular mode. From this point of view, resource-
based learning clearly has the strength of providing conditions under
which learners can take and develop control over their learning, if they
wish to do so. At the same time, it has the broad limitation of requiring
autonomy as much as it provides opportunities for its development, as well
as certain specific limitations in regard to collaborative work, support and
the range of skills that different modes of resource-based learning can
accommodate. As many researchers in the area acknowledge, these are
limitations that need to be addressed in order for resource-based learning
to be more effective.
Chapter 9
Technology-based approaches
Technology-based approaches to language teaching and learning could be

brought under the heading of resource-based approaches, but they are dis-
cussed separately here because claims are often made for the role of new
technologies in the development of autonomy. As Motteram (1997) points
out, there is a long association between autonomy and new learning tech-
nologies (Quote 9.1). The first self-access centres, for example, were known
as ‘sound and video libraries’, emphasising the role of audio and video
technologies in conceptions of self-directed learning at the time (Harding-
Esch, 1982; Riley and Zoppis, 1985). There has also been a long association
between computer-assisted language learning (CALL) and learner auton-
omy, which is highlighted in Figura and Jarvis’s (2007: 449) observation
that virtually all publishers stress the value of their computer-based
language learning materials for self-study. A second reason for discussing
technology-based approaches separately is that technology is now an inte-
gral part of self-access, tandem learning, distance learning, self-instruction
and out-of-class learning, which reflects the fact that new learning tech-
nologies are constantly in search of ‘new homes’. Focusing mainly on CALL
and Internet-based teaching and learning, this chapter looks at how these
new technologies themselves, as opposed to the approaches into which
they are integrated, may be supportive of autonomy.
Motteram on autonomy and educational technology
There has always been a perceived relationship between educational technol-

ogy and learner autonomy. This is taking educational technology in its broad-
est sense and taking learner autonomy as the superordinate term. This has
become increasingly true for computers and self-access.
Motteram (1997: 17)
145
9.1 Computer-assisted language learning
Further reading
Beatty, K. (2010) Teaching and Researching Computer-assisted Language Learning.
2nd edn. London: Pearson.
The term CALL was coined in the 1970s to describe computer software that
was specifically designed for, or adapted to, language learning. In regions
where there is ready access to computers and the Internet, however, their
use in language teaching and learning is now so ubiquitous that the field
has become difficult to define with any precision. Egbert (2005: 1), for
example, writes that CALL simply ‘means using computers to support
language teaching and learning in some way’. Reviewing the development
of CALL up to the end of the twentieth century, Warschauer and Healey
(1998) divided its history into behaviouristic, communicative and integra-
tive phases (Concept 9.1). The earliest, behaviourist CALL applications
were designed to drill and test knowledge of vocabulary and grammatical
structure either through multiple choice exercises or by matching learner
input to pre-programmed answers. These applications, encouraged a degree
of control by offering a choice of materials and practice items, by allowing
learners to choose instructional, practice or testing modes, and by encour-
aging them to ‘try again’ when a wrong answer was given. They were also
designed to give learners individual control over the pace of learning.
Beatty (2010: 10) notes that in this phase, the CALL literature stressed the
benefits of ‘privacy and individualisation’, but CALL applications actually
provided limited opportunities for learners to organise their own learning
or tailor it to their needs. The one element of control that they offered was
the possibility of endless repetition.
In the 1980s, inspired by the work of Underwood (1984) and others,
CALL entered a phase in which applications were explicitly based on com-
municative principles. Text reconstruction, game and simulation packages
were designed to engage students in problem-solving activities that would
stimulate cognitive involvement with the target language and spoken
communication with other students engaged in the CALL task. A second
strand of communicative CALL focused on applications that were not
specifically designed for language learning, such as word processors,
desktop publishing, concordancers and databases. In this strand of CALL,
the computer was used as a tool either to facilitate the linguistic processes
involved in achieving non-linguistic goals (for example, using a word-
processor or desktop publishing package to produce a class magazine) or to
T E C HNO L O GY - B A S E D A P P R O A C HE S 147
achieve linguistic goals that could not otherwise easily be achieved (for
example, the use of a concordancer to identify regular patterns in text).
From the perspective of autonomy, the key characteristic of these applica-
tions is the potential for creative manipulation of text. As Kenning (1996:
128) puts it, there is ‘a prima facie case that by encouraging users to con-
sider their text critically and try and make improvements, word processors
are intrinsically supportive of cognitive and metacognitive autonomy’.
Stevens (1995: 2) makes a similar argument for concordancing:
First, it interjects authenticity (of text, purpose, and activity) into the learning
process. Second, learners assume control of that process. And third, the
predominant metaphor for learning becomes the research metaphor, as em-
bodied in the concept of data-driven learning (DDL), which builds learners’
competence by giving them access to the facts of linguistic performance.
There is, however, the now familiar problem that the use of such program-
mes for language learning ‘must be seen as primarily suited to advanced
students with a propensity for autonomy’ (Kenning, 1996: 131). Kenning
also argues that, although IT in general offers opportunities for self-directed
learning, ‘the effective use of electronic tools and resources assumes
certain prerequisites and that unless learners already have certain attitudes,
skills and strategies, they are unlikely to derive much benefit’ (pp. 132–3).
Concept 9.1 CALL old and new

Warschauer and Healey’s (1998) three phases of CALL preceded widespread
use of the Internet in teaching and learning, but remain important within
the field. The use of software such as Hot Potatoes for teachers to design
online quizzes, for example, reflects the principles of the behaviourist phase
of CALL, yet it is widespread and often integrated with the Internet as a plat-
form for delivery (Godwin-Jones, 2007). There are also continued reports of
innovative uses of non-language learning applications, such as Sullivan and
Lindgren’s (2002) paper describing a programme designed for self-assessment
of writing that records a writing session and later replays it for use in retro-
spective peer evaluation sessions. In regard to autonomy, the key feature of
CALL is the fact that by controlling the keyboard the learner is potentially
controlling the learning process. But this control can be subverted either by
a lack of flexibility in the materials or by the absence of a supportive envir-
onment that enables the user to actually learn while using the application.
The integrative phase of CALL was characterised by the use of multi-

media, hypermedia and interactive technologies to promote integration of
skills and is now associated mainly with comprehensive courses delivered
on CD-ROM or across local area networks, such as the ELLIS system
used for basic English-language training for new arrivals in the United
Kingdom (Ibarz and Webb, 2007). The best of these applications support
the development of autonomy by offering rich linguistic and non-linguistic
input, by presenting new language through a variety of media, and by offer-
ing interactivity and branching options. However, even the best multi-
media applications tend to restrict user control, do little to facilitate creative
response to input and at worst they simply reproduce the behaviouristic
assumptions of early CALL software with the addition of sound and images.
The ‘future of CALL’ is often thought to lie in intelligent (I-CALL)
applications that can learn the user’s preferences, provide meaningful input
at individually appropriate levels, and correct errors on the spot and in
context (Godwin-Jones, 2007). Such applications remain a long way from
realisation, but it is perhaps worth observing that the fundamental design
principle of I-CALL is to take decision-making power away from the user.
This perhaps reflects the fact that CALL designers often view autonomy
as a problematic condition of the situation in which CALL applications are
used, which needs to be addressed by incorporating the support that is
assumed to be found in classrooms into the CALL environment itself.
9.2 The Internet
Further reading
Lamy, M-N. and Hampel, R. (2007) Online Communication in Language Learning and
Teaching. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Since the turn of the century, CALL has passed into a fourth phase,
characterised by the use of the Internet, and possibly a fifth associated
with Web 2.0 and mobile technologies. These new phases are essentially
an extension of the communicative phase of the 1980s, with a focus on
the design of tasks using existing applications and resources, rather than
purpose-designed language learning applications, and a focus on the
environments in which computers are used and the Internet itself as
an environment for learning (Allford and Pachler, 2007; Conacher and
Kelly-Holmes, 2005; Egbert and Hanson-Smith, 1999; Hanson-Smith,
2000; Lamy and Hampel, 2007; Schwienhorst, 2006). Lamy and Hampel,
(2007: 7–8) use the term computer-mediated communication for language
learning (CMCL), rather than CALL, to describe these new directions
(Concept 9.2). In the context of research on autonomy, the significance of
these new technologies lies in the potential for transformation of both
in-class and out-of-class learning environments. Introducing a collection

of practitioners’ accounts of the design and operation of technologically-
enhanced classroom and learning environments, Hanson-Smith (2000: 2)
observes that in each case the ‘changes wrought by technology far ex-
ceeded the designers’ original intentions, often leading to new ways of
teaching and learning . . . [and] more independence and self-sufficiency
for students who are moved to take responsibility for and control of their
own learning’.
Concept 9.2 Computer-mediated communication for language

learning (CMCL)
Lamy and Hampel, (2007: 7–8) have coined the acronym CMCL to identify
computer-mediated communication as ‘an extension of CALL, now running
on a track’, noting that some researchers now reject the idea that CMCL is
a part of CALL, which is ‘perceived to be tainted with the search for
economic efficiency in education to the detriment of cultural gains’. Under
the heading of CMCL, Lamy and Hampel review research on language
learning and teaching applications of bulletin boards and forums, online
chat, multiple object-oriented environments, audiographic environments
and virtual worlds, videoconferencing and new technologies such as blogs,
wikis and mobile devices.
Outside the conventional classroom, new technologies are clearly hav-

ing these kinds of effect by expanding the scope of interaction in tandem
learning (Kötter, 2002; Mullen et al., 2009) and distance education (Hampel
and Hauck, 2004; Lamy and Goodfellow, 1999). Web 2.0 technologies are
also expanding the scope of out-of-class activities, especially for learners
who have little face-to-face contact with target language speakers (Black,
2005, 2007; Lam, 2004, 2006; Lamy and Hampel, 2007). The implications
for self-access seem to be more complex. Technology has been used to
good effect in online systems designed to support self-access learning
processes and advising (Reinders, 2007; Reinders and Lázaro, 2007). But
because self-access centres are primarily repositories for language learning
resources, ready access to resources through the Internet may ultimately
call their future as physical spaces into question.
Concept 9.3 Technology and self-directed learning

Thornton and Sharples (2005) carried out an in-depth interview study
to explore patterns of technology use among six self-directed adult
Japanese language learners living in Japan. The study showed that they used
technology to
• manage time and learning more efficiently;

• have learning resources available when needed;
• support reading and writing; and
• blend learning and entertainment.
They argued that future technological tools should attempt to match these
patterns by being mobile and by helping learners match their goals, levels of
proficiency and interests to available materials. They also observed that
self-directed language learning was often a long-term project characterised
by phases of activity and inactivity. They therefore proposed that new tools
should attempt to address the ‘forgetting curve’ that is inevitable in self-
directed language learning.
In many cases, online teaching and learning extends, or simply replicates,

classroom learning. In the context of research on autonomy, the more
interesting innovations are those that encourage or support self-directed
learning (Concept 9.3). This chapter concludes with several examples of
such innovations in which there appears to be a fairly clear relationship
between the use of technology and the development of autonomy.
WebQuests. Egbert (2005: 14) describes a WebQuest (Dodge, 1998) as
an ‘inquiry-based task that uses authentic Web and non-Web resources to
transform knowledge in some way’. WebQuests are typically conducted in
groups, in which ‘each learner has one or more roles and is actively receiv-
ing and using language throughout the task’. A simple example might
involve dividing a class into groups of four, with each having the task of
planning a round-the-world trip including stopovers in four cities. Each
group member might be given the task of researching one city. At the end
of the quest, the groups present their plans, which are judged on criteria
such as cost, practicality and interest. A recent European project has sought
to develop design criteria for LanguageQuests, or WebQuests specifically
designed for language learning and based on SLA and communicative
language learning principles (Koenraad and Westhoff, 2003). From the per-
spective of autonomy, the key feature of WebQuests and LanguageQuests
is that they provide opportunities for learners to carry out largely self-
directed tasks using authentic information that would not be readily
available without web technology.
Chatbots. A chatbot is an online software programme that responds to
typed input with semi-intelligent answers, comments or questions, creating
the illusion that the user is interacting with an online conversation partner.
Mainly designed as experiments in artificial intelligence, some chatbots
also learn from and recycle the user’s input. Fryer and Carpenter (2006)
experimented with chatbots in the classroom and found that most of the
students enjoyed the experience and felt more comfortable conversing
with a chatbot than they did with a student partner or teacher. In their
current state, chatbots have limited functionality for language learning, but
Fryer and Carpenter’s research suggests some potential for artificial intel-
ligence and speech recognition tools to support learner control in the area
of conversational language. Anyone who has used a chatbot would prob-
ably agree that the playfulness of the experience tends to compensate for
its lack of authenticity.
Concept 9.4 Mobile language learning (MALL)

Some of the most recent experiments in technology-based learning involve
mobile, or ‘ubiquitous’, language learning, and are based on the use of
handheld devices connected to the Internet. Paredes et al. (2005) describe a
Japanese project, designed to help overseas students learn Japanese in real life
situations, called ‘One Day Trip with PDA’. Using a handheld PDA inter-
face, a teacher assigns tasks that require the students to go around town,
interact with native speakers and gather information. Students use their
PDAs to write annotations, record questions, take pictures and report back
to the teacher. The teacher keeps track of the students’ positions and can
maintain communication with them, either through instant messaging or IP
phone, at any time. Pemberton, Fallahkhair and Masthoff (2005) report on a
project with somewhat similar aims, involving both mobile phones and inter-
active TV, called the AD-HOC, which aims to facilitate ‘learning on demand’
for European travellers. The AD-HOC system uses multi-media self-
instructional materials delivered to the user’s mobile phone, with the inten-
tion that they can be accessed and used whenever and wherever they are.
Web 2.0 writing. The characteristic feature of Web 2.0 technology is

its reliance on user-generated content. Blogging is the prime example of
this in that a blog is essentially a framework that comes to life when the
user adds content in the form of text, images or links to sound and video
material. In my own research in Hong Kong schools, I have found that
blogging is both the most popular productive web-based activity and also
remarkably widespread among students as young as 14 and 15. Alm (2009)
discusses blogs as a site for reflective second language journal writing,
which is seen as having benefits for the development of metacognition and
autonomy. With reference to self-determination theory (Chapter 4.3.1),
however, Alm argues that blogging needs to be modelled on real-life
blogging practices in order to support the learner’s need for autonomy.
In a similar vein, Guth (2009) describes an English as a Foreign Language
course that introduced students to several Web 2.0 social software tools
with the aim of helping them develop their own ‘personal learning
environments’, arguing that, with the right pedagogical approach, these
tools can allow students to engage in self-directed learning in a social

context.
9.3 The effectiveness of technology-based

approaches
Felix (2005) notes the relative scarcity of research on CALL effectiveness
and the difficulty of generalising from the research that we do have. Blin
(2004) also notes that the relationship between CALL and learner auton-
omy is usually discussed either at a theoretical level or as a starting point
for design principles or decisions. This is, perhaps, part of a larger tendency
in research on innovations associated with autonomy to focus on descrip-
tion of the innovation rather than systematic evaluation and theorisation.
In the case of experimental work, evaluations can also be difficult to inter-
pret due to the lack of authentic linguistic and situational context. Chapelle
(1997: 22) poses two central questions for CALL evaluation:
1. What kinds of language does the learner engage in during a CALL
activity?
2. How good is the language experience in CALL for L2 learning?
The focus on language here is significant and highlights a tendency for
the wider literature to discuss the effectiveness of technology-based
approaches, and the resource-based approaches in which they are often
embedded, independently of their language content.
With Chapelle’s questions in mind, we might say that technology-based
approaches are potentially supportive of autonomy in three main ways: (1)
they place the learner (as controller of the technological device) in direct
control of key aspects of the learning process; (2) they allow wider access
to authentic target language sources; and (3) they also allow wider access
to authentic interactive use of the target language. Evaluated in this way,
the system developed by Pemberton et al. (2005), for example, is clearly
supportive of autonomy in terms of the control accorded to the user, but
in practice much will depend on the quality of the self-instructional mate-
rials and the breadth and relevance of the language delivered to the user’s
mobile phone. With Paredes et al.’s (2005) PDA system, much will depend
on the number and quality of authentic interactions that students enter
into in particular settings and situations (Concept 9.4).
Although technology-based approaches are largely evaluated here on
their own terms, it is also important to point out that the technologies
discussed in this chapter are by no means universally available. Nor are
they necessarily introduced into language education in order to foster
autonomy. Conacher and Kelly-Holmes (2007: 26) observe that, ‘regard-

less of the newness of a learning environment in terms of technology and
flexibility, it is not a truly “new” environment if it is simply reproducing
inequality’. They also cite Sonaiya’s (2002) critique of language learning
autonomy in African contexts, which is ultimately directed less at auton-
omy in principle than it is at the use of computer technologies. In the light
of this critique, it seems important to recognise that fostering autonomy is
in no way dependent on the use of technology. In addition, technology-
based approaches are likely to be supportive of autonomy only in settings
where the use of the technology is already a part of everyday life.
Online language courses are also often motivated by economic, rather
than pedagogical, factors in situations where technology is seen as a solution
to rising student numbers. Sanders (2005), for example, reports on a case
in the United States university system, in which partial online delivery of
a beginning Spanish program led to an 85 per cent increase in enrolments
and a 29 per cent reduction of cost per student, with questionable effects
on proficiency outcomes. In a different setting Ibarz and Webb (2007:
209–10), describe a technologically-based model for basic language
instruction in migrant education in the United Kingdom, based on three
strategies:
The first is to assign the high costs of the development of online or
computer-based materials, such as CD-ROMs, to a one-off initial invest-
ment. The second, to identify new and differentiated work roles for the
support of online delivery and to separate lower-cost support roles from
higher-cost qualified tutoring and managing roles. The third, to enable
learners to access course materials in as many locations as possible through
a network of licensed centres, staffed in the main by generically qualified
basic skills support staff and backed up by a centrally operated e-mail and
telephone help desk.
Interestingly, Ibarz and Webb identify certain autonomy-supportive
features of the ELLIS CD-ROM package and the social environment of
the centres in which it was made available. Yet their work highlights the
problematic nature of much work in the area of learning technologies.
Because opportunities to develop technology-based approaches to auton-
omy are often economically motivated, they are unlikely to succeed unless
autonomy is an explicit goal for all concerned.
Chapter 10
Learner-based approaches
Further reading
Cohen, A.D. and Macaro, E. (eds) (2007) Language Learner Strategies: 30 Years of
Research and Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
In contrast to approaches that provide opportunities for self-directed

learning, learner-based approaches directly attend to learner development,
or behavioural and psychological change within the learner. Current
approaches to learner development emerge from the convergence of two
traditions: European work on learner training and North American work
on the ‘good language learner’, learning strategies and strategy training or
instruction. Sheerin (1997: 59–60) preferred the term ‘learner development’
(defined as ‘cognitive and affective development involving increasing
awareness of oneself as a learner and an increasing willingness and ability
to manage one’s own learning’) to ‘learner training’, because the latter
implied ‘something that is done by someone to someone else’. I use the
term learner development here in a similar sense to Sheerin, but also to
cover the broad range of practices involving training, instruction and
self-directed development over the past two decades.
Concept 10.1 Approaches to learner development

Approaches to learner development can be divided into six main types:
1. Direct advice on language-learning strategies and techniques, often pub-
lished in the form of self-study manuals for independent learners. Advice
tends to be prescriptive and is not necessarily based on research. One of
154
L E A R NE R - B A S E D A P P R O A C HE S 155
the earliest examples of this kind of manual was produced for American
missionaries travelling abroad (Brewster and Brewster, 1976). The tradi-
tion has continued in work directed more broadly at self-instructed and
distance learners (Fernández-Toro and Jones, 2001; Hurd and Murphy,
2005; Rubin and Thompson, 1982)
2. Training based on ‘good language learner’ research and insights from
learning strategy research and cognitive psychology. Weaver and Cohen
(1997) an example of a teacher’s manual based on extensive strategy
research, which includes suggestions for a 30-hour training course.
Although the notion of the good language learner all but disappeared in
the 1990s, it has recently been revisited in a collection of papers edited by
Griffiths (2008).
3. Training in which learners are encouraged to experiment with strategies
and discover which work well for them. Ellis and Sinclair’s (1989) learner-
training manual, for example, is based on the assumption that the aim of
training is ‘to help learners consider the factors that affect their learning
and discover the learning strategies that suit them best’ (p. 2).
4. Synthetic approaches drawing on a range of theoretical sources.
Dickinson’s (1992) book on learner training, for example, draws on North
American strategy research, European research on autonomy and self-
directed learning, research on language awareness and insights from
second language acquisition research.
5. Integrated approaches treating learner training as a by-product of lan-
guage learning. Legutke and Thomas (1991: 284), for example, argue that
the aim of learner training is not to train the learners first and then teach
them a language, but to ‘teach them to communicate in the L2 while help-
ing them to learn and think about their learning’ (see also Cohen 1998).
6. Self-directed approaches in which learners are encouraged to train them-
selves through reflection on self-directed learning activities. Holec (1987)
and Esch (1997) have described self-directed programmes of this kind.
In current practice, there is widespread consensus that learner development
activities work best if they are integrated with language-learning activities.
The extent to which ‘training’ or ‘instruction’ can be effective remains an
area of debate and the idea that learner development might involve learners
‘training themselves’ can be considered a major contribution to strategy
research from the field of autonomy.
The primary goal of learner development is to help learners become

better language learners. Recent approaches also tend to view the devel-
opment of autonomy as an integral part of this goal. Cohen (1998: 67), for
example, has argued that strategy training ‘encourages students to find
their own pathways to success, and thus it promotes learner autonomy and
self-direction’. The relationship between strategy use and autonomy is
complex, however, and the claim that learner development programmes
can enhance both language-learning performance and autonomy needs to

be treated with caution.
10.1 Learner development and language learning

In early work on the ‘good language learner’, it was assumed (a) that effec-
tive language learning strategies could be identified by observing the
strategies used by effective learners, and (b) that training less effective
learners to use these strategies would increase the efficiency of their learning
(Naiman et al., 1978; Rubin, 1975; Stern, 1975). With some modifications,
these two assumptions also underlie much of the work on strategy training
and instruction that has been conducted over the past three decades. In the
course of a published debate with Chamot and Rubin (1994), Rees-Miller
(1993, 1994) raised four major objections:
1. There is no empirical evidence for a causal relationship between aware-
ness of strategies and success in learning.
2. Some of the characteristics associated with success in learning, such as
being active in the learning process, may be unteachable.
3. Case studies of unsuccessful learners suggest that the use of strategies
employed by successful learners does not in itself lead to more effective
learning.
4. Successful learners do not necessarily use recommended strategies and
often use non-recommended strategies.
Writing from the perspective of sociocultural theory, Donato and
McCormick (1994) also argued that, because learning strategies develop in
the course of situated activity, they cannot be effectively acquired through
explicit instruction. Chamot and Rubin (1994), in response to Rees-Miller
(1993), cited a number of research studies showing correlations between
strategy use and improved language-learning performance. However, they
also reported that research had shown that the effectiveness of particular
strategies is influenced by variables such as proficiency level, task, text,
language modality, background knowledge, context of learning, target
language and learner characteristics. The use of strategies varies from one
good learner to another ‘indicating that the good language learner cannot
be described in terms of a single set of strategies but rather through the
ability to understand and deploy a personal set of effective strategies’
(p. 772).
There have subsequently been a number of reviews of the claims made
for strategy training and instruction (Dörnyei, 2005; Harris et al., 2001;
Hassan et al., 2005; Macaro, 2001; McDonough, 1999, 2005; Murphy, 2008a),
which have generally supported McDonough’s (1999: 13) cautiously opti-

mistic view (Quote 10.1). Hassan et al. (2005) add that, although there is
evidence for the effectiveness of strategy training, there is less evidence
that the effects are long-lasting and that they can be attributed to training
specifically, rather than to a more general awareness arising from partici-
pation in a strategy training programme. Dörnyei (2005) also makes the
point that strategy training seems to be most effective when it is integrated
into a normal teaching programme.
McDonough on the effectiveness of strategy training
A second conclusion is also patent, which is that teaching strategies is not

universally successful, but the latest research is showing that, in certain
circumstances and modes, particularly when incorporated into the teacher’s
normal classroom behaviour, and thus involving teacher training as well as
learner training, success is demonstrable.
McDonough (1999: 13)
Dörnyei’s comment highlights one of the most significant developments

in strategy training in recent years: an emphasis on the integration of
explicit learner development activities with language learning tasks and
materials. Macaro (2001: 187), for example, argues that strategies need to
be modelled explicitly and repeatedly within the language learning pro-
gramme. Murphy (2008a: 307) adds that learners are reluctant to engage
with strategy-training materials or activities that are perceived to be ‘extra’
to language learning and favours ‘integrated strategy instruction within a
framework of strategic awareness-raising’. Murphy highlights three as yet
unresolved challenges arising from this emphasis on integration: (a)
achieving a balance between strategy instruction and language instruction;
(b) matching strategies with language learning levels; and (c) design of
appropriate practice tasks. She also notes that the sequences for strategy
instruction that have been proposed in the literature (Harris et al., 2001;
Macaro 2001) do not necessarily run in parallel with sequences for
language instruction and may fail to take account of the strategies that
learners have developed in their first language.
10.2 Learner development and autonomy

There appears to be good evidence that learner development activities
can enhance language-learning performance, provided they take account
of factors of context, learning preference and learning style, they are not
limited to instruction in approved set of strategies, and they are well-
integrated with language learning tasks. The claim that learners who
acquire the ability to use strategies flexibly, appropriately and indepen-
dently become more autonomous (Quote 10.2) is, however, less well-
researched and appears mainly to depend on the nature of learner
development activities.
Wenden on learner development and autonomy
In effect, ‘successful’ or ‘expert’ or ‘intelligent’ learners have learned how to

learn. They have acquired the learning strategies, the knowledge about learn-
ing, and the attitudes that enable them to use these skills and knowledge
confidently, flexibly, appropriately and independently of a teacher. Therefore,
they are autonomous.
Wenden (1991: 15)
Reviewing research by Bereiter and Scardamalia (1989), which suggested

that strategy instruction failed to produce significant long-term changes in
performance among ‘poor’ learners, Murayama (1996: 9) argued that the
crucial issue in explicit strategy instruction was whether the students
shared the teacher’s intention or not. If the teacher simply explained the
strategies while the students listened and answered questions, they could
acquire little more than the skills of listening and answering questions.
While this points to the importance of contextualised task-based activities
in strategy training, Murayama’s main point was that, ‘if learners consider
learning to be a task, no strategies can make learning more efficient’ (p. 10).
The problem of learner development for autonomy can thus be seen as one
of changing the learner’s conception of learning from completing tasks set
by others to constructing knowledge for oneself. To the extent that this
may involve deep change in the learners’ psychological orientation towards
the learning process, acquiring a set of strategies that enhance learning
performance is not necessarily equivalent to the development of autonomy.
Concept 10.2 A critique of learner training materials

Benson (1995) suggested that learner development programmes often
involved attempts to mould individuals to approved identities and patterns of
behaviour. Analysing the discourse of published learner training materials, I
suggested that they tended to ‘position’ learners in five ways: (a) through
direct modes of address; (b) through direct advice inserted into overtly
non-prescriptive text; (c) by limiting the options from which learners are
invited to choose; (d) by guiding learners to approved norms of behaviour at
the centre of a range of options; and (e) through verbal and visual images of
model learners. While learners are not obliged to conform to these implic-
itly approved identities and behaviours, they may nevertheless be left with
the feeling that they are poor language learners if they do not. I also observed
that critical and collaborative exploration of individuals’ reasons for learning
a language in relation to conventional models may be more conducive to
learner development for autonomy than a focus on awareness of strategies
and skills.
The attempt to embody learner training principles in published mater-

ials often results in rather prescriptive approaches (Concept 10.2). Learner
development activities that enhance autonomy are, therefore, likely to be
both open-ended and reflective. Esch (1997: 175), for example, argued
that:
At one level, as Ellis and Sinclair (1989) clearly demonstrate, it is possible to
organize such courses systematically, and the outcome should be to produce
learners who are better aware of the learning process and of the various
techniques available for language learning. At the other level, the fostering
of autonomy in language learners by means of workshops where learners
‘train’ one another is more difficult but possible as long as it does not become
a routine. Control by the teachers, if it returns through the back door, will
produce some short-term language learning gains but will not help learners
reap the benefits of taking charge of their own learning.
One of the main features of Esch’s approach to learner training for a group
of independent learners of French at the University of Cambridge was that
the participants largely determined the content and conduct of the train-
ing workshops themselves. Each week the group met for one hour to carry
out an activity they had planned the previous week and to discuss work
they had carried out individually between meetings. The adviser attached
to the group simply observed and recorded what was said. Esch ascribed
the success of the workshop to three factors: ‘the students were self-
selected; the feedback was essentially given in the course of conversations
but always seemed to be to the point because it was a conversational topic
shared by the whole group; the syllabus was selected by the members of the
group from the second week onwards’ (p. 165).
Related approaches to learner development include the use of reflective
discussions and diaries in the classroom. Kolb (2007: 227) showed that
reflective activities can be used with children as young as 8–9 years old,
who, in her study, showed ‘that they are remarkably aware of the learning
process and that they hold elaborate language learning beliefs’. Porto’s
(2007) year-long study of diary use among college students also demon-
strated the ‘value of systematic learner introspection over time as a vehicle
for reflection and autonomy’. In the ALMS programme at the University
of Helsinki (Chapter 12.2.1), students write autobiographical ‘reflection
texts’ between the opening sessions and their first individual counselling
meeting, which are reported to contribute to a ‘move from anecdotal to
analytical ways of looking at themselves and their experiences as they go
through ALMS programs’ (Karlsson and Kjisik, 2007: 35). In a particularly
interesting study based on ‘exploratory practice’ (Allwright, 2003;
Allwright and Hanks, 2009), Chu (2007) asked students to identify and
experiment with solutions to language learning puzzles (Concept 10.3). In
his evaluation of the project, Chu emphasises the importance of ‘seeking
understanding, rather than trying to find solutions to problems that may
disappear once they are understood’ and ‘the advantage of building on
students’ strengths rather than limiting attention to their weaknesses’
(p. 225).
Concept 10.3 Puzzles for learner development

In a project based on ‘exploratory practice’ principles, Chu (2007) asked stu-
dents to identify ‘puzzles’ in their learning, write about them, discuss their
narratives with their classmates and experiment with possible solutions.
Below are some examples of the puzzles that the students came up with:
Reading: Why don’t I like reading English articles?
Speaking: Why can’t I answer questions in English immediately?
Listening: Why can’t I understand the words from the radio at the first time,
but I simply can understand them through reading books?
Writing: Why do I dislike English writing?
Vocabulary: Why do I have to learn so much vocabulary that is useless?
Grammar: Why isn’t my grammar getting better?
Exams: Why do I have to take exams to prove my English ability?
Others: The older I am, the less I want to study. Why?
Chu found that at the end of their investigations students were very likely
to give up on strategies that were not working for them.
Reflective activities and strategy instruction need not necessarily be con-

sidered as opposed alternatives, however. Cohen (1998: 66–7), for example,
advocates explicit instruction in strategy use, but he also argues that strat-
egy training should help learners to:
• self-diagnose their strengths and weaknesses in language learning;

• become more aware of what helps them to learn the language they are
studying most efficiently;
• develop a broad range of problem-solving skills;
• experiment with both familiar and unfamiliar learning strategies;
• make decisions about how to approach a language task;
• monitor and self-evaluate their performance;
• transfer successful strategies to new learning contexts.
For Cohen, one goal of strategy training is ‘to promote learner autonomy
and learner self-direction by allowing students to choose their own strate-
gies and to do so spontaneously, without continued prompting from the
language teacher’ (p. 70). Cohen’s approach is clearly one that aims to avoid
the pitfalls of overemphasising explicit instruction in learner development.
10.3 The effectiveness of learner-based

approaches
While resource-based and technology-based approaches to the develop-
ment of autonomy focus on providing learners with opportunities for
self-directed learning, learner-based approaches aim to enable learners to
take greater control over their learning by directly providing them with the
skills they need to take advantage of these opportunities. The key research
questions in relation to learner-based approaches to autonomy concern
the extent to which learner development programmes actually succeed in
this aim.
Research evidence suggests that explicit instruction in strategy use can
enhance learning performance. It does not, however, show that it is neces-
sarily effective in enabling learners to develop the capacity for autonomous
learning. The risk involved in explicit instruction is that learners will
develop a set of learning management skills, without developing the cor-
responding abilities concerned with control over cognitive and content
aspects of their learning that will allow them to apply these techniques
flexibly and critically. Open-ended, reflective models appear to be more
effective in fostering autonomy because they integrate these three dimen-
sions of control and allow the learners to develop an awareness of the
appropriateness of strategies to the overall self-direction of their learning.
It must be emphasised, however, that there is to date relatively little empir-
ical evidence that such models are as effective as explicit instruction in
terms of enhancing learning performance.
Attitudes towards the effectiveness of various approaches to learner

development are in part a question of whether the focus falls upon
language-learning performance or autonomy. On balance, however, the
research evidence suggests that approaches involving a combination of
explicit instruction and learner reflection may be more effective in achiev-
ing both of these goals than those based on instruction or reflection alone.
Learner development programmes are also likely to be more effective to
the extent that they are integrated with opportunities to exercise control
in the context of the learner’s ongoing experience of learning a language
both outside and inside the classroom.
Chapter 11
Classroom-based approaches
Further reading
Scharle, Á. and Szabó, A. (2000) Learner Autonomy: A Guide to Developing Learner
Responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The last three chapters in this section look at approaches to fostering

autonomy that focus on changes to conventional educational structures:
classroom practice, language curricula and teacher roles. In each case, it is
assumed that the key factor in the development of autonomy is the oppor-
tunity for students to make decisions about their learning within collabora-
tive and supportive environments. As Candy (1991) argues, this opportunity
arises when teachers ‘deliberately surrender’ their prerogative of making
most or all of the significant decisions concerning the students’ learning
(Quote 11.1).
Candy on learner control
It is perhaps useful to think of teachers and learners as occupying positions

on a continuum from teacher-control at one extreme to learner-control at the
other, where the deliberate surrendering of certain prerogatives by the teacher
is accompanied by the concomitant acceptance of responsibility by the learner
or learners. In the sense that there can be a dynamically changing equilibrium
in this arrangement, it is reminiscent of the famous image of the teacher on
the one end of a log, with the learner on the other end.
Candy (1991: 9)
163
In the context of language learning, Allwright (1978: 105) has argued

that the complexities of the language-learning process make teacher con-
trol of classroom learning a high-risk strategy. The teacher who takes
exclusive responsibility for classroom management is ‘professionally
irresponsible’, because ‘a serious weakening of the value of the classroom
experience for the learners is virtually inevitable’. In Allwright’s view,
autonomy is fostered when teachers examine the decisions that they norm-
ally regard as their prerogative and consider whether the learners should
also be involved in taking decisions concerning the planning of classroom
activities and the evaluation of their outcomes. In more recent work, this
view is reflected in Allwright and Hanks’s (2009) call for learners to be
treated as ‘developing practitioners of learning’.
11.1 Planning classroom learning

Several experimental classroom-based programmes have indicated that
learner control over the planning of classroom activities can produce pos-
itive results in terms of both autonomy and language learning (Chapter 12).
In an early example, Littlejohn (1982) conducted an experiment with small
groups of volunteer students studying beginner-level Spanish without a
teacher. Post-course questionnaire results suggested that small-group
independent study led to increased motivation. Participants reported that
they often felt inhibited in teacher-led classrooms by the expertise of
the teacher and by the presence of other students with whom they felt
in competition. Without the teacher they felt more able to speak, to make
mistakes and to contribute their own experiences, leading to a feeling of
being supported in their learning difficulties. In a later study, Littlejohn
(1983), reported similar benefits when students were given a degree of
control over the content of their learning within a teacher-directed class-
room environment (Concept 11.1).
Concept 11.1 An experiment in learner-control

In an experiment with two groups of university students in Bahrain, who
were repeating a 14-week English course they had failed the previous year,
Littlejohn (1983) introduced significant elements of learner control into a
teacher-directed environment. Groups of students were asked to review
grammar sections in the previous year’s textbook and to report on what the
sections required them to do and how difficult or easy they found them. The
teacher then asked for volunteers to research an area of grammar, present
their findings to the class and provide exercises, tasks and games for practice.
From the eighth week of the course, two of the six weekly hours were
devoted to student-directed classes in which groups of 5–6 students decided
CLASSROOM-BASED APPROACHES 165
upon and carried out activities by themselves, calling on the assistance of

the teacher when necessary. On retaking the examination they had failed the
previous year, the experimental groups showed improvements equal to or
greater than those of similar students in three teacher-directed groups.
Littlejohn also reports that the participants developed a greater sense of
responsibility for their learning, a more active role in the classroom, greater
involvement with course texts and a willingness to use additional resources.
Learner control over planning has also been linked to differentiation in

teaching and learning, which has self-evident benefits for individual students
with varied learning styles and preferences (Quote 11.2). The underlying
principle here is that allowing students a measure of choice in the activities
they engage in can be an effective way to provide individuals in large
classes with appropriate learning experiences. Lamb (2003) describes pro-
cedures in a secondary comprehensive French/German classroom in the
North of England that attempt to operationalise this principle. Units of
work are organised to provide a range of learning opportunities around a
particular topic, beginning with teacher-centred activities and moving into
more self-managed learning when individuals are ready. At the beginning
of each unit the students are given record sheets and begin by setting and
recording targets for independent work. They are rewarded for achieving
targets by a ‘gold slip’. The teacher then introduces core language using
communicative methods and the students begin to practise in small groups
and individually. The students also use study plans to access a range of
activities and resources appealing to a range of ability levels, learning styles
and interests, which can number up to 150 for any single unit. Students
assess their learning using answer sheets, choose homework activities indi-
vidually and at the end of each unit they attempt tests at one of three
National Curriculum levels to confirm their self-assessments.
Coyle on differentiation and autonomy
[I]f one of the ultimate aims of education is to encourage learner indepen-

dence, to prepare and skill individuals for lifelong learning, then the processes
inside the classroom must inevitably be conducive to developing self-
awareness and skills on an individual basis which will promote autonomous
learning. Thus it is that differentiated pedagogy is inherent in and essential to
this process. . . . [P]roviding relevant learning experiences (teacher responsibility)
and engaging with and in them (learner responsibility), driven by a shared
understanding of learner as individual (teacher awareness) and self as learner
(learner awareness), seems to suggest a symbiotic relationship between
learner autonomy and differentiated learning.
Coyle (2003: 168)
Various kinds of collaborative work in groups or pairs have also been

viewed as beneficial to the development of autonomy, in part because they
shift the focus of attention in the classroom from the teacher to the
students themselves and because they allow students more time to prepare
contributions for whole class work. There are several recent accounts in the
literature of classrooms organised around student-planned group projects
(Hart, 2002; Smith, 2001; Stephenson and Kohyama, 2003). Hart (2002),
for example, describes a course at a women’s college in western Japan, in
which small groups of students choose their own areas of study in designated
topic areas, engage in collaborative research and present findings using
posters and oral and written reports. Hart’s project also illustrates how group
projects of this kind can shift the focus of a class away from textbooks and
language teaching materials towards the use of authentic materials and
exchange of information through the target language. In an interesting
study based on theories of group dynamics, Chang (2007: 322) also iden-
tified relationships between group factors and autonomous behaviour, as
students commented that ‘being around autonomous, motivated classmates
positively influences their own autonomy’.
Peer teaching has similar benefits to group work, although it appears
to be less frequently used. Assinder (1991) introduced peer teaching to a
group of 12 students taking the current affairs module of an English for
Further Studies course in Sydney. The group was divided into two and
each group regularly prepared video-based lessons and teaching materials
for the other group. Based on post-course questionnaires and her own
observations, Assinder reported gains in motivation, participation, ‘real’
communication, in-depth understanding, responsibility for learning, com-
mitment to the course, confidence, mutual respect, the number of skills
and strategies used and accuracy in written outcomes. In a model of peer
teaching developed for advanced learners of French at the University of
Brighton (Carpenter, 1996), pairs of students took turns to prepare and
conduct three-hour classes based around authentic texts. On the basis of
post-course questionnaires, Carpenter reported gains in motivation and
use of learning strategies. She also reported problems, including lack of
participation by some students and uneven quality of learner-prepared
classes, and suggested that peer teaching may be more effective when
students have advanced skills in the target language and feel comfortable
with their peers. In a more recent study, Deacon and Croker (2006) report
on an English course in Japan in which students taught a topic of their
choice in English, individually or in pairs, and designed pre-class homework
and in-class materials and activities. While judging the course successful,
they also emphasised the importance of out-of-class scaffolding and
reflection activities to its overall effectiveness.
Results of experiments in which learners are asked to set their own
goals and plan activities within the classroom suggest that increased
learner control is beneficial to language learning in the short term.

However, the factors contributing to learning gains are often difficult to
determine. In peer-teaching experiments, for example, the experience of
teaching may be a significant factor in learning gains. Transfer of control
also often involves an increase in student–student interaction and increased
opportunities to use and process the target language in group work. Most
experiments report gains in motivation and in factors related to autonomy
such as responsibility for learning and strategy use. These gains are difficult
to measure, however, and reliance on teacher participant observations and
post-course evaluation questionnaires may inevitably lead to findings that
favour the goals of the experiment.
One clear outcome of the research is the change in the role of the
teacher that results from initiatives to increase learner control over learn-
ing content and procedures. Assinder (1991: 223), for example, reports a
significant change in her role in peer-taught classes, describing herself as a
‘resource’ for language queries, ‘on-the-spot checker’ and a ‘sounding-board’
for ideas, opinions and interpretation. By drastically reducing the time
spent talking in class and on preparation, she was also able to increase time
spent gathering data on individual student difficulties and to hold more
individual counselling sessions.
La Ganza on autonomy as an interrelational achievement
Learner autonomy depends upon the capacity of the teacher and the learner
to develop and maintain an interrelational climate characterized by the
teacher’s holding back from influencing the learner, and the learner’s holding
back from seeking the teacher’s influence. Apart from developing a capacity
for restraint, the learner must develop a capacity for persistence in using
resources and the teacher as a resource, and the teacher must develop a
capacity for communicating to the learner that he or she is concerned for the
learner’s educative well-being during the learning process: that he or she has
the learner ‘in mind’.
La Ganza (2008: 66)
Several other studies have identified teaching style as an important

variable in fostering autonomy. Loewen (2006), for example, argues that
teachers should encourage student initiated focus-on-form episodes during
meaning-focused activities as examples of autonomous behaviour.
Focusing on ‘learner initiative’ in teacher-fronted interaction, Garton
(2002) identified two important conditions for a student’s turn to count
as an initiative: (1) it does not constitute a direct response to a teacher
elicitation; and (2) it gains the ‘main floor’, and is not just limited to a ‘sub
floor’. She also identifies giving learners space and time as the two main
principles for teachers to encourage learner initiative in the classroom.
In an interesting approach to the idea of autonomy, which is viewed as
‘an achievement, attained interrelationally between the learner and the
teacher’, La Ganza (2008) focuses on the interactional spaces that are
mutually created by teachers and learners in the classroom (Quote 11.3).
11.2 Evaluating classroom learning
Further reading
Oscarson, M. (1997) ‘Self-assessment of foreign and second language proficiency’.
In C. Clapham and D. Corson (eds) Language Testing and Assessment. Encyclopedia
of Language and Education, Volume 7. Dordrecht: Kluwer, pp. 175–87.
Self-assessment has been a prominent theme in the literature on autonomy

and language testing and has been seen to carry a number of benefits
for learning (Concept 11.2). Although self-assessment has been linked to
the idea of autonomy in the language-testing field, greater emphasis has
been placed on the reliability of summative self-assessments of language
proficiency. Oscarson (1989), however, makes a distinction between assess-
ment as an internal self-directed activity and assessment as an external
other-directed activity. From the perspective of autonomy, the formative
aspects of internal assessment are of greater significance than learners’
ability to match their own assessments with external assessments of their
proficiency. In self-directed learning, the distinction between self-assessment
of learning outcomes and self-monitoring of the learning process is also
blurred, since self-assessment is ongoing and influences planning. In this
sense, self-assessment includes reflection on goals, learning activities and
appropriate assessment criteria.
Concept 11.2 Benefits of self-assessment

Oscarson (1989) identifies four main benefits of formal self-assessment for
learners:
1. It trains learners to evaluate the effectiveness of their communication,
which is beneficial to learning in itself.
2. It raises learners’ awareness of the learning process and stimulates them to
consider course content and assessment critically.
3. It enhances their knowledge of the variety of possible goals in language

learning, which leaves them in a better position to exercise control over
their own learning and to influence the direction of classroom activities.
4. It expands the range of assessment criteria to include areas in which
learners have special competence, such as the evaluation of their own
needs and affective dimensions of the learning process.
Blanche (1988) also observes that in a number of studies self-assessment is
seen to increase learners’ motivation.
Several recent studies have shown high correlation between learners’

and tutors’ judgements, especially when students have been trained in
self-assessment techniques (Alderson, 2005; Brantmeier and Vanderplank,
2008; Chen, 2008; Dlaska and Krekeler, 2008). Thomson (1996) asked stu-
dents of Japanese at the University of New South Wales to plan, execute
and self-assess a short self-directed programme of learning. She found that
the learners were capable of carrying out the assessment, but also noted
some variation in the levels of their self-ratings according to gender and
ethnic background. Asian female students, especially, appeared prone to rate
themselves lower than other groups. In a review of several self-assessment
studies, Cram (1995: 273) observed that the ‘accuracy’ of self-assessment
varies according to several factors, including the type of assessment,
language proficiency, academic record, career aspirations and degree of
training. Correlations between self and teacher assessments can also be
deceptive. In a study of German pronunciation accuracy, Dlaska and
Krekeler (2008) found that 85 per cent of assessments were identical, but
the learners only identified half of the number of speech sounds which the
raters believed to be inaccurate. In spite of the high statistical correlation,
they concluded that even experienced learners find it difficult to self-
assess pronunciation skills accurately. In a longitudinal case study of self-
assessment of oral English skills, however, Chen (2008) found that self
and teacher assessments at first differed significantly, but after training and
a 10-week interval they were closely aligned. Chen’s study tends to support
the view that training is crucial to effective self-assessment.
Although collaborative assessment is used in a number of autonomous
learning programmes, including the credit-bearing Autonomous Learning
Modules at Helsinki University (Karlsson et al., 1997), self-assessment for
certification purposes appears to be rare. For formative purposes, however,
the reliability of learners’ assessments of their proficiency seems to be of less
importance than the benefits of engaging in the process of self-assessment
(Concept 11.3). Natri (2007: 108), who has developed a system of continu-
ous self and peer evaluation for use in French courses at the University of
Jyväskylä in Finland, argues that ‘if part of the evaluation is carried out by
the students, they become more responsible about their own learning’.
Harrison (2006: 90), who asked students to create their own tests in groups,
observes that his concerns about the validity of the test were allayed when
he realised that ‘the validity of the test items and the actual test itself just
might be secondary to the experience gained from preparing the tests’.
Concept 11.3 Self-assessment in DIALANG

DIALANG is a freely available web-based diagnostic language assessment
system designed to assess language proficiency in 14 European languages.
It is linked to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for
language proficiency and incorporates self-assessment statements from the
CEFR. Alderson (2005: 264) explains that DIALANG is intended to allow
learners to compare their own ratings with their performance in low-stakes
testing environments and that any discrepancies may provide insight into
their learning and beliefs about language learning. Findings of pilot tests on
English reading showed a significant relationship between self-assessed
levels of reading and CEFR linked items, as well as marked differences
according to mother tongue, age, sex, length of time studying English and
frequency of use. Higher level learners were also better able to self-assess
than lower level learners.
A number of instruments have been developed for self-assessment,

including self-marked tests, progress cards on which students can record
whether they have reached predetermined objectives, self-rating scales on
which students estimate their proficiency in various areas of language or
their ability to perform communicative tasks, and diaries or logs (see
examples in Ellis and Sinclair, 1989; Lewis, 1990; McNamara and Deane,
1995; Oscarson, 1989). Portfolios have also been seen as a useful tool for
self-monitoring and self-assessment. In a Japanese college English course,
Shimo (2003) asked students to prepare portfolios containing two favourite
pairwork conversations, three movie reports and a list of useful expressions
learned in class. In this case, self-assessment is involved in the selection of
materials that best represent the students’ abilities. The now widely-used
European Portfolio (Little, 2005) and its version for student teachers
(Burkurt and Schwienhorst, 2008) have been seen as an especially useful
tool in the context of autonomous learning, because of their incorporation
of self-assessment statements.
From the perspective of autonomy, however, it seems especially impor-
tant that self-assessment instruments do not simply focus on proficiency or
ability, but also encourage formative self-monitoring and a cyclical approach
to the re-evaluation of goals and plans. For example, in response to a ten-
dency for students to record short factual descriptions of activities carried
out in independent language learning projects at the University of Hong
Kong, a record of work form was designed to encourage learners (a) to
Figure 11.1 A ‘record of work’ form used at the University of Hong Kong
record both what they had done and what they had learned in an activity;
and (b) to connect the value of the activity to future plans (Figure 11.1).
As Holec (1985b: 142) points out, the purpose of assessment for the
learner differs from its purpose for the teacher. From the learner’s per-
spective, assessment is valuable because ‘the learner needs to know at all
times whether, on the one hand, his performances correspond to what he
was aiming at and, on the other, whether he has made any progress towards
his chosen objective’. The aim of self-assessment is, therefore, ‘to provide
the learner with all the information he needs to control his learning pro-
cess and progress’. In order to achieve this aim, self-assessment procedures
must be ‘relevant to the learner in question and to the particular learning
in which he is engaged’. They must be carried out on relevant perfor-
mances, using relevant criteria and relevant standards. It is because of this
need for relevance that assessment of self-directed learning must be carried
out by learners themselves.
Research shows that learners are, under appropriate conditions and with
appropriate training, able to self-assess their language performance, but it
does not yet tell us very much about how they make the process of self-
assessment relevant to their own learning goals. Reports on initiatives that
integrate self-assessment within a programme of learning are rare in the
literature and there remains scope for research on the cyclical relationship
between self-assessment and planning in the development of autonomy.
11.3 The nature of control in the classroom

In the day-to-day practice of institutional learning, teachers are largely
responsible for planning learning activities and the assessment of students,
but the teacher’s role in planning and assessment is invariably constrained
by external tests and curriculum guidelines. Shohamy (1997) observes that
‘tests are not isolated events, rather they are connected to a whole set of
psychological, social and political variables that have an effect on curriculum,
ethicality, social classes, bureaucracy, politics and language knowledge’, while
for Holec (1985b: 142), there is ‘the vague but definite feeling that evalu-
ation is an instrument of power which should not be put in just anybody’s
hands’. The washback effect of public tests often constrains the teacher’s role
in planning to one of implementing a predefined curriculum, or, at worst, to
‘teaching for the test’. In an interesting twist on this argument, Little (2003a)
has argued that, from a Vygotskyan perspective, public tests are valuable as
a means through which students learn to assess themselves. Nevertheless, the
degree to which self-assessment and learner control of classroom activities can
be implemented is likely to be severely constrained, unless the learners are
involved in programmes of study without external assessment requirements.
Auerbach on power and control in the classroom
Close your eyes and imagine an ESL classroom. My guess is that the picture
in your mind’s eye includes a teacher, a group of learners, some desks, chairs,
a blackboard, books, papers, four walls and a door. Have you drawn anything
outside the walls of the classroom? Are there any visible ways in which
relations of power or authority show up in your picture? If the learners’ relation
to the social order outside the classroom is not immediately apparent in your
picture, you are probably not alone. Although issues of power and politics are
generally seen as inherent in language policy and planning on a macrolevel,
classrooms themselves may be seen as self-contained, autonomous systems,
insulated from external political concerns. The actual teaching that goes on
behind closed doors is often conceived of as a neutral transfer of skills, know-
ledge or competencies, to be left in the hands of trained professionals whose
job it is to implement the latest methods or techniques.
Auerbach (1995: 9)
Research suggests that transfer of significant elements of control over

planning and evaluation in the classroom has tangible benefits for learners.
But many of the experiments in learner control of planning and assessment
reported in the literature are isolated experiments and often illustrate the
ways in which wider educational constraints prevent a fuller implementation
of learner control. As Auerbach (1995: 9) points out, the assumption that con-
trol is a commodity shared between teachers and learners may underestimate
the degree to which day-to-day decisions and classroom roles are conditioned
by broader institutional, social and discursive practices (Quote 11.2).
For some within the field of critical pedagogy, an emphasis on control
over the management of learning mystifies the degree to which relations
of power in the classroom are shaped by broader social and discursive
practices. Some advocate a participatory approach in which teachers join
with students to critique and challenge the power structures that condition
language learning and struggle to overcome their own marginalisation
within the system (Auerbach, 1995). For others, the emphasis in autonomy
in language learning should be upon the development of control over
language and the students’ ‘voice’ or ‘identity’ as it is constructed within a
second language (Holliday, 2003, 2005; Pennycook, 1997; Schmenk, 2005).
Critical approaches to language teaching are not necessarily incompati-
ble with attempts to introduce learner control into the classroom, however.
It may be that learners who are successful in taking a degree of control over
the management of their learning are more likely to develop a critical
perspective on learning than those who are not. At the same time, attempts
to transfer control may be enhanced by critical discussion and evaluation
of institutional, social and ideological constraints on autonomy within the
curriculum. An initiative to introduce learner control over planning and
evaluation into a course, for example, could well be enhanced by critical
discussion of the purposes of existing procedures. Critical awareness of
these purposes could help learners towards a more realistic understanding
of the value and limitations of control over classroom activities.
11.4 The effectiveness of classroom-based

approaches
Classroom-based approaches attempt to foster autonomy by involving
learners in decision-making processes concerned with the day-to-day man-
agement of their learning. Accounts of experiments in which learners are
encouraged to take a degree of control over the planning and assessment
of classroom learning are mostly positive and tend to show that learners
are able to exercise control over these aspects of their learning given the
opportunity to do so and appropriate support. It also seems likely that
this capacity is developed more effectively within the classroom, where
learners are more readily able to collaborate with other learners and draw
on the support of teachers, than outside it.
The term ‘pedagogy for autonomy’ is increasingly used to refer to appro-
aches to teaching that are liable to foster autonomy in the classroom
( Jiménez Raya et al., 2007; Smith, 2003; Vieira, 1997). Because teachers
typically work under constraints that limit their capacity to implement
comprehensive pedagogies for autonomy, teachers’ engagement with learner
autonomy is often a matter of ‘taking the first steps’ (Dam, 1995: 6). We
might, therefore, think of pedagogies for autonomy as being composed of
various ‘pedagogical strategies for autonomy’, understood here as discrete
processes or procedures that can be introduced into classroom teaching
with the objective of fostering learner autonomy. One of the difficulties
of assessing these strategies, however, lies in the question of whether they
are likely to be effective when implemented independently of an overall
orientation towards autonomy in the curriculum.
This question is especially relevant to the incorporation of the idea of
autonomy into general texts on language teaching, such as Hedge (2000)
and Harmer (2001) on methodology, Nation (2001) on vocabulary and
Thornbury (2005) on speaking, and the publication of resource books on
autonomy such as Lowes and Target (1998) and Scharle and Szabó (2000).
In these books there is some evidence of autonomy being broken down
into discrete usable techniques for teachers to encourage students to be
more active in the classroom or more responsible for their own learning.
In Harmer (2001), for example, learner autonomy shares space with teacher
development in a chapter that appears to have been tacked on to the end
of the third edition of the book. Although its suggestions on learner train-
ing, classroom decision-making and out-of-class learning make good
sense, it is difficult to avoid the impression that they are something of
an afterthought in a book that makes no other mention of autonomy.
In Hedge (2000), on the other hand, autonomy occupies a more central
place in one of three introductory chapters that frame the approach taken
in the book as a whole (Quote 11.3).
Hedge on autonomy and language teaching
This book is intended primarily for practising teachers of English as a second

language . . . who wish to discover more about ideas in ELT which influence
their work and the sources of those ideas. . . . The book tries not to take a
prescriptive stance in the sense of promoting certain routines or techniques,
though it is probably true to say that it reflects my own stance on such issues
as learner responsibility, the communicative classroom, an interactive method-
ology, and a learner-centred view of the curriculum.
Hedge (2000: 3)
The important questions about classroom-based approaches to autonomy

may, therefore, concern the degree to which specific teaching techniques
are embedded with a more comprehensive pedagogy for autonomy. This
in turn may be a question of the extent to which control over management
of classroom activities leads to the development of control over cognitive
and content aspects of learning. Learners may develop a capacity to con-
trol cognitive aspects of their learning through the opportunity to take
decisions in the classroom, but this will depend in part on whether their
decisions are limited by or go beyond learning procedures with which they
are already familiar. They may also develop a capacity to determine the
content of their learning, but this again will depend in part on whether
their decisions are limited by or go beyond predetermined learning con-
tent. The risk in attempting to implement learner control when the scope
for decision making is severely constrained is that the learners will become
alienated from the idea of autonomy by a feeling that their decisions have
few real consequences, or that they are being asked to take responsibility
without at the same time being offered genuine freedom.
One clear outcome of the research reported in this classroom is that
any attempt to transfer control over one aspect of learning is likely to have
complex effects on the system of learning as a whole. Flexibility in the
guidelines for the implementation of a curriculum often creates spaces
in which individual teachers can allow learners a degree of control over
aspects of their classroom learning. However, if flexibility is lacking in the
curriculum itself, it is likely that the degree of autonomy developed by
the learners will be correspondingly constrained.
Chapter 12
Curriculum-based approaches
Curriculum-based approaches to autonomy extend the principle of learner

control over the management of learning to the curriculum as a whole
(Quote 12.1). The principle of learner control over the curriculum has been
formalised in the idea of the process syllabus, in which learners are expec-
ted to make the major decisions concerning the content and procedures of
learning in collaboration with their teachers. It is also apparent in a number
of approaches to curriculum negotiation that do not carry the name of the
process syllabus, but follow many of the ideas and practices implicit in it.
Crabbe on autonomy and the curriculum
The particular question posed is whether the minute-by-minute classroom prac-

tice indirectly fosters or discourages autonomy. Do events in the classroom
challenge or reinforce learners’ expectations of their role, do they model indi-
vidual learning behaviour, do they highlight choices within the curriculum? The
important point behind these questions is that autonomy as a goal needs to
pervade the whole curricular system and not simply be an occasional part of it.
Crabbe (1993: 444)
12.1 The process syllabus
Further reading
Breen, M.P. and Littlejohn, A. (eds) (2000a) Classroom Decision-making: Negotiation
in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
176
CURRICULUM-BASED APPROACHES 177
The idea of the process syllabus emerged in the 1980s as a development of

ideas concerned with communicative language teaching and task-based
learning (Quote 12.2). At that time, the idea of the communicative syllabus
was based on the notion that, in the course of classroom learning, learners
naturally tend to recreate the existing syllabus or create their own.
Advocates of the communicative syllabus proposed that language-learning
content should not be predefined, but selected and organised within the
communicative processes that take place in the classroom itself (Breen and
Candlin, 1980). In task-based learning, tasks are intended to ‘serve as com-
pelling and appropriate means for realising certain characteristic principles
of communicative language teaching’ (Candlin, 1987: 5). Treated as the basis
for action in the classroom, tasks provide both the focus for authentic com-
munication and the occasion for language learning as learners experience
and process unpredictable language input in the course of tackling them.
Breen and Littlejohn on negotiation
Being an active agent of one’s own learning in a classroom entails optimising

the collective resources of a gathering of people, including a teacher who
probably has greater experience of helping people to learn than others in the
room. Agency in learning in such circumstances also involves contributing as
much as one gains so that a group of learners engaged in shared decision-
making can also entail mutual support. From this perspective, negotiation is
not strictly a characteristic of what is commonly referred to as ‘learner-
centred’ language pedagogy. Negotiation is classroom-group centred, serving
a collective teaching-learning process and, thereby, individuals located as
members of a group.
Breen and Littlejohn (2000b: 24)
The process syllabus added to these proposals the element of negotiation

of learning content and procedures as the means through which commu-
nication and learning are achieved. In Breen’s (1987) detailed proposal for
the process syllabus, the syllabus designer has two major roles: to provide
a plan of the decisions to be made and to provide a bank of classroom
activities to facilitate the implementation of the decisions that are made.
The content of classroom learning and activities are determined through
an ongoing cycle of negotiation and evaluation. The process syllabus is
thus aligned to what Legutke and Thomas (1991) call the ‘strong version’
of communicative language teaching, in which content and procedures,
and language learning and language use, are intimately linked. The process
syllabus also differs radically from the idea of individual control over
learning, because it is precisely through negotiation over curriculum

decisions that its benefits appear (Quote 12.2).
According to Simmons and Wheeler (1995: 17), the process syllabus has
been viewed in two ways: as a ‘negotiated component of the syllabus’ and
as ‘an opportunity to enable full learner participation in the decision-
making processes associated with selection of content, agreement on pro-
cedures, choice of activities and tasks, direction of working and ongoing
evaluation’. The first, weaker version of the process syllabus often involves
project work, in which learners determine the content, methods of inquiry
and outcomes of real world research (Legutke and Thomas, 1991; Ribé and
Vidal, 1993). Learners exercise control over the content of projects and
the forms of input and output. Collaboration and communication among
learners over the solution of real world problems is viewed as an opportu-
nity for language learning. A similar principle also informs experiential
models (Kohonen et al., 2000), cooperative models (Macaro, 1997) and
task-based learning and teaching (Samuda and Bygate, 2007).
The stronger version of the process syllabus does not presuppose any
particular content or approach to learning, since these are to be negotiated
and renegotiated throughout the course. Clarke (1991: 13) argued that
this version was ‘extremely unlikely to be appropriate in anything but a
few very unlikely circumstances’. Budd and Wright (1992) and Simmons
and Wheeler (1995) reported successful short-term implementation of
the process syllabus model in university and migrant education classrooms.
However, there have been few published accounts or evaluations of the
strong version of the process syllabus in action. Breen and Littlejohn
(2000a) is a useful collection of accounts of classroom negotiation and
decision making in schools, tertiary institutes and teacher education, but
most of the accounts fall short of full curriculum negotiation. In their
introductory chapter to this collection, Breen and Littlejohn (2000b: 35)
use a pyramid model to illustrate the levels at which cycles of negotiation,
action and evaluation can be applied: a task, a sequence of tasks, a series
of lessons/sessions, a course, a specific subject/language curriculum, or a
wider educational curriculum. The process syllabus does not necessarily
imply negotiation of decisions at all levels, but rather serves as a framework
identifying (1) the range of decisions open to negotiation; (2) the steps in
the negotiation cycle; and (3) the levels in the curriculum to which this
cycle can be applied.
12.2 Examples of curriculum-based approaches

Although there are few accounts of the process syllabus in action in the
form proposed by Breen (1987), the literature on autonomy includes a
number of accounts of initiatives in which learners have taken on consider-

able responsibility for decision making at the level of the curriculum as a
whole. These include the work of Leni Dam and her colleagues in Danish
secondary school classrooms, which is widely regarded as one of the most
successful examples of autonomy in language learning in action to date
(Breen et al., 1989; Dam, 1995; Dam and Gabrielsen, 1988), the Talkbase
programme at the Asian Institute of Technology in Bangkok (Hall and
Kenny, 1988; Kenny and Laszewski, 1997; Shaw, 2008), a collaborative pro-
ject between university researchers and secondary school modern languages
teachers in Dublin (Little, Ridley and Ushioda, 2002), a pre-sessional
English course at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand
(Cotterall, 2000), and an innovative English for Academic Purposes pro-
gramme at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland (Lynch, 2001). There
have also been several attempts to outline principles involved in designing
curricula for autonomy (Concept 12.1 and 12.2). Curriculum-level initia-
tives to foster autonomy are often complex and multifaceted, however,
and here I want to attempt to give a flavour of this complexity through two
brief accounts of curriculum-level initiatives in universities in Finland
and China that have been under development since the early 1990s.
Concept 12.1 Principles of course design for autonomy

Based on her experience of designing and teaching a 12-week intensive
English language course at the Victoria University of Wellington, Cotterall
(2000) proposed the following five course design principles for language
courses that seek to foster learner autonomy (p. 109):
• The course should reflect learners’ goals in its language, tasks and strategies;
• Course tasks should be explicitly linked to a simplified model of the
language learning process;
• Course tasks should either replicate real-world communicative tasks or
provide rehearsal of such tasks;
• The course should incorporate discussion of and practice with strategies
that are known to facilitate task performance;
• The course should promote reflection on learning.
12.2.1 Autonomous Learning Modules: Finland

The ALMS (Autonomous Learning Modules) programme at the Helsinki
University Language Centre is a good example of an initiative in which
teachers have taken advantage of institutional pressures to shift the curricu-
lum in the direction of greater autonomy to design a curriculum frame-
work in which learning activities are largely determined and evaluated by
students. The 14-week credit-bearing EFL programme is provided to

undergraduates as part of a compulsory foreign language requirement.
The motivation for the ALMS project initially arose from some teachers’
dissatisfaction with conventional courses and interest in autonomy and, in
the course of its development over more than a decade, the organisers have
had to resolve a number of difficult organisational problems concerning
timetabling and assessment. The early stages of the project were outlined
in Karlsson, Kjisik and Nordlund (1997) and subsequent developments
and research have been reported in Karlsson (2008), Karlsson, Kjisik and
Nordlund (2007), Karlsson and Kjisik (2007), and Kjisik (2007).
The ALMS programme functions as an alternative to teacher-fronted
classroom-based courses and the amount of contact with teachers and
counsellors depends partly on the student. The programme begins with
a compulsory five-hour learner awareness session covering six areas:
• Reflections about language learning and past experiences.
• Consciousness-raising of language learning strategies.
• Discussion of students’ own strategies.
• Analysis of language needs, present and future.
• The students’ own objectives.
• Making preliminary plans and thinking about areas of interest.
Although established learner development techniques and instruments,
including the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) (Chapter
5.1.2), are used, the emphasis in this part of the course is on reflection
and planning based on learners’ awareness of their own strategies, styles
and approaches.
One week later students are introduced to some of the resources avail-
able to them, including skills support groups, the self-access studio, the
ALMS room and the ALMS home page, which contain support materials
for the programme. They are asked to make an initial contract covering
their goals, objectives, time allocation, use of resources and materials,
learning methods and partners. In Finnish universities, students’ immedi-
ate academic needs include reading textbooks, listening to lectures and
writing essays in English; they also have ready access to English outside
the classroom. These authentic activities often form the basis of their pro-
grammes. They are also introduced to the idea of keeping a log or diary,
which serves as a record of work for final assessment, as a vehicle for
reflection, and as a basis for counselling. Students are then asked to write
their language learning histories in preparation for the first individual
counselling session.
ALMS students come into contact with teachers in two contexts: coun-
selling and skills support groups. Counsellors take charge of the learner
awareness and individual counselling sessions and are primarily responsible
for helping students with the idea and practice of autonomous learning.
Teachers also facilitate support groups on various skills and topics, which
are run in the central part of the course according to a flexible timetable
based on an initial estimate of student demand. Student participation is
voluntary and the nature of the teacher’s role varies according to the type
and needs of the group, but is always intended to be one of support.
Students are required to participate in three individual counselling
sessions. The first includes discussion of the students’ learning histories,
the idea of autonomy and how they will realise it in practice. A mid-term
session focuses on the students’ progress reported in the logs or diaries.
In the last session, the students are expected to outline what they have
achieved during the course and how they have developed as language
learners. The counsellor and each student then negotiate together whether
the student has satisfied the course requirements.
In the ALMS course, students work with teacher support, but without
the structure of regular classroom sessions with a single teacher. The prob-
lem of structure is addressed through learner-awareness sessions, counselling,
skills support groups, record-keeping procedures and reflection on plan-
ning, monitoring and evaluation. The curriculum model represented by
the ALMS course thus integrates a number of the techniques convention-
ally associated with the promotion of autonomy into a complex structure
that appears to work well for students, teachers and the institution.
Research publications indicate a number of benefits for student learning,
including heightened motivation and consciousness of the learning
process. Students report that they become more autonomous as language
learners and users and that they are able to apply this autonomy to other
areas of their lives. Teacher development through individual and collab-
orative action research is also central to the development of the ALMS
programme. The most recent research emphasises the complexity of
student-counsellor relationships and dialogue, the emotional side of coun-
selling and the issue of student and counsellor identities (Karlsson, 2008).
12.2.2 RICH: China

In contrast to the ALMS programme, RICH is a more loosely structured
set of bottom-up initiatives that have been developed in classrooms at the
College of Foreign Languages at Zhejiang Normal University in Southern
China since the early 1990s. RICH is an acronym for ‘Research-based
learning, Integrated curriculum, Cooperative learning, Humanistic outcomes’
and was coined by Cliff Schimmels, a visiting professor at the college, to
capture what he saw as the key features and principles of the innovation.
Research related to the philosophy and practice of RICH has been
reported in Shao and Wu (2007), Wu (2004, 2006) and Ying (2007), as well
as in a number of publications in Chinese.
The RICH project was initiated by a group of teacher educators in the

English Department of the college in response to a national call for cur-
riculum innovation and quality-oriented education in China. In 1997, they
launched a task-based learning project in the Comprehensive Reading
course and, later, task-based learning was adopted in most first and second-
year courses. Since then, teacher educators in the college have been con-
tinuously exploring and developing innovative curriculum practices in
conjunction with their own professional development. In this exploratory
journey, RICH has attempted to go beyond the prescribed top-down cur-
riculum paradigm, so that students enter the language classroom not only as
language learners, but also as thinkers and researchers in order to develop
as language users and whole persons. Teachers involved in the project have
also deconstructed traditional teaching objectives, methodologies and text-
books and integrated them into a negotiated process of exploratory cur-
riculum practices with the aim of making language learning not only a tool
for acquiring communication skills, but also a process of social interaction
to develop knowledge, thought and humanity.
At the beginning of the RICH project, changes were mainly made in
three aspects: content, methodology and evaluation. In contrast to the
situation in conventional English language courses in universities in China,
textbooks were no longer the only source of learning content. Students
were motivated and inspired by being able to choose what they wanted to
learn, which inevitably led to changes in methodology and evaluation as
both teachers and students had to rethink how to teach and learn and to
evaluate student learning. Besides lecturing, various alternative forms of
teaching and learning emerged, including morning reports, topic presen-
tations, poster presentations, research projects, group work and team
teaching. In addition to paper tests, portfolios, oral tests, self-evaluation
and peer evaluation were also adopted. Classroom learning also facilitated
out-of-class learning, which was treated as an essential part of the curricu-
lum to be integrated with classroom work. The maturity of students as
critical thinkers is one of the RICH project’s educational visions. Within
this vision language learning is viewed as a way of exploring understanding
as a concern of self and society and not simply as a way of searching for
useful information. Classroom activities are thus understood as social
interactions involving mutual respect, collaborative inquiry and mutual
understanding.
The curriculum changes initiated in the RICH project have also led
to a reconstruction of the roles of teachers and students as students started
to have ownership of their English language learning for the first time.
Students were fully engaged in decision making in teaching, learning and
evaluation, by establishing learning objectives, choosing research topics,
selecting learning materials, designing learning tasks, and designing crite-
ria for evaluation, which was conducted through negotiation between
teachers and students. In addition to giving students the right of decision

making in learning, the RICH project has also given the right of decision
making in curriculum design and the ownership of curriculum innovation
to teachers. Both students and teachers have been empowered by involve-
ment in negotiation and decision making, which has fostered both learner
and teacher autonomy.
Teacher development has thus been a key aspect of the RICH project
as the process of curriculum innovation has revealed how teachers can
empower themselves to create spaces in constraining institutional struc-
tures to practice and develop learner and teacher autonomy. In the case of
the curriculum innovations in RICH, teacher autonomy initially made the
development of learner autonomy possible, but it also developed further
as teachers realised that the core of the curriculum was not the syllabus,
textbooks and teaching methods that were constructed by experts, but the
teachers themselves. As the project progressed, teacher forums were held
regularly to facilitate collaborative inquiry, which provided a platform for
teachers to make their personal practical knowledge explicit and develop
a shared language in the RICH community and institutional culture
(Ying, 2007).
12.3 The effectiveness of curriculum-based

approaches
Curriculum-based approaches to autonomy are often judged to be effective
according to their ability to survive. The fact that the projects discussed
in Chapter 12.2 have established themselves within their institutions and
are judged to be effective by those who organise them is, therefore, some
evidence of their success. One of the strengths of these and similar pro-
jects is that they address the issue of learner control holistically, placing
equal emphasis on the development of self-management skills and control
over cognitive and content aspects of learning. For this reason, however,
the factors contributing to their success or failure are often difficult to
determine.
Concept 12.2 Principles of course design for autonomy

Stephen Krashen is known for his advocacy of extensive second-language
reading, rather than instruction, as a means of fostering second language
acquisition. In an interesting recent contribution to the literature on auton-
omy, Krashen (2006: 3) has proposed several criteria for curricula that foster
autonomous language acquisition:
• the syllabus is based on topics of interest, rather than grammatical mastery;

• students are not forced or called upon to speak, but respond voluntarily;
• the teacher uses a variety of ways of making input comprehensible;
• the students are exposed to a wide variety of reading material for
self-selected reading.
In addition, Krashen argues that the curriculum should not be designed to
make the learner into a native-like or even very high-level performer, but to
‘develop intermediates, those who know enough of the language so that they
can continue to improve on their own, after the program has ended’.
Curriculum-based approaches can be described as ‘deep-end’ appro-

aches, in which learners are expected to develop the capacity for control
over learning by exercising their autonomy at a number of levels. They are
also characterised by the freedom of choice given to students at early stages
of the course and by the degree of responsibility expected of them. It is
evident, however, that the more successful curriculum-based approaches to
autonomy do not simply leave the students to ‘sink or swim’. Invariably,
their effectiveness depends upon implicit or explicit scaffolding structures
that support learners in decision-making processes. Without these struc-
tures, curriculum-based approaches would do little to help students to
develop their capacity to take control over learning.
In the examples discussed here, the role of the teacher in the negotiation
of learning objectives and procedures is also crucial. As Hall and Kenny
(1988: 22) describe it, this role is ‘a little like that of the director of a drama
workshop whose job it is to get the best out of the players whilst at the
same time encouraging the development of the drama’. The ALMS and
RICH projects also illustrate the role that teachers play in carving out
spaces for autonomy within institutional constraints. There are also accounts
in the literature of large-scale, top-down attempts to foster autonomy, such
as the introduction of self-access into United Kingdom higher education
institutions in the 1990s (Hurd, 1998), and the ‘independent study house’
initiative in Dutch schools (Schalkwijk et al., 2002), which failed largely
because they were not initiated by teachers themselves. Curriculum-based
approaches do not imply an abdication of the teacher’s role in autonomous
learning, therefore, but appear to depend very much on the attitudes, skills
and dedication of teachers acting locally and within contexts of professional
development.
Chapter 13
Teacher-based approaches
Further reading
Smith, R.C. and Vieira, F. (eds) (2009) Teacher Education for Learner Autonomy: Building
a Knowledge Base. Special issue of Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 3 (3).
In teacher-based approaches to fostering autonomy the emphasis is placed

on the teachers who play a crucial role in mediating ideas about language
learning to their students. The assumption behind teacher-based appro-
aches is that, in order to foster learner autonomy, teachers themselves must
display a degree of autonomy in their approaches to teaching and learning.
This chapter looks first at the origins of the idea of teacher autonomy in
work on teachers’ roles in autonomous learning, then at teacher autonomy
itself. Applications of theoretical work are then discussed under the head-
ings of language advising and teacher education.
13.1 Teacher roles

Following Barnes (1976), Wright (1987) characterised teacher roles in terms
of a continuum from transmission to interpretation teaching (Quote 13.1).
The role of the teacher in autonomous learning clearly falls within the
framework of interpretation teaching. Terms proposed to describe the
role of the teacher within this framework include facilitator, helper, coor-
dinator, counsellor, consultant, adviser, knower and resource. Voller (1997),
in a detailed review of the literature on teacher roles in autonomous
185
Wright on teacher roles
. . . transmission teachers believe in subject disciplines and boundaries

between them, in content, in standards of performance laid down by these
disciplines that can be objectively evaluated; that the teacher’s role is to evalu-
ate and correct learners’ performance; that learners will find it hard to meet
the standards; interpretation teachers believe that knowledge is the ability to
organize thought, interpret and act on facts; that learners are intrinsically
interested and naturally inclined to explore their worlds; that the teacher’s role
is to set up dialogues in which learners reorganize their states of knowledge;
that learners already know a great deal and have the ability to refashion that
knowledge.
Wright (1987: 62)
learning, reduced these to three: facilitator, in which the teacher is seen as

providing support for learning; counsellor, where the emphasis is placed
on one-to-one interaction; and resource, in which the teacher is seen as
a source of knowledge and expertise. Summarising earlier contributions,
Voller (1997: 102) itemised the functions and qualities associated with
these roles under the headings of technical and psycho-social support. The
key features of technical support are:
• helping learners to plan and carry out their independent language learn-
ing by means of needs analysis (both learning and language needs),
objective setting (both short- and long-term), work planning, selecting
materials, and organising interactions;
• helping learners to evaluate themselves (assessing initial proficiency,
monitoring progress, and peer- and self-assessment);
• helping learners to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to imple-
ment the above (by raising their awareness of language and learning, by
providing learner training to help them to identify learning styles and
appropriate learning strategies).
The key features of psycho-social support are:
• the personal qualities of the facilitator (being caring, supportive, patient,
tolerant, empathic, open, non-judgemental);
• a capacity for motivating learners (encouraging commitment, dispersing
uncertainty, helping learners to overcome obstacles, being prepared to
enter into a dialogue with learners, avoiding manipulating, objectifying
or interfering with, in other words controlling, them);
T E A C HE R - B A S E D A P P R O A C HE S 187
• an ability to raise learners’ awareness (to ‘decondition’ them from pre-

conceptions about learner and teacher roles, to help them perceive the
utility of, or necessity for, autonomous learning).
The volume in which Voller’s paper appeared also contained several
papers dealing with teacher roles (Breen and Mann, 1997; Sheerin, 1997;
Sturtridge, 1997). Discussing the role of teachers in self-access, Sheerin
(1997: 63) pointed to the ‘paradox of independent learning that almost all
learners need to be prepared and supported on the path towards greater
autonomy by teachers’ and described the teacher’s role as one involving
attention to the twin dangers of providing too much and too little guid-
ance. Sturtridge (1997: 71) argued for teacher development programmes
to help teachers working in self-access centres ‘become aware of their new
role as facilitators’ and pointed to a second paradox: ‘teachers need to be
trained to stop teaching students’. She also noted how discussions of teacher
roles in self-access learning had moved historically from a focus on guid-
ance in the selection and use of learning materials to more complex issues
of learner development and individual tutoring. Self-access clearly called
for special qualities that have been discussed more recently in the growing
literature on language advising (Chapter 13.3). Breen and Mann’s (1997)
paper, however, was directly concerned with classroom teaching and was
among the first to raised the idea that, in order to foster autonomy among
learners, teachers must believe in the learners’ capacity to assert their own
autonomy and be prepared to live through the consequences for their own
practice. In order to create spaces for learners to exercise their autonomy,
teachers must recognise and assert their own autonomy.
13.2 Teacher autonomy

The idea of teacher autonomy arises in part from a shift in the field of
teacher education from a focus on the teacher as a conduit for methods
devised by experts to a focus on the teacher as a self-directed learner and
practitioner (Quote 13.2). The term was brought into language education
by Little (1995) in a paper that was preceded by several contributions
extending work on teacher roles in self-access to classroom settings.
Crabbe (1993: 444), for example, had focused on the importance of teachers
encouraging student decision making in the ‘minute-by-minute classroom
practice’ (Quote 12.1) and in her contribution to the literature on class-
room autonomy, Dam (1995) provided a detailed account of her own role
in classrooms where much of the responsibility for decision making was
assigned to students. The main contribution of Little’s (1995) paper, there-
fore, lay in its application of insights from this practical work in classrooms
to the theoretical construct of teacher autonomy.
Freeman and Cornwell on teacher autonomy
Is learning to teach a matter of replicating how other teachers do things? Or

does it depend on coming to grips with one’s own ways of thinking and doing
things in the classroom? In this book, we take the position that learning to
teach is a process that, while it can be informed by the knowledge and insight
of others, remains principally the responsibility and work of the learner.
Freeman and Cornwell (1993: xii)
Little’s (1995: 175) premise was that genuinely successful learners have
always been autonomous in the sense that they accept responsibility
for their learning and possess the ‘capacity to reflect on the content and
process of learning with a view to bringing them as far as possible under
conscious control’. In this sense, he argued, there is nothing new or mys-
terious about learner autonomy and ‘our enterprise is not to promote new
kinds of learning, but by pursuing learner autonomy as an explicit goal, to
help more learners to succeed’. Like Crabbe (1993), Little argued that the
decisive factor in the development of learner autonomy was ‘the nature of
the pedagogical dialogue’. In order to conduct such a dialogue effectively,
teachers would need to engage in a ‘probably protracted process of nego-
tiation by which learners can be brought to accept responsibility for their
learning’ (p. 178). They would also need to determine the extent to which
it was possible for learners to set their own objectives, select learning mate-
rials and contribute to the assessment of their progress, taking account of
factors including the institutional framework and the age, educational
background and target language competence of the learners (p. 179). In
order for teachers to do all of these things, the principal requirement was
that they should be autonomous in relation to their own practice.
Thavenius (1999: 160) defined the autonomous teacher as one ‘who
reflects on her teacher role and who can change it, who can help her
learners become autonomous, and who is independent enough to let her
learners become independent’. Viewing awareness as a crucial dimension
of teacher autonomy, she argued that the process of becoming more aware
of one’s role in the development of learner autonomy required ‘not only
recurrent in-service training and classroom practice, but also a radical
change of attitudes and a good insight into introspection’ (p. 161). Using
the term ‘teacher-learner autonomy’, Smith (2003) emphasised the sense
in which teachers are also learners, not only of the craft of teaching but
also, in the context of foreign language education, either of the languages
they teach or of their students’ first languages – an aspect of language
teaching that may differentiate it from other kinds of teaching. From this
perspective, ongoing experiences of self-direction in teacher-learning are

conducive to teachers’ efforts to foster learner autonomy. McGrath (2000)
similarly outlines a conception of teacher autonomy as ‘self-directed pro-
fessional development’ and notes the convergence of this conception
with a number of ideas in the broader teacher education literature, such
as teacher development, teacher research, reflective practice and action
research. The common thread in these contributions is the idea that
teacher autonomy can be conceptualised as a professional capacity con-
nected, on one hand, to the ability to control the processes involved in
teaching and, on the other, to the ability to control one’s own development
as a teacher.
Professional freedom has also been viewed as an important aspect of
teacher autonomy, notably in papers by Benson (2000) and Mackenzie
(2002). Questioning the assumption that learner autonomy develops in
institutional settings primarily through the transfer of control from teach-
ers to learners, I have argued that most teachers work under conditions
in which the control that they exercise is severely constrained by factors
such as educational policy, institutional rules and conventions, and con-
ceptions of language learning as an educational process that condition
what counts as language teaching. From a student’s perspective, however,
these wider constraints are largely embodied in the teacher’s authority
in the classroom. For this reason, teachers’ roles in the development of
learner autonomy must involve a critical approach towards the ways in
which these wider constraints on learning are mediated through their
agency. Their willingness to go against the grain of educational systems
and struggle to create spaces within their working environments for stu-
dents to exercise greater control over their learning is a crucial aspect of
teacher autonomy (Concept 13.1).
Concept 13.1 Teacher autonomy and institutional change

Mackenzie (2002: 225) took direct issue with Little’s (1995) perspective on
teacher autonomy, arguing that it:
. . . appears to assume that teachers only have responsibility for the classes we
teach and the students we have ‘under’ us. There is no sense here that teachers
can have responsibility for, or influence over the constraints around us. This
focus on control from the outer denies our inner psychological and physical
need to change the environment around us towards our own ends. These drives
are often strong or misdirected, but used consciously with full awareness of the
impact that we are having on others, they can help us act to change our teach-
ing and learning contexts.
Through teachers’ accounts of their involvement in curriculum development,
Mackenzie went on to explore teachers’ inner desires to influence the en-
vironments in which they work and to participate in institutional change.
Suggesting that institutions can also be viewed as learners, Mackenzie sug-

gested that, for teachers, ‘choosing to participate in curriculum development
is the first step towards increasing our own autonomy within our own teaching-
learning contexts’, while for institutions, ‘choosing to involve the faculty in
their own futures and maintaining their input into curricular choices is the
first step to becoming a learning organization’ (p. 230).
Focusing more directly on teachers’ well-being, Lamb (2000: 126–7)

argues that constraints on the practice of teaching can lead to ‘cynicism
and resignation (in both meanings of the word)’ and that ‘teachers need to
understand the constraints upon their practice but, rather than feeling
disempowered, they need to empower themselves by finding the spaces
and opportunities for manoeuvre’. Barfield et al. (2002: 220), also argue
that teacher autonomy ‘involves understanding and making explicit the
different constraints that a teacher may face, so that teachers can work
collaboratively towards confronting constraints and transforming them
into opportunities for change’, a process that is ‘driven by a need for
personal and professional improvement’. And for Vieira (2003: 222) a con-
ception of teaching as a ‘moral and political activity’ presupposes that
‘teachers are both willing and able to exert some control over educational
settings by mediating between constraints and ideals’.
From this perspective, it seems particularly important that professional
freedom should not simply be ‘granted’ from above; instead, it should be
the outcome of processes of professional development. McGrath (2000),
for example, has attempted to reconcile conceptions of teacher autonomy
based on the idea of professional freedom with those based on the idea of
self-directed professional activity. He argues that, from an institutional
perspective, constraints on the practice of teaching constitute the structure
of professional activity and serve as useful reference points for issues such
as standardisation and accountability, while from the perspective of indi-
vidual teachers they may appear more as instruments of control. What is
crucial, for McGrath, is the way in which teachers respond to these con-
straints. The non-autonomous option is simply to accept decisions made by
others and carry them out in the classroom. The alternative, he argues, is ‘not
to carve an independent swathe through constraints, rejecting out of hand
what may have been put in place for good reason, but to exercise indepen-
dent judgement in order to establish a principled strategy which may involve
compromise and negotiation as well as determined autonomous action’
(p. 102). This view essentially posits teacher professionalism as a precondition
for teacher autonomy, understood as a form of freedom from constraint
achieved through self-directed professional development and activity.
It also seems important that these processes of self-directed development
and activity are oriented towards the goal of learner autonomy. Barfield
et al. (2002: 220), for example, define teacher autonomy as ‘a continual

process of inquiry into how teaching can best promote autonomous learning
for learners’. For Vieira (2003) also, teaching becomes a moral and political
activity through an orientation towards the goal of learner autonomy.
Her teacher education work thus involves a focus on reflective practice and
action research around issues of learner autonomy. For some writers, the
implication that professional freedom can be divorced from a commitment
to the goal of learner autonomy problematises definitions of teacher auton-
omy based on the idea of ‘teacher control’. Aoki (2002: 111), for example,
suggests an analogy between learner autonomy and teacher autonomy:
If learner autonomy is the capacity, freedom, and/or responsibility to make
choices concerning one’s own learning . . . teacher autonomy, by analogy,
can be defined as the capacity, freedom, and/or responsibility to make
choices concerning one’s own teaching.
Aoki finds this analogy problematic, however, ‘because it does not imply in
itself that teacher autonomy has any relevance to teachers’ capacity to sup-
port the development of the autonomy of their learners’. On the other
hand, several writers have pointed out that this is not a logically necessary
connection and that teacher autonomy has an intrinsic value for teachers
themselves (Graves and Vye, 2006; Shaw, 2008; Smith and Erdoğan, 2008).
13.3 Language advising

Language advising, or counselling, has a long association with self-access
(Gremmo and Castillo, 2006; Riley, 1997) and has recently developed into
a specialised area of practice with its own body of research (Mozzon-
McPherson and Vismans, 2001; Rubin, 2007). Advising typically takes
place in self-access centres and is offered either one-on-one or to small
groups of learners, sometimes within the context of a formally structured
programme, such as the ALMS course at the University of Helsinki
(Chapter 12.2.1). Victori (2007: 15) explains that the advisors in her centre
at the Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona play a number of roles: ‘as facilita-
tors, to help students set up goals and plans and advise on the use of
resources; as guides, to help students improve approaches and strategies;
and as linguistic models, reviewers of writing and assessors’. Advising is
rarely a full-time job and is often carried out alongside classroom teaching
duties and other responsibilities in the centre.
There is widespread agreement that advising should mainly be concer-
ned with learning methodology, rather than linguistic content, and should
be responsive, rather than directive. These differences between advising
and conventional language teaching are highlighted by the fact that in
some centres advisors advise on languages that they do not specialise in, or
even speak. Gremmo and Castillo (2006) argue that in addition to facili-
tating scheduling and developing the skills of the advisor, ‘plurilingual’
advising also contributes to a stronger focus on methodological aspects of
learning. In advising on methodology, Mozzon-McPherson (2007: 80) points
to the double risk of being tempted either to give in to learners’ requests
for quick-fix solutions to language problems, or to ask too many questions
and ‘psychologise’ the learners’ needs, leaving them disoriented and unable
to move forward. Both strategies, she argues, can encourage dependence
on the advisor and lead to frequent return visits, either for more quick-fixes
or for ‘comfort talks’. Recent research has looked at advising strategies
in terms of discourse. Crabbe, Hoffman and Cotterall (2001), for example,
have examined focal points of learner discourse in advising sessions and
suggest that advisors principally need to focus on helping learners articu-
late problems, formulate goals and express their beliefs. Pemberton et al.
(2001) analysed transcripts of their own discourse in advising sessions in
order to identify ‘advising strategies’, while Clemente (2003) focuses more
on the influence of power imbalances and discourse conventions on the
effectiveness of cross-cultural advising (Chapter 16.3, Case Study).
Crabbe et al. on advising
Analysis of the dialogues suggests that an advisor needs to attend to at least

three things: first, unfold the problem; second, establish the learner’s goals;
and third, explore their beliefs about language learning. In an effective advisory
session, each of these would be monitored by the advisor in an attempt both
to prompt an elaborated statement of the learner’s problem and goals, and to
develop a discussion of relevant language learning beliefs.
Crabbe et al. (2001: 14)
While advising skills have traditionally been acquired ‘on-the-job’, a

recent development has been the establishment of training programmes in
larger self-access centres, including those at the University of Auckland
(Reinders, 2007) and Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona (Victori, 2007).
These incorporate academic reading on self-access and autonomy, pract-
ical training, and observations. Project SMILE, based at the University of
Hull in the United Kingdom, has played an especially important role in
developing advising as a professional and recognised practice in the United
Kingdom, through the establishment of a Postgraduate Certificate for
Advising in Language Learning in 2000, which was incorporated into the
MA in Language Learning and Technology in 2004 (Mozzon-McPherson,
2007). Hafner and Young (2007) also describe an internet-based resource
developed at the City University of Hong Kong to assist teachers working

with students on independent learning projects. Called Web-based Induc-
tion and Independent Learning Development (WIILD), the system operates
on the principle of ‘loop input’, in which the user learns about independent
learning by engaging in independent learning through the system. An evalu-
ation study showed that teachers who used the system experienced many of
the same problems that their learners experienced and that after using WIILD
they tended to develop broader conceptions of what independent learning
involved. In a related study Young, Hafner and Fisher (2007) conclude that,
even though some teachers remain predisposed towards classroom teaching
at the end of the independent learning programme, ‘facilitating independ-
ent learning challenges teachers to rethink their teaching practice, not just
in the initial stages, but over an extended period of time’ (p. 206).
Language advising is clearly a complex and challenging activity. It is not
generally included in teacher education courses and it is only recently that
it has been taken seriously as a focus of research. Mozzon-McPherson
(2007: 81–2) calls for further research in several areas, including advising
skills, impact on changes in behaviour, advisor-learner discourse, the
influence of culture and gender on advisor-learner interaction, and advis-
ing in online learning environments.
13.4 Teacher education

Clarifying his claim that the development of learner autonomy is depen-
dent on teacher autonomy, Little (2000b: 45) argued that (i) ‘it is unrea-
sonable to expect teachers to foster the growth of autonomy in their
learners if they themselves do not know what it is to be an autonomous
learner’; and (ii) in fostering learner autonomy, teachers must apply to
their teaching ‘those same reflective and self-managing processes that they
apply to their learning’. For this reason, teacher autonomy can also be
developed through educational interventions parallel to those leading to
the development of learner autonomy. In this sense, teacher education
programmes should not simply teach student teachers about the idea of
learner autonomy, they should also be oriented towards teacher autonomy
as a goal. Arguing that ‘language teachers are more likely to succeed in
promoting learner autonomy if their own education has encouraged them
to be autonomous’, Little (1995: 180) proposed that teacher education stu-
dents should experience autonomy within teacher education programmes
(Quote 13.3). While this proposal appears to have most relevance to pre-
service teacher education, and rests strongly on the idea of the teacher as
a learner of the craft of teaching, practical work has often focused on in-
service contexts and developmental aspects of teacher autonomy.
Little on autonomy in teacher education
[T]eacher education should be subject to the same processes of negotiation

as are required for the promotion of learner autonomy in the language class-
room. Aims and learning targets, course content, the ways in which course
content is mediated, learning tasks, and the assessment of learner achieve-
ment must all be negotiated; and the basis of this negotiation must be a
recognition that in the pedagogical process, teachers as well as students can
learn, and students as well as teachers can teach.
Little (1995: 180)
Although Little (1995) was among the first to discuss teacher education
within the literature on learner autonomy, his contribution was preceded
by an in-service programme for school teachers in Denmark, discussed in
Breen et al. (1989), which led to the work on autonomy in the classroom
described in Dam (1995). Breen et al. (1989) describe the development of
the programme through transmission, problem solving and classroom deci-
sion making, and investigation phases and observe how, in the final phase
of the programme, they came to see the trainers as participating in the
learning with the trainees, the workshops as exploratory activities in which
the teachers acted as informants for the trainees, and the trainees’ classrooms
as the key training resource. Their account suggests that teacher education
for teacher autonomy involves a crucial step in which the teacher educators
undergo the same kinds of processes that they expect of their students.
Breen et al. on roles in teacher education
Training as classroom decision making and investigation puts the trainer in a

team with both the participating teachers and the teachers’ own learners.
Trainers are facilitators within the team, assisting a dialogue between them-
selves, teachers and their learners. Trainers act as ignorant outsiders in the
sense of wanting to find out with the teachers how classroom management
decisions about learning are made, and how learners undertake their own
language learning. Trainers consider with teachers the range and the means
of classroom decision making, offer proposals, and seek teachers’ proposals
as to how the decision-making process might more directly engage learners
themselves, in order for it to become more sensitive to learning needs and
experiences. As a complement to this focus on decision making and as a way
of informing it, trainers plan with teachers varied ways of undertaking small-
scale investigations in the classroom.
Breen et al. (1989: 127)
The literature on autonomy now includes several theoretically-motivated

proposals (Lamb, 2000; McGrath, 2000; Smith and Erdoğan, 2008;
Thavenius, 1999) and a number of accounts of programmes concerned
with the development of teacher autonomy (Benson, Collins and Sprenger,
2008; Hacker and Barkhuizen, 2008; Moreira, 2007; Trebbi, 2008a; Vieira,
1999, 2003, 2007; Vieira et al., 2008). Moreira (2007), for example, describes
a pre-service EFL methodology course in Portugal, which involves stu-
dents reflecting on course aims and methodology, negotiating pedagogical
roles, collaborating with peers, taking initiatives, making choices, and doing
self-assessment and process evaluation. Trebbi’s (2008a) course, also in a
pre-service setting in Norway, is based on the provision of ‘open learning
spaces’, or time frames in which students have a free choice of activities,
and a structured framework of ‘supportive constraints’, notably compul-
sory assignments that included reflective writing. Within this framework,
‘the students experienced learner autonomy, constructing their own learn-
ing programmes, making decisions about relevant issues, making choices
of classroom research during practice periods and selecting readings
according to individual priorities’ (p. 43). Both of these courses involve an
important reflective component, which matches Hacker and Barkhuizen’s
(2008: 161) proposal, based on their research with reflective journal writ-
ing in an in-service programme, that teacher education ‘should create
opportunities for participants to examine and develop their personal theo-
ries of teaching’.
It also seems crucial, as Little (1995) suggested, that reflection should
involve experiences of autonomy in teaching and learning. In Vieira’s
in-service work, this involves ‘action-based inquiry into the development
of pedagogy for autonomy in schools’ (Vieira et al., 2008: 219) (Concept
13.2). McGrath (2000) has also pointed to the potential of evaluation and
design of learning materials to ‘stimulate the kinds of critical thinking that
may ultimately lead to more fully developed forms of teacher autonomy’
(also Breen et al., 1989; Kennedy and Pinter, 2007; Pinter 2007).
Concept 13.2 Teacher reflection, action research and autonomy

Vieira (1997) argues that reflective approaches to teacher education run the
risk of meaning anything at all, provided there is a reflection component
within them. Vieira’s programmes are distinctive in that they take autonomy
as the focal point for reflection and action research. She argues that this is
justified because autonomy provides legitimate criteria for the evaluation of
educational practices and necessarily entails a critique of institutional and
social contexts of teaching and learning.
Vieira also outlines five principles in training teachers in pedagogies for
autonomy:
• focusing on the trainee: curricula and training sessions should be built

from personal needs and theories;
• focusing on training processes – particularly on critical reflection and
experimentation – and not only on training outcomes;
• enquiring about pedagogical knowledge and practices in order to be able
to describe/inform/confront/reconstruct personal theories and action;
• integrating theory and practice by valuing the role of experience-derived
knowledge;
• promoting introspective reflection.
13.5 The effectiveness of teacher-based approaches

Teacher-based approaches imply that changing teachers is a first step
towards changing learners. They also imply that the teacher’s professional
skills and commitment to the idea of autonomy will be a crucial factor in
the effectiveness of any other approach to fostering learner autonomy. As
yet, however, we have few accounts of teacher education programmes
directed at teacher autonomy and we know little about their effectiveness
in practice. At present, however, it would seem that an initial condition for
the success of any programme is that it will help the teachers take on roles
that are appropriate to the particular modes of practice that they are
engaged in. In addition, it is likely that they will be more effective if (a) the
teachers experience pedagogical strategies for autonomy as students;
(b) reflect on these strategies as teachers; and (c) experiment with them
in field experience. Research on teacher autonomy and the preparation of
teachers for modes of teaching and learning associated with autonomy is
likely to become increasingly important as teacher educators take up the
challenge of translating curriculum guidelines incorporating the idea of
autonomy into large-scale teaching programmes. This challenge is liable
to be complex, because it involves recognition of the range of roles that
teachers may take on and the special character of pre-service and in-service
teachers as both teachers and learners.
Chapter 14
Conclusion
In this section I have reviewed evidence for the effectiveness of a variety of

practices in promoting autonomy and better language learning. I have also
attempted to show how different approaches place emphasis on different
aspects of control. One general conclusion that can be drawn is that no sin-
gle practice can be judged the best. Nor can their effectiveness be judged
independently of the forms in which they are implemented or contextual
factors such as the background and level of the learners and the culture of
the learning institution. If autonomy implies control over learning manage-
ment, cognitive processes and the content of learning, it seems likely that
it will be fostered most effectively through a combination of approaches.
In particular, it appears important that issues of control are addressed at
the level of the curriculum as a whole. Certainly, the programmes that
appear most able to provide evidence of their effectiveness are those that,
like those discussed in Chapter 12, adopt a holistic approach to the devel-
opment of autonomy.
In an interesting contribution to the literature, Kumaravadivelu
(2003: 38) writes of a ‘post method condition’ that signifies ‘a search for an
alternative to method rather than an alternative method’. He also proposes
10 ‘macrostrategies’ on which to base a ‘principled pragmatism’, of which
fostering autonomy is one. Kumaravadivelu’s view gives pause for thought
that however important autonomy may be, it is not the only important
thing in language education. One of the questions that we may ask of a
pedagogy for autonomy, is how the relationship between autonomy
and other equally important concerns is to be articulated at the levels of
curriculum and day-to-day practice.
A second general conclusion is that the research evidence on the effec-
tiveness of various forms of practice in fostering autonomy is much weaker
than the research evidence relating to the validity of the concept of autonomy
itself. Although we are able to report a number of apparently successful
197
innovations and programmes, it must be emphasised that the empirical evi-

dence for their success is often anecdotal or confined to learner and teacher
reports of satisfaction. In particular, it is difficult on the basis of current
research evidence to substantiate the claim that we know how to foster
autonomy in ways that reliably lead to language-learning gains. This is
partly because measurement of the effectiveness of one method over
another is always made difficult by the large number of uncontrollable
variables. It is also a consequence of the fact that the development of
autonomy among learners can never be the direct result of the application
of teaching methods. The development of autonomy depends upon the
will of the learners and our own willingness as teachers to modify the con-
texts of teaching and learning in which we find ourselves. At the same time,
it must be acknowledged that too much of what we know about the imple-
mentation of autonomy is based on the reflections of experienced practi-
tioners and too little on hard empirical evidence. In Section III we will
look in more detail at the ways in which this balance can be redressed
through action research.
Section
III Researching autonomy
The three chapters in this section will:

• describe potential areas for action research in the field of autonomy;
• discuss six case studies of exemplary research on autonomy;
• explain how practising teachers can contribute to our knowledge of
autonomy and its implementation through action research.
Chapter 15
Research methods and key areas

of research
15.1 Teachers’ research
Further reading
Burns, A. (1999) Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers.
Sections I and II of this book have outlined areas of theoretical and practical
interest related to autonomy in language learning. Section III looks more
closely at approaches to and key issues in research, with a view to readers
carrying out projects that can make a real contribution to knowledge in
the field.
In its broadest sense, research is a process of inquiry in which answers
are sought to questions of interest to the researcher. These answers may be
sought through reflection, logical reasoning or analysis of data. A great
deal of the research on autonomy to date has been based on reflection
and reasoning. Often, researchers draw conclusions about the nature of
autonomy and the practices associated with it from reflection on their own
and others’ experiences of practice. Systematic collection and analysis of
data has been less frequent, although this has begun to change over the
last 10 years or so with the appearance of high quality data-based studies
on autonomy in academic books and journals. This chapter focuses on
approaches to data-based research on autonomy and the kinds of questions
that can usefully be addressed through research. Chapter 16 presents six
case studies, which reflect the increased rigour in research on autonomy in
recent years. While these case studies are examples of published research,
they have also been selected as good examples of teachers’ research.
201
Readers are encouraged to think of them as the kinds of project that could
well be carried out by teachers, alone or in collaboration with others, in
their own contexts of work.
Teachers’ research is often called ‘action research’, which is defined by
Wallace (1998: 1) as ‘the systematic collection and analysis of data relating
to the improvement of some area of professional practice’ (Concept 15.1).
Action research is often considered the most accessible form of research
for teachers, because its goal is to solve problems encountered in everyday
practice. In his work on ‘exploratory practice’, however, Allwright (2003:
113–4) highlights a concern with the prevailing wisdom that teachers’
research should address classroom issues as ‘technical’ problems to be solved
by better teaching techniques, which implies that language teaching and
learning can be ‘reduced to a relatively unproblematic, asocial, matter of
cause and effect relationships’. As an alternative, Allwright advocates an
approach that emphasises collaborative investigation of ‘puzzles’ in class-
room life as a means of seeking ‘understandings’, which may or may not
lead to change. To this we might add that, in relation to learner and teacher
autonomy, teachers’ research could also aim at a better understanding of
learners’ and teachers’ lives outside the immediate context of the language
classroom.
The kind of research that we are concerned with in Section III, there-
fore, is research that is carried out by teachers themselves in order to
achieve better understandings of their classrooms, the learners that they
teach or themselves, with the possible aim of improving the quality of
teaching, learning or classroom life. This kind of research is especially
suited to the field of autonomy, because it is, in effect, a form of autonom-
ous learning, which can help us to develop our own autonomy as teachers.
In addition, teachers’ research does not require ‘subjects’ to be kept in the
dark about the purposes of the research. The ultimate aim of research on
autonomy is to help learners become more autonomous. With this goal
in mind, research on autonomy is often best carried out in a local setting,
in which learners and other teachers are treated as partners in the research
(Allwright and Hanks, 2009; Burns, 1999).
Concept 15.1 Action research

Action research has five distinctive characteristics.
1. It addresses issues of practical concern to the researchers and the com-
munity of which they are members.
2. It involves systematic collection of data and reflection on practice.
3. It is usually small scale and localised and often involves observation of the
effects of a change in practice.
RESEARC H ME T HO DS A ND K E Y A R E A S O F R E S E A R C H 203
4. It often involves analysis of qualitative data and description of events and

processes.
5. Its outcomes include solutions to problems, professional development and
the development of personal or local theories related to practice.
In language education, the action researcher is often a teacher acting in the
role of teacher–researcher. In collaborative action research, teachers work
together on shared problems. Burns (1999: 12) states that the goal of collab-
orative action research is ‘to bring about change in social situations as the
result of group problem solving and collaboration’. She argues that collabor-
ation increases the likelihood that the results of research will lead to change
in institutional practices. As autonomy implies learner control, a key question
in collaborative action research in the field is the extent to which learners
should also be partners in and beneficiaries of the research.
This chapter highlights some of the areas within the field of autonomy
where research is most needed. Chapter 16 presents six case studies of
data-based research projects in the field and suggests how future
researchers might build upon their methods and results.
15.2 Key areas of research

Almost all research in the field of autonomy is based on, and has implica-
tions for, one of the three hypotheses stated in the Introduction to this
book.
1. The concept of autonomy is grounded in a natural tendency for learners
to take control over their learning.
2. Learners who lack autonomy are capable of developing it given appro-
priate conditions and preparation.
3. Autonomous learning is more effective than non-autonomous learning.
The first of these hypotheses is concerned with the description of auton-
omy and its dimensions, while the second and third are concerned with the
success of our efforts to foster autonomy and better language learning.
These are not the kinds of hypotheses that can be proved or disproved,
largely because they are too large and involve too many distinct questions.
In identifying key areas for research, therefore, we need pose research
questions that are both answerable and related to these hypotheses
(Concept 15.2).
Concept 15.2 Formulating research questions

The conditions for successful research on the effectiveness of practices
aiming to foster autonomy can be summed up by comparing two questions:
• Is self-access effective in fostering autonomy?
• Does the introduction of an advising service help mainland Chinese
postgraduate students, working independently in a university self-access
centre in Hong Kong, to produce effective learning plans?
From a research perspective, the problem with the first question is that it is not
directly answerable through data-based research, which means that it is not
really a research question. The second question, on the other hand, is a research
question that could be answered through, for example, analysis of transcripts
of advising sessions, learning plans and records of work, and interviews with
students and staff. Cumulative evidence related to specific questions about
self-access might also lead to the conclusion that self-access is indeed effec-
tive (or perhaps ineffective) in fostering autonomy. More importantly, it will
help us to understand which elements of self-access are most effective and
which dimensions of autonomy are most readily addressed by them. By
including specific elements of the learning context in the research question,
(in this case the background of the students and the setting of the self-access
centre), the researcher will also help others to interpret the evidence for
themselves and, perhaps, replicate the research in other contexts.
15.2.1 The description of autonomy

Autonomy can be described in terms of capacities for control over learning
management, cognitive processes and the content of learning (Chapter 3).
Research on the nature of autonomy is usually descriptive and seeks to
document the ways in which learners exercise control over these dimen-
sions of their learning (Chapters 4 and 5). This kind of research can help
us to answer several questions:
1. In what ways do learners control their language learning in and out of
class?
2. To what extent does control over learning come naturally to language
learners?
3. In what senses does control over language learning imply collaboration
and social interaction?
4. How are capacities for autonomy in language learning related to, or dif-
ferent from, more general capacities for learner autonomy and personal
autonomy?
5. To what extent do capacities for control over language learning develop

with experience?
6. Can learners be trained to control their language learning?
Research on these questions can contribute a great deal to our under-
standing of what we should focus on when seeking to foster autonomy
among our learners.
Riley on researching autonomy
A blind man has friends who talk to him about the world which they can see
but which he cannot. Amongst the things that interest him most are what his
friends call ‘bubbles’ . . . Intrigued, the blind man asks his friends to make him
some bubbles, which they do, but since he cannot see them he is obliged to
try to touch them. But not only are they difficult to locate, when he does
succeed in finding one, his touch destroys it. For him ‘bubbles’ will remain
a matter of hearsay and a slight sensation of dampness on his fingertips.
He simply does not have the appropriate tools for observing or experiencing
the objects in question.
Do we? That is, if we extrapolate from my analogy to our present area of
interest, do we possess the methodological and conceptual tools which are
appropriate to the study of autonomy, self-directed learning and self-access?
Or are we teachers and researchers in this field condemned to stumble
around like the blind, gesticulating wildly and destroying the very thing we
want to understand?
Riley (1996: 251)
While there is already a good deal of descriptive research on the nature

of autonomy in learning management, the following are areas in which
there is a clear need for further research:
1. Because so much research is concerned with the effectiveness of
language teaching, we still know relatively little about control over
learning outside the classroom (Chapter 4.1).
2. Similarly, much of the research on autonomy and culture has focused
on attitudes towards institutionalised teaching and learning practices.
There is much less research on cultural differences in out-of-class
learning (Chapter 3.4).
3. Classroom research has established that language learners often follow
their own agendas during lessons, but much of this research focuses
on short-term processes. There is a pressing need for research on the
ways in which learners set longer-term language learning agendas
(Chapter 4.2).
4. There is also a need for research on what longer-term learning agendas

contribute to the assumptions and expectations that students bring to
classrooms.
Language learning research very often relies on snapshots of learners at a

particular time and place: typically the classroom in which the learners are
studying at the time of the research. These areas of research require teach-
ers to go beyond their immediate contexts of work, to discover more about
their students’ histories and lives. Although longitudinal ethnographic
studies are often impractical for practising teachers, much can be learned
from introspective or retrospective accounts of learning gathered through
diaries, written language learning histories or interviews (Benson and Nunan,
2002, 2005; Kalaja et al., 2008).
Important areas of research related to control over cognitive processes
in language learning involve motivation, affect and beliefs about language
learning (Chapter 4.3). Much of the research in these areas has been
concerned with the role of motivational, affective and belief variables
in autonomy. There has been much less research on questions such as:
1. How do language learners motivate themselves, monitor their motiva-

tion over time, and manage motivational ups and downs?
2. How do learners use affective and social strategies to manage their
anxieties about language learning and language use?
3. Assuming that beliefs about language learning develop over time, what
factors contribute to their development and what roles do learners play
in changing their own beliefs?
Attention, reflection and metacognitive knowledge are areas in which

research on autonomy has to date only dipped its toes (Chapter 5.2).
This is perhaps because research in these areas often uses experimental
techniques and relatively complex psychological constructs. However, a
great deal can be learned from studies that ask relatively straightforward
questions, such as:
1. What do learners’ pay attention to during various kinds of language

learning activities? What do they remember and forget? Are they able
to develop attentional skills and abilities?
2. What kinds of issues do learners reflect upon? What kinds of circum-
stances provoke reflection? Do reflective episodes lead to changes in
beliefs or learning practices?
3. How do learners explain and rationalise language learning choices and
decisions? What roles do metacognitive and metalinguistic knowledge
play?
Research in these areas is often best conducted through observation,

involving video-recording and transcription of learning events, but diaries,
interviews and stimulated recall can also be useful techniques.
Control over the content of learning is one of the least well-researched
areas in the field of autonomy. Research is also often confined to experi-
mental programmes in which learners are given a considerable freedom
in regard to content (Chapter 5.3). However, even in more conventional
situations, questions such as the following can be asked:
1. How do learners understand the purpose of their language learning?
How do their purposes compare to programme goals?
2. What kinds of language do students want to learn? How do their pre-
ferences compare to programme intended learning outcomes?
3. What happens when students are offered choices of content? What
kinds of choices do they make and how do they relate to programme
goals and the choices of other students?
4. What kinds of content-related choices are made in out-of-class or self-
instructed learning?
The fact that we know relatively little about these questions points to an
important role for research on autonomy in investigating relationships
between learners’ language learning goals and socially and educationally
accepted purposes. In addition to observation, elications tools such as
interviews, diaries and language learning histories can be helpful in gather-
ing students’ views. As teachers typically prescribe or mediate learning
content on a day-to-day basis, however, teacher–researchers may need to
guard against the possibility that students will simply reflect their teachers’
views back to them in research data.
15.2.2 Fostering autonomy

In Section II, practices designed to foster autonomy were discussed under
the headings of resource-based, technology-based, learner-based, class-
room-based, curriculum-based and teacher-based approaches. Although a
great deal of research has been conducted in each of these areas, there is
surprisingly little empirical evidence available for the effectiveness of any
particular approach. The need for research that seeks to demonstrate
relationships between particular approaches and the development of
autonomy is therefore ongoing and is not confined to any one approach.
The effectiveness of practice is of immediate interest to teachers who
would like to know whether their own efforts in fostering autonomy are
‘working’ or not, and how they can be improved. In choosing areas of
research, practising teachers are therefore likely to be guided by their own
teaching contexts and goals and research questions are likely to take forms
such as:
Is practice X effective in fostering autonomy?
While questions of this kind are a reasonable starting point for research
projects, one of the reasons that we lack hard evidence on the effectiveness
of practice concerns the level of generality of research questions. In
principle, researchers on autonomy would like to be able to answer ques-
tion such as, ‘Is self-access effective in promoting autonomy?’ In practice,
however, these questions prove difficult to answer for three reasons, con-
cerned with the complexity of practice, the complexity of autonomy and
the role of context.
Complexity of practice. Practices such as self-access are generally
constituted by a number of elements that may or may not be present, or
present in exactly the same way. For this reason, research is most likely to
be productive when it focuses on particular elements within the practice.
In research on self-access, for example, researchers might investigate the
effects of the introduction of an advising service, a more transparent
system of access, or greater learner involvement in the management of the
centre. Alternatively comparisons could be made, for example, between
learners who use the advising service and those who do not.
Complexity of autonomy. Although autonomy can be identified through
observable aspects of control over learning, we still lack global measures to
judge whether a learner has become more autonomous or not (Chapter 3.3).
Again, research is likely to be most productive when it focuses on par-
ticular aspects of control rather than the construct of autonomy itself.
While it is often difficult to judge whether learners have become more
autonomous or not in a global sense, it is usually possible to judge whether
they have produced more effective learning plans, participated more in
decision-making processes, reflected more deeply on their learning, and so
on (Concept 15.3).
Concept 15.3 Measuring autonomy

How do we know if our learners have become more autonomous? Although
we cannot observe the capacity to control their learning directly, we can
observe the exercise of this capacity in various aspects of learning. Measuring
gains in autonomy, therefore, involves identifying behaviours associated with
control and judging the extent to which learners display them. The follow-
ing are examples of the kinds of questions that can be asked:
• Do learners make and use learning plans?
• Do they participate in classroom decisions?
• Do they reflect upon their learning?
• Do they initiate exchanges in the target language?
Evidence for these behaviours may be direct or indirect. A written learning

plan and a portfolio of learning outcomes related to the plan would, for
example, be a source of direct evidence of a learner’s ability to plan learning.
A statement recorded in an interview that a learner regularly plans learning
activities before carrying them out would be indirect evidence. Although
direct evidence is often more reliable than indirect evidence, indirect evidence
can be important in judging whether the learner has a sense of control when
displaying certain behaviours.
Although it is possible to reduce the idea of control over learning to
observable behaviours, in practice researchers also need to exercise judge-
ment when interpreting data. Although planning is an aspect of control, the
fact that a learner makes and executes a plan does not necessarily mean she
has exercised control over learning. The researcher may judge, for example,
that the plan was incoherent or carried out in a mechanical way. Or she may
judge that the plan was coherent and showed evidence of reflection and pur-
pose. Although there are no objective criteria to measure degrees of control,
it is important that the criteria used are made clear in research reports, so
that readers may exercise their own judgement.
When the effects of a change in practice are at issue, it is important that
the aspects of control investigated are relevant to the change in practice.
It is equally important that data are collected before and after the change.
Knowing that learners are able to control their learning after a change in
practice is of little value unless we know what they were able to do before
the change was implemented.
Context. Sociocultural approaches to the psychology of learning

encourage us to pay particular attention to the ways in which learning
processes and outcomes are conditioned by the contexts in which they
occur (Chapter 2.3). The effects of introducing an advising service into a
self-access centre, for example, will be conditioned by a number of factors,
including the age, proficiency level and cultural background of the target
learners, their previous learning experiences and goals, the role of self-
access in their learning, the history and characteristics of the self-access
centre and the experience and attitudes of the advisors. Although these
factors may not be the focus of the research, they are likely to be import-
ant in the interpretation of research findings.
While research on the effectiveness of practices in fostering autonomy
is likely, therefore, to rely on pre- and post-intervention measurements of
some kind, the complexity of practices and the construct of autonomy
suggest that measurement instruments should target specific aspects of
the practice and specific aspects of autonomy (Chapter 3.3). The role
of context suggests that research projects should also include some kind of
‘ethnographic’ dimension that will allow the researcher to contextualise
findings and convey the ‘look and feel’ of the practice and its outcomes in
conjunction with the hard data.
15.2.3 Autonomy and better language learning

For many of its advocates, the argument for learner autonomy is mainly
concerned with the achievement of personally-relevant language learning
goals. Language proficiency gain, or the question of whether autonomous
learners learn more than non-autonomous learners, is a secondary issue to
that of whether they learn what they want to learn in personally meaningful
ways. In recent years, however, the relationship of autonomy to language
proficiency has become important for two quite different reasons.
• Researchers are increasingly beginning to understand that there is an
intimate relationship between autonomy and effective learning.
• Worldwide concern with accountability in education is making pro-
grammes that prioritise the quality of the learning process over measur-
able proficiency gains increasingly difficult to justify.
For both of these reasons, the argument for autonomy will be strength-
ened if researchers can show that their practices also lead to greater
proficiency, however it may be measured.
The hypothesis that practices intended to foster autonomy lead to
better language learning can be demonstrated empirically at two levels
(Concept 15.4): the ability to learn languages and language performance.
At the second level, research can attempt to show that a particular form of
practice associated with autonomy produces gains in proficiency that are
equal to or greater than other forms of practice, using standard indicators
of proficiency. As in research on the effectiveness of practices in fostering
autonomy, pre- and post-intervention measurements are appropriate
instruments. Indeed research projects may attempt to address both gains in
autonomy and gains in proficiency, possibly evaluating whether the two are
related. However, to the extent that proficiency gains are mediated by
specific learning processes, it is also important to investigate the distinctive
ways in which proficiency develops under practices designed to promote
autonomy. Research of this kind may ultimately lead to the development
of proficiency indicators that are specific to autonomous learning and
descriptions of the ways in which the development of autonomy and pro-
ficiency interact.
Concept 15.4 Measuring language-learning improvement

The measurement of language-learning gains in the context of autonomy is
a complex matter, which involves two potentially separate questions: Has the
learner become a more proficient language user? Has the learner become a
more effective language learner? Proficiency gains can be measured using
standard testing instruments. However, these may not capture the kinds of
improvement that are to be expected with the development of autonomy,

where gains in proficiency may be uneven or not immediately apparent.
Autonomy-related gains in the learners’ ability to learn languages involve
questions of the following kind:
• Are learners able to learn from interaction with authentic target language
texts?
• Are they able to create situations of learning for themselves?
• Are they able to monitor and self-assess their own performance?
As yet we lack reliable testing instruments to measure abilities of this kind.
Often evidence of ability to learn will rely on direct observation of learners
at work, on analysis of records of work and learning outcomes, or on learners’
self-reports.
In programmes aiming to develop autonomy, however, the linguistic

content and skills to be acquired will often be determined by the learners
and will be difficult to predict in advance. Such programmes may also seek
to develop learning skills that are absent from conventional programmes,
such as the ability to learn from authentic interaction with the target
language, to create situations for learning and to self-assess performance.
Although researchers may be under pressure to demonstrate effectiveness
in terms of more conventional proficiency indicators, it is important that
the criteria used to evaluate practices associated with autonomy are rele-
vant to the goals and expectations of the programme. As Breen and Mann
(1997: 141) argue, ‘we are very likely to have to struggle for what we want
to count as evidence for the benefits of what we are trying to do’. The
development of relevant criteria and tools for assessing proficiency gains in
programmes designed to foster autonomy can therefore be considered a
major aim of research.
The second problem concerns the life cycle of programmes aiming to
foster autonomy. Conventional language-teaching programmes are often
designed so that incremental gains in proficiency can be demonstrated
at any point during the programme. Programmes aiming at autonomy,
however, will often involve phases in which the learners are expected to
re-examine established approaches to learning and adjust to new methods
of work. It is also possible that the natural tendency for language learners
to regress periodically in order to move forwards at a later stage will be
more pronounced in programmes that allow greater freedom in learning.
It is therefore important that evaluations of programmes aiming to foster
autonomy are sensitive to the temporary disruptions in the learning pro-
cess that their goals imply. Research that is able to document changes
in the quality of learning in such programmes may be less effective in
demonstrating short-term gain, but will contribute a great deal to our

understanding of the relationship between the development of autonomy
and the development of proficiency.
To sum up, there is a pressing need for research that adds to our under-
standing of the nature of autonomy in language learning, especially in
out-of-class settings and long-term processes, and for research that con-
tributes to our understanding of the relationship between various forms of
practice and the development of autonomy and language proficiency.
The aim of this chapter has been to identify areas of research and specific
research questions that can be addressed in teachers’ research. Chapter 16
will develop this theme through six case studies of published research
projects that have begun to address some of the questions raised in this
chapter.
Chapter 16
Case studies
Chapter 15 highlighted a number of questions that can profitably be

addressed by teachers’ research on autonomy. This chapter presents six
case studies of published research that illustrate the potential for research
in the field. Each case study begins with a background section explaining
why the researchers undertook the research. This is followed by a summary
of the aims, methodology, findings and conclusions of the research. Last,
there is a commentary on the contribution of the research to the theory
and practice of autonomy and suggestions for further research. The case
studies and suggestions in this chapter are intended to stimulate thinking
about the possibilities for research on autonomy, but it is hoped that readers
will also approach them in a spirit of autonomy, bearing in mind that the
field has often benefited most from new and innovative approaches. The
sequence of case studies follows the schema for Chapter 15: Case Studies 1
and 2 are concerned mainly with the description of autonomous learning
in out-of-class settings (Chapter 15.2.1); Case Studies 3 and 4 are concerned
with the development of autonomy in the context of institutional practices
(Chapter 15.2.2); Case Studies 5 and 6 are concerned with relationships
between autonomous learning and language learning outcomes and pro-
cesses (Chapter 15.2.3).
16.1 Case study 1. Out-of-class learning

Hyland, F. (2004) ‘Learning autonomously: Contextualising out-of-class
English language learning’, Language Awareness, 13(3): 180–202.
16.1.1 Background
Although we know that out-of-class learning contributes a great deal to
the proficiency of individuals who achieve high levels of competence in
213
foreign languages, there has been relatively little research in this area to
date (Chapter 8.5). Hyland’s (2004) study of pre-service and in-service
English teachers’ out-of-class learning activities in Hong Kong shows the
potential for similar research in other settings. Hyland showed that her
students carried out more out-of-class English activities than might have
been expected and also that these activities were patterned in ways that
reflected the local context of language learning and use.
16.1.2 Aims
The study aimed to examine how novice and more experienced English
teachers in Hong Kong made use of informal learning opportunities and
how their out-of-class activities were affected by the local context. Five
research questions were addressed:
1. What activities did the pre-service and in-service teachers report using?
2. Which of these activities were reported to be most widely used?
3. Which activities did they believe were most helpful?
4. What beliefs did they have about using English outside the classroom?
5. Did these beliefs affect their out-of-class activities in English?
16.1.3 Methodology
The research was conducted among pre-service and in-service English
teachers studying at the University of Hong Kong and was based on a
questionnaire, follow-up interviews and learning journals. The question-
naire, distributed to 304 students, asked about the students’ language
background and educational experiences in English, their attitudes towards
using English and its role in their daily lives, the activities in which they
used English and those they found most useful. Eight students were inter-
viewed on their beliefs about out-of-class language learning and their
reported use of strategies and activities. Four of the eight also kept
journals in which they detailed daily activities and exposure to English and
their reflections on their experiences. Questionnaire results were reported
using percentages, while interview and journal data were used as an aid to
interpreting the results. The published paper also included three two-page
case studies of students who completed journals.
16.1.4 Findings
Referring to the distinction between self instruction, naturalistic learning,
and self-directed naturalistic language learning (Concept 4.1), Hyland
reported three main findings:
CASE STUDIES 215
1. Most activities came under the heading of self-directed naturalistic

language learning. Although they were not self-instructional activities,
the students engaged in them in order to improve their English. The
most frequent activities were writing emails, reading academic books
and surfing the Internet, followed by watching videos, reading news-
papers, watching TV programmes and listening to songs.
2. The students rarely engaged in activities involving face-to-face interac-
tion, especially outside the work or study environment.
3. Not all of these pre-service and in-service English teachers regarded
English language as being important in their daily lives. The interviews
suggested that they spoke English in environments where it was sanc-
tioned by the demands of an agency such as the university or school
principal, but avoided speaking it in other situations.
16.1.5 Conclusions
Summing up her findings, Hyland concluded that the students had a ten-
dency to focus on activities that did not involve face-to-face contact, and
on using English in private rather than public domains. She related this
conclusion to post-colonial context of English language use in Hong
Kong, where there is a sense that Chinese should be the medium of every-
day interaction unless non-Chinese speakers are present or English is
specifically sanctioned. Although opportunity may be an important factor
in out-of-class language learning, it needs to be considered in tandem
with factors such as the students’ views of the language, their personal
identities, and what they say about themselves by using English in various
situations. At times, these attitudinal and identity factors may override the
desire to create out-of-class learning opportunities.
Hyland suggested, however, that public use of English as a means of
improvement could be over-emphasised. In fact, the students engaged in
a variety of out-of-class activities and had a good relationship with English
in the private domain, which may be valued as a setting for language learn-
ing, because it is both less threatening to group and personal identity and
easier for the student to control.
16.1.6 Commentary
The paucity of research on out-of-class language learning and use can be
explained by the difficulty of gathering reliable data on activities that
teachers seldom see and by the fact that they are typically more concerned
with what happens in their classrooms than what happens outside them. As
the first case study in this chapter, Hyland’s study illustrates two important
characteristics of good research that address the first difficulty. First, her
mix of quantitative and qualitative methods was effective in providing a
range of data sources; in particular, the qualitative data gathered through

interviews and journals (Concept 16.1) helped answer the puzzling question
of why the students focused on private domain activities and avoided face-
to-face interactions. Second, by including three individual case studies in
her paper, Hyland was able to show how individual profiles within the
broad patterns observed were actually quite different from each other.
Hyland’s study also showed that research on out-of-class learning can be
relevant to the classroom. Teachers need to decide what kinds of activities
they will focus on in the classroom. If these activities focus on certain skills,
assuming that others are best acquired by students themselves outside the
classroom, it is important that teachers know what kinds of out-of-class
activities the students participate in. One implication of Hyland’s study
could be that Hong Kong schools and universities should try to create more
opportunities for the ‘sanctioned’ use of spoken English. The broader
implication is that teachers need to understand how to distribute learning
opportunities between in-class and out-of-class settings and that their
understanding will depend, in part, on attitudes to the target language and
its relationship to student identities in the local context.
16.1.7 Further research

Studies of out-of-class language learning suggest that students are, in
general, more active language learners than their teachers suspect. Out-of-
class language learning is, therefore, an ideal topic for teachers’ research,
because it is both a way of getting to know students as people learning lan-
guage in a variety of settings and a way of determining how autonomous
they already are. Because Hyland includes her research instruments in
her published paper, the study can easily be replicated in other settings
and with other types of language learners. As there are so few studies of
out-of-class learning to date, replication studies are likely to be a valuable
source of comparative data that will cast light on learner diversity and
relationships between language learning and contexts of learning.
1. Hyland takes post-colonial Hong Kong as the primary context for
her students’ out-of-class learning. It would be interesting to compare
the findings of her study with those from other contexts in which the
students are, for example, immersed in a target language setting or, at
the other extreme, studying in a setting where the target language is
seldom seen or heard.
2. The students were all pre-service or in-service teachers and mostly
female. Interesting comparisons could be made between male and
female students, students in different age groups or with different
levels of experience, and adults who use English in different profes-
sional settings.
CASE STUDIES 217
Hyland’s case studies also point to the value of research on individual

differences in experiences of out-of-class learning in a particular cultural
context.
1. What are the affordances and obstacles to access that make out-of-class
experiences so different for individuals in the same setting?
2. How are these different experiences related to motivational and affec-
tive factors? What roles do metacognitive knowledge and awareness of
learning strategies play?
3. How do students coordinate their out-of-class learning with in-class
learning?
4. What strategies can teachers use to help students coordinate in-class
and out-of-class learning? What help can they offer students who are
reluctant or unable to learn and use English outside the classroom?
Concept 16.1 Questionnaires, interviews and learning journals

Hyland (2004) used three data collection instruments to find out the kinds of
out-of-class activities students typically engaged in: a questionnaire, an inter-
view and a learning journal. The questionnaire included a Likert scale item,
which began in this way (15 activities are listed in total):
– How frequently do you carry out the following activities in English?
Very often Often Sometimes Rarely Never
Watch TV programmes 1 2 3 4 5
Listen to the radio 1 2 3 4 5
Listen to songs 1 2 3 4 5
Read newspapers 1 2 3 4 5
and magazines
While the questionnaire specified the activities that the students could
choose from, the corresponding interview prompt was open-ended:
– What activities do you usually carry out in English?
The interviewees were also asked to keep a learning journal for one week.
The instructions were again open-ended, but more specific about what the
students should record.
Exposure to and use of English
Record the times, places and situations where you heard English or spoke in
English.
Record all the times, places and situations where you read or wrote in English.
Note down the people you used English with and why you used English.
16.2 Case study 2. A self-organised language

learning community
Gao, X. (2007) ‘A tale of Blue Rain Café: A study on the online narrative
construction about a community of English learners on the Chinese main-
land’, System, 35 (2): 259–70.
16.2.1 Background
Gao (2007) takes up Hyland’s (2004) call for more research on out-of-class
learning in a closely related, but also very different, setting in mainland
China. The study is set in a medium-sized coastal city in central China and
focuses on ‘English clubs’, a development of ‘English corners’ (Gao, 2009;
Quote 8.4), which often meet in European-style cafés. The Blue Rain Café
English club met twice a week and also maintained an online discussion
forum. Over the 18 months that Gao was registered as user, the forum
received roughly 12 new messages threads and 57 posts daily. His study
focused on a thread of more than 250 messages prompted by a decision
to move the club to a new venue. Under the heading of ‘A Tale of Blue
Rain Café’, participants shared stories, which Gao explored in terms of the
construct of a learning community.
16.2.2 Aims
Observing that studies on English corners in China had focused on indi-
vidual participation, Gao noted that researchers had not yet investigated
how individuals aligned themselves with others to form communities of
English learners. Drawing on communities of practice theory (Chapter
2.3.4), the study aimed to investigate
1. how participants contributed to the construction of the learning com-
munity in the online forum; and,
2. what their contributions revealed about the learning community at
the club.
16.2.3 Methodology
Methodologically, the study drew on ‘virtual ethnography’, an approach
that led Gao to view the online forum as a cultural artefact produced ‘by
particular people with contextually situated goals and priorities’ (Hine,
2000: 9). Gao participated in the online community for 18 months and
visited the café on four occasions to gain a sense of what it was like to be
a member and to verify data gathered online. Interpreting the ‘Tale of Blue
CASE STUDIES 219
Rain Café’ thread as a collaboratively structured ‘grand narrative’ (p. 263),

he analysed the entries thematically, identifying three main themes related
to community: (i) the role of central figures in maintaining cohesion;
(ii) readiness to accommodate all-comers; and (iii) the opportunity to
assert desired identities in front of strangers. The central part of the paper
consists of a summary of the data related to each theme illustrated by
several long data extracts (Concept 16.2).
16.2.4 Findings
Gao arrived at three main findings:
1. The club was organised around a group of central figures who played
an important role in maintaining community cohesion and guiding
participants to make friends and use English together. The two co-
ordinators, ‘Steve’ and ‘Mr Chen’ played an especially important role.
Representing the successful middle-class in the city, their professional
and life experiences made them role models for other participants.
2. Many participants reported unique language learning experiences result-
ing from the lowering of social boundaries and readiness to accommo-
date English learners of all levels at the club. Because the club did not
project itself as a community of elite English learners, it became a site
for socialisation and a secure place to listen to others’ reflections on life
experiences.
3. Many participants were enticed by the prospect of conversing freely
without having to reveal too much about themselves. Their descriptions
of deep conversations with like-minded people suggested a desire to
assert who they wanted to be, as opposed to what they were perceived
to be in other arenas of life.
16.2.5 Conclusions
Gao concludes that the formation of the English club could be considered
as an intentional strategy on the part of individual learners to ally with each
other to create opportunities to learn and use English. But he also argues
that the online ‘tale’ reveals that the English club was more than a site for
learning. It was a social community of English learners, in which members
satisfied inner needs for social exchange and self-assertion in English.
The tale suggested that participation in the club not only responded to the
scarcity of opportunities to use English, but also provided opportunities
for personal transformation. Gao suggests that his study offers two insights
for language teachers. In order for classrooms to function as learning
communities, language learners should be encouraged to believe that
English is a medium for them to share meaningful experiences, reflections,
emotions, and so on with other non-native speakers. The classroom should

also foster and maintain a sense of community among learners to support
collaborative and autonomous learning in the shared pursuit of language
competence.
16.2.6 Commentary
Gao’s (2007) paper suggests that mainland Chinese students are more
ready to engage in face-to-face interaction in English than their Hong
Kong counterparts in Hyland’s (2004) study. The most interesting aspect
of Gao’s study, however, is that it goes beyond simple description of
out-of-class learning through its analysis of the construction of an informal
learning community that may have a broader international relevance. The
language learning that takes place at the Blue Rain Café is clearly directed
and maintained by the participants themselves. Although the club has
leaders, they are in no sense ‘teachers’; rather, their role is to welcome new
members, ensure the social cohesion of the club and act as role models.
The learning that takes place also appears to be tightly bound up with
identities – the personal identities that are constructed through member-
ship of the club, the social identities associated with the use of English in
the club, and the identity of the club itself that is forged through the online
discourse that surrounds it. These are significant insights, because, if it is
difficult to learn a foreign language autonomously and in isolation, an
understanding of how self-organised language learning communities can
thrive is of great value.

Reminiscent of Tough’s (1971) research on ‘autonomous learning groups’
and Burbules’s (2006) work on Internet-based self-educating communities,
Gao’s study breaks new ground in focusing on language learning. The lack
of research on self-organised language learning communities may be ex-
plained by the fact that such communities are rarely found outside China.
One of the problems with statements of this kind, however, is that they
are often shown to be mistaken by new research. In my experience, it is
not unusual for small groups of students to form informal learning or con-
versation groups alongside a language learning course or to join in study
partnerships with a friend. Small groups or partnerships in which par-
ticipants learn each others languages are also found. I have been a passive
member of an online forum that brings together Portuguese-speaking
learners of English and English-speaking learners of Portuguese that has
had a stable active membership for several years and there are no doubt a
great many groups of this kind on the Internet. Benson and Chik (2010)
have also observed informal foreign language learning taking place in
CASE STUDIES 221
‘globalised online spaces’, or sites devoted to fan fiction, photo and video
sharing, and online games.
Research in this area has the potential to challenge the prevalent
assumption that the classroom is the primary social context for language
learning, while informal out-of-class learning is essentially an individual
matter. Questions that could be asked about any informal language learn-
ing community include:
1. How is it formed and maintained? How do its social structures support
or inhibit learning?
2. What roles do different participants play? Do ‘teaching’ and ‘learning’
roles and processes replicate those found in classrooms?
3. What kinds of learning take place? How is language learning related to
language use?
4. In what sense is it a ‘learning community’? What other metaphors could
be used?
Concept 16.2 Extracts from qualitative data

The success of Gao’s (2007) ‘virtual ethnography’ of an online discussion
about the history of a Chinese English club rests on his ability to convey,
in summary form, the central themes of a discussion containing more than
250 messages. His own account of these themes must be true to the experi-
ence of the participants and the sense of verisimilitude is enhanced by the
inclusion of several long extracts from the data. These extracts also add
colour and may be more convincing for many reasons than logical argument.
Below are two extracts, which strongly convey the sense of the community
that Gao seeks to describe:
Out of curiosity, I decided to find out what the English corner was. [ . . . ]
Afterwards, I went there quite frequently and made quite a few friends. [ . . . ]
When I see new faces now, I start feeling that I am an old-timer. Blue Rain café,
for me, is a place for relaxation. If I am in a good mood, I will talk non-stop. It
is also a pleasure to sit there and listen to others when not in a talking mood.
[ . . . ] If I want to speak English, I will speak English. If I do not, then I can use
Chinese. There is no rule at Blue Rain café. (Chocolatelin, July 26th, 2005).
I found that I fell in love with it. I practised my oral English a lot and at the
same time I made a great many good friends there. The first time I went there,
I had a great time with Jett, Joy, Jason and Jane. It happened that four of us five
had names that started with the letter J, so we came up with an idea to form a
group, jokingly named J-Group. And I changed my original name Emily to
Jemily and then became a member of the group. [ . . . ] We formed such a group
to help us all practise English well. We had fun chatting in English. [ . . . ].
We not only chatted in the English corner but also on the internet. (Emily,
Sept. 13th, 2005, English original)
16.3 Case study 3. The discourse of language

advising
Clemente, M. (2003) ‘Learning cultures and counselling: Teacher/learner
interaction within a self-directed scheme’. In D. Palfreyman and R.C. Smith
(eds) Learner Autonomy across Cultures: Language Education Perspectives.
Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 201–19.
16.3.1 Background
Language advising, or counselling (the term preferred by Clemente),
is an important growth area in the theory and practice of autonomy
(Chapter 13.3). Advising is viewed as a delicate operation that can easily
be thrown off course either by the advisor adopting a conventional teach-
ing role or by learners’ expectations that they will be taught. For this
reason, research is increasingly directing attention to the discourse of
language advising sessions and the reasons why they go ‘right’ or ‘wrong’.
Clemente’s study was carried out in the self-access centre at the University
of Oaxaca, Mexico, and focused on the cultural dimension of advising
sessions conducted in Spanish between non-Mexican teachers and
Mexican students.
16.3.2 Aims
The study began with the assumption that advising sessions are, like any
other interaction, social events in which participants negotiate different
agendas and interpretations. Clemente also assumed that fostering auton-
omy means working with particular ‘learning cultures’ by considering, for
example, how participants in advising discourse negotiate between the
learning authority of the advisor and the learning aspirations of the student.
By looking in detail at the discourse of advising sessions and retrospective
interviews with the participants, the study aimed to examine
1. the degree of satisfaction expressed by the learners and the extent to
which they felt that their expectations were met;
2. advisors’ attitudes toward their own power in the sessions; and
3. interactional processes such as control of turn-taking, development of
records, and flouting of the cooperative principle.
This case study focuses on the first two aims as the third calls for a more
detailed explanation of discourse analysis concepts than is possible here.
CASE STUDIES 223
16.3.3 Methodology
The data for the study consisted of five video-recorded advising sessions,
involving five learners and four advisors, together with retrospective
interviews in which the participants talked to the researcher while watch-
ing the recording of the session they took part in. The obligatory sessions,
which were intended to provide guidance on a course of self-access study,
lasted about half an hour and were mostly conducted in Spanish. In
follow-up interviews, Clemente asked the student and teacher participant
in each session general questions about their feelings towards the session
and about their feelings towards their counterpart. They then watched
the video together, with Clemente stopping it from time to time to ask
specific questions or allow a participant to make comments. Finally,
she asked more general questions to elicit a summary of the participant’s
attitudes.
16.3.4 Findings
The learners’ ‘degree of satisfaction’ was assessed by the frequency and
wording of their comments and was found to be closely related to percep-
tions of whether or not expectations were met in the session. Clemente
identified five positions on a scale from satisfaction to dissatisfaction,
according to whether the learners
1. got what they needed;
2. just needed confirmation and got it;
3. needed a lot and got something;
4. needed a lot and got nothing; or,
5. did not need advising.
Of the five learners, two were emphatically positive, one positive but less
so, one very dissatisfied and one overtly negative about the session.
Clemente observes that, given the institutional setting, a power differ-
ence in favour of the advisor is almost inevitable, but the advisors’ attitudes
towards exercising this power varied. Here she observed three possibilities.
advisors might
1. take power for granted and use it implicitly;
2. show awareness of their power and use it for their own purposes; or,
3. try to avoid situations in which they played a powerful role.
Power differences were also exercised in the discourse of advising when,
for example, advisors controlled the openings of interactions, giving them
the power to change topics. The learners’ degree of satisfaction appeared

to correspond not only to the degree to which expectations were met, but
also to the degree to which the advisor controlled the interaction. Concept
16.3 illustrates one interaction in which the learners’ dissatisfaction is
related to the advisor’s interactional style.
16.3.5 Conclusions
Clemente concludes that the discourse of advising constructs a learning
culture and that this culture can be seen as a way of bridging divergent
perceptions of advising sessions. What seemed to be missing in the ses-
sions she observed, however, was a mutual understanding of the ‘script of
the student-teacher tutorial’. Achieving this mutual understanding, she
suggests, requires institutional and individual adaptation. If advising is
institutionally prescribed, it may be more an obstacle than a support for
learners. Advisors and learners should, therefore, decide the conditions
under which they want to work together. Individual adaptation means that
advisors need to be aware of the differences between their cultures and
those of the learners, including the potential role of factors such as gender,
ethnicity and social class.
16.3.6 Commentary
Clemente’s study is an excellent introduction to the complexities and
potential pitfalls of language advising. It shows how, at the micro-level of
discourse, intentions are interpreted and misinterpreted in ways that can
cause the participants in an advising session to talk at cross purposes and,
in particular, how everything that the participants say is liable to be inter-
preted by the other in terms of a context of institutional and social power
relationships. These aspects of advising are revealed in Clemente’s study
because she triangulates discourse data with participants’ comments on
the discourse (Concept 16.3). In this respect, Clemente’s study is one of
very few research studies to take up Crabbe’s (1993) observation that what
counts in fostering autonomy is the ‘minute-by-minute classroom practice’
(Quote 12.1). What her study adds to this observation, however, is the
dimension of the institutional and social power relationships that are
always embedded in teacher–learner interactions.

Although language advising may well be as old as classroom language
teaching and learning, it has only recently become a focus of research.
CASE STUDIES 225
Research on advising also marks a shift of focus in research on self-access

from the production and organisation of materials to the social and peda-
gogical relationships that are now seen as being key to its effectiveness.
As the objective of this research is generally the improvement of advising
techniques and relationships, it is ideally suited to teacher research. Because
advising is typically carried out by teachers who have been trained in the
discourse styles of teachers, research can also lead to valuable insights into
the roles that one-to-one interaction plays in fostering autonomy, not
only in self-access, but also in the classroom and in informal interactions
outside the classroom. Questions to be asked in empirical research on
advising sessions, include:
1. What do advisors and advisees expect from language advising? How do
they expect each other to behave? How does the discourse of advising
sessions differ from classroom discourse? What impact does training
have?
2. How can advisors reduce stress in advising sessions? What is the impact
of factors such as location, seating arrangements, and availability of
resources such as a computer or learning materials?
3. What differences are observed when advising is conducted in the
learner’s first language or the target language? Do learners who are
required to attend advising sessions as part of a course behave differ-
ently to those who attend voluntarily?
4. Do teachers also advise students in and outside classrooms, indepen-
dently of formal advisory structures?
5. Do learners follow plans made in advising sessions?
Concept 16.3 Triangulating data

By recording advising sessions, playing them back to participants and eliciting
their comments, Clemente (2003) was able to triangulate several perspectives
on the same event. In the extract below, C is the advisor and L is the learner.
This session was conducted in English. The comments in the right-hand
column correspond to the turns in the left-hand column. The learner’s
discourse in this extract seems to be influenced by his feeling that the
programme is not suitable for him, but he does not wish to be impolite. This
causes the advisor to see him as somewhat diffident and to feel that he needs
to be ‘pushed’. At the end of the session the advisor says that the ‘the boy
wasn’t prepared’ and ‘needs more support’. The learner concludes that the
sessions should be ‘requested and not imposed’. He also says that he was
overawed and that he would rather talk to someone who speaks Spanish.
Counselling Session Verbal Protocol
1. C: . . . I am John. Maestro 1. C: I told him the title with no intention,

John . . . did you do the maybe I was being formal . . . or it was . . .
task? . . . Have you finished? nerves . . . I use Maestro John for formal
situations.
2. L: Yes.
3. C: Good. How did you like it?
4. L: Well . . . It was interesting. 4. L: It wasn’t. The task is only an
obligation, a requirement.
5. C: Really? Do you think that,
now, you know what . . . what
the SAC is like, what . . . where
the materials are, and how to
use the equipment . . .?
6. L: Yes.
7. C: And all that?
8. L: Yes . . . more or less. 8. L: It was neither a learning experience
nor useful.
9. C: More or less? (laughs). 9. C: I was expecting a positive answer
because before he said it had been
“interesting”. Maybe it was a nervous laugh.
10. L: A bit of practice.
11. C: Was the task useful?
12. L: A little.
13. C: Very little. Why? C: I guess I wanted to put him on the spot
a bit. I thought everything was going to be
fine and then I see that everything is
getting worse and worse, so I wanted him
to explain it. This is my way of giving him a
bit of hard time, I know I was doing that . . .
These unexpected answers changed the
tone of the whole CS [counselling session],
I took them a little negatively.
16.4 Case study 4. Self-directed learning in

the classroom
Rivers, W.P. (2001) ‘Autonomy at all costs: An ethnography of metacogni-
tive self-assessment and self-management among experienced language
learners’, The Modern Language Journal, 85 (2): 279–90.
CASE STUDIES 227
16.4.1 Background
Rivers (2001) is the first of two case studies in this section that focus on
autonomy in the classroom. It is concerned with the ways in which experi-
enced learners display autonomy independently of any effort to foster
autonomous behaviour on the part of teachers and, specifically, with rela-
tionships between self-assessment and self-management. In describing
self-management, Rivers uses two terms somewhat differently to their use
in this book: ‘self-directed language learning’ refers to behaviours through
which learners control their learning, while ‘autonomy’ refers to students
requests to change the direction of a course and teachers’ responses to
the them. His paper thus draws conclusions about relationships between
self-directed learning behaviours in the classroom, on the one hand, and
self-assessment and responses to ‘autonomy requests’, on the other.
16.4.2 Aims
Rivers paper begins with a literature review on metacognition and expert
learning, which asserts that self-assessment is the more critical component
of metacognition and that self-management is dependent upon it. With
the aim of investigating self-directed learning behaviours on courses that
did not intentionally involve self-directed learning, Rivers set out to
describe behaviours related to metacognition among experienced language
learners taking intensive courses in Georgian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz.
16.4.3 Methodology
The students participating in the study were three groups of translators
and interpreters enrolled on intensive courses in Georgian, Kazakh and
Kyrgyz at the University of Maryland at College Park. The students were
all experienced language learners with advanced levels of Russian. Each
course had two native-speaker instructors. Data were collected using sev-
eral types of questionnaire, with the main source of data coming from
open-ended responses to questions eliciting descriptions of learning
behaviour and ongoing evaluations of the courses from the Georgian and
Kazakh groups. The data were analyzed using principles of grounded theory
(Concept 16.4).
16.4.4 Findings
Rivers’s study identified evidence of self-direction in three areas:
1. Self-assessment of conflicts between learner and teacher styles, learning
style conflicts within the groups, and the students’ own learning styles
and strategy preferences.
2. Learner autonomy in the form of demands for the modification of

aspects of the courses, including methodology, teacher feedback, class-
room environment, sequencing and activities.
3. Self-directed language learning behaviours, including prioritising class-
room and homework assignments, selection of tasks, and inclusion of
an independent study day in the programme.
Rivers found that all of the students who returned data regularly assessed
their progress, learning styles, strategy preferences, and conflicts with
teaching styles and the learning styles of other learners. Based on these
assessments, the majority made attempts at specific self-directed learning
behaviours, focused primarily on changes to course materials and class-
room activities, and targeted specific learning tasks and strategies.
In relation to autonomy requests and self-directed behaviour, Rivers
deals with the Georgian and Kazakh groups separately. The students in
the Georgian group repeatedly expressed discomfort with the pace of
the course and the amount of material that needed to be covered to the
instructors and administration, but their concerns were resolved through
discussion with the instructors. The students in the Kazakh group, on the
other hand, made one collective assertion of autonomy, in the form of a
request to add independent study time to the course schedule. The instruc-
tors initially rejected this request and an appeal was made to the program
administrators, who intervened and convinced the instructors of the value
of an independent study day. During the course, students also made requests
for a guest lecturer, dictionaries, textbooks, and primers, and for a slower
pace and reduced homework. Rivers also observed a pattern of reliance
upon administrative intervention in this group. The rejection of autonomy
requests created a feedback mechanism that may have inhibited self-directed
language learning behaviours as the students persisted in their requests.
Rivers tentatively concludes that the data from this group suggest that
autonomy, or a degree of control over course and classroom organisation,
is a prerequisite for self-directed language learning behaviours to emerge.
16.4.5 Conclusions
Having set out to document self-directed learning behaviours among lan-
guage learners taking courses that were not explicitly intended to involve
self-directed learning, Rivers concludes that these experienced learners made
numerous requests for changes to the course, especially to course content
and structure, based upon self-assessments of learning styles, strategy pref-
erences and progress. As Rivers puts it, they ‘tried to take control of the
entire learning process’ and, given the opportunity, they ‘used self-directed
language learning strategies to modify the learning environment and
aspects of the learning process’ (p. 287). In this sense, Rivers’s research
CASE STUDIES 229
lends support to claims in the literature concerning the relationship

between self-assessment and self-management, and adds to them an observa-
tion concerning the importance of learner control over teaching and learn-
ing processes. He concludes the paper with the following comment:
The accurate use of metacognitive, affective, and social strategies to control
the language learning process and the learning environment is the hallmark
of self-directed language learning. In order for such learning to occur, learn-
ers must be able to determine accurately what their needs are, and they must
have the freedom to take action to meet those needs. In the absence of either
accurate self-assessment or genuine autonomy, self-directed language learn-
ing will not occur. (Rivers, 2001: 287)
16.4.6 Commentary
Rivers’s (2001) study makes an important contribution to research on
autonomy, because it is one of very few to address processes related to self-
direction as they take place in and around the classroom. In this case, the
classroom and course were not especially designed to facilitate student
decision making and control, yet the students did exhibit a desire to con-
trol aspects of the course. Rivers’s study provides some evidence of a
natural tendency for language learners to attempt to take control of their
own learning, although it should be borne in mind that the students were
experienced language learners with advanced levels of competence in a
previously learned foreign language. It is, therefore, likely that their capac-
ity for self-assessment, on which their self-directed behaviour was based,
was itself grounded in previously acquired metacognitive and metalinguis-
tic knowledge (Chapter 5.2). It is possible, in other words, that a natural
tendency to attempt to take control of learning is especially characteristic
of experienced language learners. The study also shows how teachers’
reluctance to accept a degree of learner control can lead to an unproduc-
tive cycle of complaint and confrontation that may inhibit the emergence
of individual self-directed learning behaviours.

Rivers’s study recalls research on mismatches between learners’ and teachers’
agendas in the classroom (Chapter 4.2) and points to a number of research
questions that can be asked about the exercise and development of auton-
omy, which teachers can explore in their own schools and classrooms:
1. To what extent are students with different levels of language learning
experience able to assess their own preferences?
2. How do teachers assess their students’ preferences and how accurate are
their judgements?
3. What choices and decisions do students make in classrooms? To what

extent do classroom procedures encourage collective and individual
choice and decision making?
4. Which choices and decisions do students want to make and which do
they prefer to leave to teachers?
5. How do teachers respond to ‘autonomy requests’ and what is the impact
of their responses?
6. What are the effects on students and classroom life, when students are
given more opportunities to take control of their learning?
Concept 16.5 Analyzing qualitative data

Many studies on autonomy now use qualitative research approaches in an
attempt to capture the details of teaching and learning behaviours, develop-
ments over time, and their meaning for the participants. Data are typically
collected through interviews, written accounts and evaluation data and analysed
thematically. Qualitative data analysis procedures are often difficult to describe
and in many research reports the term grounded theory or grounded method
(Strauss and Corbin, 1990) is used as a substitute for a description of what
the researcher(s) actually did. Rivers’s (2001) study of self-directed learning
behaviours in classroom learning also refers to the grounded method, but
unusually includes a detailed description of the data analysis procedure,
which increases the transparency of the research.
The collected data were analysed by the author using the Grounded Method
for the analysis of qualitative data, as detailed by Strauss and Corbin (1990).
The Grounded Method requires rigorous inductive analysis and verification of
a given phenomenon through a multistage analysis of qualitative, narrative data.
The data were first read by the author without any attempt to categorize them.
A second reading was performed, again by the author, and general categories of
reported events were noted. A third reading involved the development of sys-
tematic coding and chronological tracking of events including: learner progress
self-assessments, learner style assessments, learner-teacher style conflicts,
learner-learner style conflicts, and autonomy requests. At this level, the events
remain a set of isolated occurrences, unconnected through time or by other
variables. Coded events were then re-coded by the author into axial groups of
similar events and phenomena.
Rivers (2001: 282)
16.5 Case study 5. Language acquisition in

autonomous classrooms
Dam, L. and Legenhausen, L. (1996) ‘The acquisition of vocabulary in
an autonomous learning environment – the first months of beginning
CASE STUDIES 231
English’. In R. Pemberton et al. (eds) Taking Control: Autonomy in Language

Learning. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 265–80.
16.5.1 Background
Leni Dam and her colleagues in Danish secondary schools are well known
for their classroom-based work, in which groups of students largely deter-
mine the content and methods of learning by themselves from beginner
level to graduation (Dam, 1995). Although their model had demonstrated
its effectiveness for the development of learner autonomy, Dam was con-
cerned to show that it was equally effective in terms of language learning.
Together with a German colleague, Lienhard Legenhausen, she began
the Language Acquisition in an Autonomous Learning Environment
(LAALE) project in 1992 with the aim of comparing the language develop-
ment of a class of young Danish learners studying English ‘the autonomous
way’ with parallel classes following more traditional models of instruction
in Denmark and Germany.
16.5.2 Aims
The broad aim of the LAALE project was to show that autonomous
learning can be effective in terms of language proficiency. LAALE was a
longitudinal study, starting from beginner level and focusing on a different
language area at each stage of the project. The early phases of the project
focused on (i) productive vocabulary (7.5 weeks); (ii) receptive vocabulary
and spelling (15 weeks); (iii) grammatical structures and writing (30 weeks);
and (iv) oral proficiency (1 year 5 months). Dam and Legenhausen (1996)
cover the first two phases of the project, in which vocabulary development
was investigated in three situations:
1. Danish classrooms following an autonomous approach (DA);
2. traditional textbook-based classrooms in one German school (GT); and,
3. traditional textbook-based classrooms in the same Danish school (DT).
Findings from later phases of the project were reported in Legenhausen
(2003).
16.5.3 Methodology
In the first few weeks of the DA class, new language was largely introduced
by the learners themselves. They were asked to bring in samples of English
they had encountered in their everyday life, which were shared with other
learners through group work and wall displays. They were also given
picture dictionaries and asked to find words that they would like to know
or remember and to use them in private diaries and in texts and games
produced for other students. New language was also introduced by the
teacher through nursery rhymes, songs and fairy tales and in the form of
phrases that were useful in classroom organisation. In the DT and GT
classrooms new language was largely introduced through the class text-
book or by the teacher.
In order to document the process of vocabulary acquisition, Dam and
Legenhausen followed four procedures:
1. A list of all the English words made public in the DA classroom in the
first four weeks was compiled.
2. This list was compared with the vocabulary lists for the textbook used
in the GT classroom and a published word frequency list.
3. A spontaneous vocabulary recall test was administered to all three
groups after 7.5 weeks.
4. A 175-item long-term retention test, focusing on receptive skills and
spelling, was administered to all three groups using words that had been
introduced in the DA classroom and by the GT textbook.
16.5.4 Findings
Dam and Legenhausen reported four main findings:
1. The number of words introduced in the DA classroom in the first four
weeks (400) was higher than the number introduced in the GT textbook
(124). The researchers also noted that the words introduced into the
DA classroom represented a different distribution of semantic fields
than those introduced by the GT textbook.
2. The 400 items introduced into the DA class covered 32 per cent of the
500 most frequent words in the word frequency list and 62 per cent of the
most frequent 100 words. In contrast, the GT textbook covered 19 per
cent of the most frequent 500 and 30 per cent of the most frequent 100.
3. After 7.5 weeks, the average number of words recalled by the DA group
(62) was significantly higher than the GT (47) and DT (34) groups.
4. After 15 weeks, the long-term retention test showed that the DA group
were slightly better on auditory recognition, while the GT group were
better when writing and spelling were involved. The results for the DA
group also showed that retention of words presented in songs and
rhymes was higher, especially among weaker students.
16.5.5 Conclusions
Dam and Legenhausen’s conclusions were cautiously but clearly stated
(Concept 16.5). The first two phases of the LAALE project aimed to provide
evidence that autonomous learning was effective in terms of vocabulary
CASE STUDIES 233
acquisition, which is a conventional indicator of successful language learning.

The researchers claimed that vocabulary acquisition in the autonomous
approach was successful and compared favourably with results from the
textbook-based approaches adopted in the DT and GT classrooms. They
also suggested that this may have been because the autonomous approach
made the learners more aware of the English language surrounding them
and helped them to integrate this knowledge into their developing L2
competence.
16.5.6 Commentary
Dam and Legenhausen’s research was an important attempt to establish
the effectiveness of autonomous learning programmes in terms of language
proficiency using quantitative measures. The researchers used a variation
of conventional experimental methodologies based on the analysis of the
effects of different treatments on comparable groups. Using a conventional
indicator of proficiency – vocabulary acquisition – they provided some
evidence that, for the group of learners under study, Dam’s approach to
the implementation of autonomy was effective. Research studies on pro-
ficiency gains in autonomous learning programmes remain few and Dam
and Legenhausen’s main contribution has been to show that such research
is indeed possible. Published findings from later phases of the study also
tell us much about the ways in which autonomy and language proficiency
interact in the longer term and in relation to grammar and spoken com-
munication skills.

Dam and Legenhausen acknowledge problems of comparability between
the ‘autonomous’ and ‘traditional’ groups and state that the latter were not
intended to be ‘control groups’, but only points of reference for assessing
developments in the autonomous group. In practice, strict comparability
between classroom groups observed over relatively long periods of time is
rarely possible. It is also difficult to ensure that experimental and control
groups in natural settings differ only with respect to a single variable. In
practice an autonomous approach will usually involve a variety of elements
and, even if it is shown to be more effective than a conventional approach,
it will be difficult to establish which aspects of the approach account for the
results. Replications of Dam and Legenhausen’s research methods in situ-
ations where classroom groups are more closely comparable and where the
character of the innovation designed to promote autonomy is more clearly
identifiable could provide useful data. If the goal is simply to show that
learners do become more proficient in autonomous classrooms, however,
comparison with more conventional classrooms may not be necessary.
Also, teachers will often be more interested in the effects of a change in

their own practice than they are in comparing different kinds of classrooms.
One of the more interesting aspects of Dam and Legenhausen’s study
was its finding that learners in the DA classroom not only learned more
words than their GT counterparts, but they also learned different kinds of
words. This finding suggests a need for more research into the distinctive
kinds of language learning that can be expected in autonomous learning.
Questions that could be asked include:
1. When learners are given more control over their learning, what kinds
of language do they focus on?
2. Do they acquire some skills more rapidly or effectively than others?
3. Is their learning observably more relevant to their interests? Do they
focus on these interests to the exclusion of broader learning?
4. Do they have better retention of what they have learned?
5. Is there greater individual variation in learning outcomes?
It is worth reiterating, perhaps, that there remains relatively little research
on the linguistic outcomes of autonomous learning, partly because many
of those who advocate learner autonomy see it less as a means to the end
of better language learning and more as a legitimate goal in its own right.
For many teachers, however, the fear that students will learn less when
they are in control of their learning can be a major obstacle to accepting
the idea of autonomy.
Concept 16.5 Reporting conclusions

A clear statement of conclusions and their limitations can help other
researchers to interpret and build upon the research. Dam and
Legenhausen’s summary of their conclusions is an excellent example of a
concise statement of what their research tells us:
The results of the two vocabulary tests convincingly demonstrate that vocabu-
lary acquisition in the autonomous approach is very successful and compares
favourably with results from more traditional textbook-based approaches. The
number of words that ‘emerge’ in the first few months and are publicly shared
by the whole learner group exceeds the requirements of official syllabus guide-
lines for German grammar school classes (i.e. higher ability classes). The
mastery and availability of an extended vocabulary might also be due to the fact
that the autonomous approach succeeds in making learners aware of the
English language surrounding them in their L1 environment and in integrating
this knowledge into their developing L2 competence. A subset of the words that
are available to these learners would thus not be classified as ‘newly acquired’
but as words which they have ‘become aware of ’. Traditional approaches might
turn out to be less successful in this regard.
Dam and Legenhausen (1996: 280)
CASE STUDIES 235
16.6 Case study 6. What do good independent

learners do?
Rowsell, L.V. and Libben, G. (1994) ‘The sound of one-hand clapping:
How to succeed in independent language learning’, Canadian Modern
Language Review, 50 (4): 668–88.
16.6.1 Background
Rowsell and Libben’s project was carried out in a Canadian university
among a group of students taking a course on Second Language Acquisi-
tion. As part of the course the students were asked to experience second
language acquisition by attempting to learn a new language from beginner
level. Rowsell and Libben began the project with the assumption that
studying on one’s own, aided only by books and tapes, was a poor way to
go about learning a second language. But they also thought that the
characteristics of good independent learners would be most evident under
these conditions. Using learning journals as a source of data and an innova-
tive method of analysing them, the project generated interesting findings
on the processes involved in self-instructed language learning.
16.6.2 Aims
Focusing on learning behaviour, the broad aim of the study was to discover
what high achieving independent learners do and what effects their
behaviour might have on their learning progress in relation to two broad
domains of independent learning:
1. control over instructional processes; and
2. overcoming problems associated with isolation in self-instruction.
In relation to the second domain, Rowsell and Libben were especially
interested in the communicative side of second language acquisition, for
which self-instruction seems to be most problematic.
16.6.3 Methodology
The subjects in the study were 30 undergraduate students taking a course
on Second Language Acquisition at a Canadian university, who were assigned
the task of teaching themselves a second language from beginner level
using self-instructional materials. The 30 research subjects were those who
completed the task over six months without the aid of a tutor or teacher.
The students were asked to keep learning journals, which constituted the
main source of data. In addition to keeping regular notes on their learning

and progress, they were asked to write a concluding paragraph to assess
their final attainment in terms of proficiency and the extent to which they
had achieved their learning goals. The first stage of analysis involved
estimating each student’s achievement based on these self-evaluations;
each self-evaluation was read and independently classified for high or low
achievement by three raters, leading to the identification of two groups of
11 ‘high achievers’ and 19 ‘low achievers’. The high achievers were those
who reported achieving at least some of their goals, while the low achievers
were those who reported that they had fallen far short of their goals and
had not achieved anything.
The second stage of analysis involved identifying extracts from the
journals in which the subjects showed evidence that they had engaged in
self-determined volitional behaviour to affect the course of their learning.
These behaviours were termed ‘autonomously controlled tasks’ (ACTs)
and were divided into two types:
1. Pedagogical ACTs: the learner takes control of learning activities
prescribed in the materials
a. addition (inserting a new element);
b. deletion (removing an element);
c. transposition (reordering elements);
d. repetition (copying elements);
e. change (substituting an entirely new sequence by exchanging the
materials for others).
2. Functional ACTs: related to the use of the target language.
a. communication-making (the learner attempts to produce meaning);
b. context-making (the learner creates an imaginary background
against which to study).
ACTs were identified and classified by the two researchers in a two-step
process. First they read the diaries independently to identify ACTs, recon-
sidering any cases of disagreement with reference to the criteria above.
Second, they repeated the process of independent classification to determine
subcategories of each type of ACT. The number of ACTs found in the
journals was then correlated with high and low achievement and further
qualitative analysis of individual ACTs was carried out.
16.6.4 Findings
Rowsell and Libben reported two major findings:
1. For Pedagogical ACTs, there was no difference between high and low
achievers. Both trusted the methods prescribed by the self-instructional
CASE STUDIES 237
materials. While they were willing to add new tasks and repeat existing
tasks, they were reluctant to reorder or skip recommended tasks, or to
select new language learning materials.
2. For Functional ACTS, the high achievers recorded more communication-
making and context-making ACTs than the low achievers. High
achievers also fantasised and placed themselves in various imaginary
situations in which they played roles using the target language. Some
high achievers seemed to contextualise everything that they learned
(Concept 16.6).
16.6.5 Conclusions
Rowsell and Libben found that high achieving independent learners do not
simply do more than low-achievers. In regard to control over the organ-
isation of their learning high and low achievers also seem to do more or less
the same things and tend to trust and rely on the self-instructional mater-
ials that are available to them. They concluded, therefore, that it is their
approach to the meaningful use of the target language rather than their
approach to the organisation of pedagogical tasks that most distinguishes
high achievers from low achievers. They also reflect on the reasons for
this. Those who engaged in Functional ACTs evidently had more practice,
which might account for their higher level of attainment, but Rowsell and
Libben also point to the possibility that it was the ‘endogenous input’, or
the activation of the foreign language input in the mind, that made the
difference. ‘Although the relative isolation of independent learners has
many drawbacks’, they argue, ‘it does have the virtue of allowing imaginary
communicative activity in a non-threatening environment’ (p. 683).
16.6.6 Commentary
In comparison to research on language learning in classroom settings,
there has been little research on self-instructed language learning (Chapter
8.4). This is partly because most language learning research is conducted
by and for the benefit of classroom teachers, but also partly because self-
instruction is often difficult to access. One of the main contributions of
Rowsell and Libben’s study is that it not only shows how research on self-
instruction can have a wider relevance, but also offers an innovative way of
carrying out research. One of the limitations of the study, which Rowsell
and Libben acknowledge, lies in its experimental design and the fact that
the subjects may not be a representative sample of learners who choose to
engage in self-instruction. The advantage of this design, however, was that
it allowed the researchers to collect data that would have been difficult to
collect by other means. We can perhaps assume that the high achievers
in the sample were those who had an independent motivation to learn the
target language through self-instruction and, to this extent, the insights
that the study offers on their use of communication and context-making
strategies are of considerable interest in the context of research on self-
instructed learning.

Although Rowsell and Libben’s study uses an experimental design, it raises
a number of interesting questions that can be investigated in naturalistic
contexts. Independent language learning using commercially-produced
or broadcast self-instructional materials is a common enough activity.
We know very little, however, about the motives of self-instructed lan-
guage learners, the scope of self-instruction and its linguistic outcomes.
Questions of interest include:
1. What kinds of people engage in self-instructed language learning? Why
do they choose self-instruction? What levels and types of proficiency do
they expect and achieve?
2. What kinds of materials do self-instructed learners prefer and what do
they value in them? What strategies do they use in finding and using
resources? To what extent do they draw on authentic target language
resources?
3. What problems do learners encounter in self-instruction? What causes
them to persist or give up?
4. Do self-instructed learners focus on some skills more than others?
How do self-instructional materials limit their learning? Do they take
measures to complement these materials?
5. Are there some skills or aspects of a foreign language that cannot be
learned through self-instruction?
Arguably, self-instruction is not strictly speaking a matter for teacher
research, although it is usually relatively easy for teachers to find research
subjects in their communities. The sociology and psychology of self-
instruction have considerable relevance to practices such as distance,
tandem and self-access learning, which all involve some degree of self-
instruction. Self-instruction may also play an important role in effective
classroom learning. Although autonomy is not equivalent to self-instruction,
self-instructional processes certainly lie at the heart of autonomous lan-
guage learning and much can be learned about them from investigations of
the learning of individuals who opt, or are obliged, to learn without the aid
of teachers.
CASE STUDIES 239
Concept 16.6 New insights from research

One of the most exciting aspects of research is the possibility of coming up
with an entirely new insight. Rowsell and Libben found that high achieving
self-instructed learners find ways to practice using their newly acquired lan-
guage by talking and writing to others or to themselves. This was not exactly
a new insight, but their observations on the role of imaginary contexts for
target language use was. Self-instruction has typically been represented as
a somewhat dull and unimaginative approach to language learning, but
Rowsell and Libben’s insight suggests that creativity and imagination may, in
fact, be crucial to successful experiences of self-instruction.
Rowsell and Libben also describe one journal in some detail to add both
depth and colour to their research. One learner of German created an elab-
orate fantasy, imagining that she might one day meet her hero, the tennis star
Boris Becker. If she could succeed in learning to speak German, she would
be able to communicate with him. In her journal every language learning ses-
sion and achievement was described within this context, including a meeting
with Boris’ parents and further adventures. Below are two extracts from her
journal, cited by the researchers:
(After learning the numbers 1–10): ‘I’m sure Boris will be impressed by my
command of the numerical system.’
(After listening to a comprehension exercise on telephone numbers): ‘All I can say
is “Boris better not give me his number yet.” “Oh well, back to German &
impressing Boris’ parents with my mastery of the language”.’
Rowsell and Libben (1994)
Chapter 17
Conclusion
Throughout this book it has been emphasised that there is no single best
method of fostering autonomy, because autonomy takes a variety of forms.
In this section, three broad areas for research have been proposed. The
nature of autonomy and the characteristics of the autonomous learner
remain matters for research and debate. We still know relatively little
about the ways in which practices associated with autonomy work to foster
autonomy, alone or in combination, or about the contextual factors that
influence their effectiveness. We are also unable to argue convincingly,
on the basis of empirical data, that autonomous language learners learn
languages more effectively than others, nor do we know exactly how the
development of autonomy and language acquisition interact. Although
research has begun to address these issues, the opportunities for
researchers to contribute to the knowledge base on autonomy are many.
Autonomy is a theoretical construct, accepted by many as a goal of
language education. It is hoped that this book has at least demonstrated
the validity of the construct, its legitimacy as a goal and the possibility of
moving towards this goal in practice. Researchers and practitioners need to
show, however, that autonomy is not only desirable but also achievable in
everyday contexts of language teaching and learning. In the course of writ-
ing this book, I have moved progressively from theory to practice and from
the evaluation of practice to practical action research. My own reflections
on the processes of learning that the writing of this book has led me to
conclude that, although theoretical clarification is important, there is an
equally pressing need for data-based research that will ground the con-
struct of autonomy in everyday practice. A fuller understanding of the
nature of autonomy in language learning, the practices that best foster it
among learners and their relation to language acquisition is a goal that we
may approach through the accumulation and analysis of research focused
on problems of day-to-day practice. Action research grounded in the pro-
fessional concerns of practising teacher–researchers can contribute much
towards the achievement of this goal.
240
Section
IV Resources
Chapter 18
Resources for research and

practice
18.1 Books, journals and newsletters

For a clear and readable introduction to the theory and practice of auton-
omy in language learning, I recommend two short books by Little (1991)
and Dam (1995) together with Jiménez, Lamb and Vieira’s (2007) more
recent document on the European Pedagogy for Autonomous Learning
(EuroPAL) project. In the Introduction to this book I referred to more
than 30 collections of papers on autonomy in language learning published
in the first decade of this century. Lamb and Reinders’s (2008) collection
offers the most comprehensive overview of the field. Kumaravadivelu
(2003) and Allwright and Hanks (2009) are recommended as broader
works on language teaching and learning that frequently touch on ques-
tions of autonomy, while Dörnyei and Ushioda (2010) make important
links between motivation and autonomy. Candy (1991) remains the most
comprehensive and readable survey of self-directed learning beyond lan-
guage education. Although the literature on the philosophy of autonomy
has mushroomed in recent years, Lindley (1986) is still the most accessible
account of the philosophy of autonomy for educators.
Autonomy is associated with several areas of practice in language
education. In the area of resource-based language learning, Gardner and
Miller (1999) on self-access, Lewis and Walker (2003) on tandem learning,
White (2003) on distance learning, and Fernández-Toro (1999) are all
recommended. While there is no single volume examining issues of tech-
nology and learner autonomy, Beatty (2010) and Lamy and Hampel (2007)
are excellent introductions to CALL and online language learning. In
recent work on learning strategies, Cohen and Macaro (2007) and Hurd
and Lewis (2008) are most relevant to autonomy. Dam (1995) remains
an excellent introduction to autonomy in the classroom, while Barfield
243
and Nix (2003) and Skier and Kohyama (2006) are useful collections of
practitioner’s accounts from Japan. Scharle and Szabó (2000) is the best
known ‘recipe’ book of ideas for implementing autonomy in the classroom.
Hedge (2000) can also be recommended as an autonomy-oriented general
guide to classroom practice. Breen and Littlejohn (2000a) and Kohonen
(2000) are valuable as both theoretical and practical resources on the process
syllabus and experiential learning. While there is no comprehensive intro-
duction to teacher autonomy in language education, Smith and Vieira (2009)
is a good entry point into the area of teacher education for autonomy.
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, System and ELT Journal
regularly publish papers on autonomy and related areas. Mélanges CRAPEL
(formerly Mélanges Pédagogiques), published by CRAPEL, regularly includes
papers on autonomy in French and occasionally English. The International
Journal of Self-directed Learning is a North American journal that some-
times publishes papers on language learning.
Several of the professional organisations listed later in this chapter publish
newsletters. The AILA Research Network on Learner Autonomy publishes
an annual newsletter online. Independence is published by the IATEFL
Learner Autonomy SIG, Learning Learning is published by the JALT
Learner Development N-SIG in Japan, and Self-access Language Learning is
published by HASALD. The TESOL Arabia Learner Independence SIG
also publishes a regular newsletter. Studies in Self-access Learning is a peer-
reviewed quarterly journal, which began publication in 2010.
18.2 Conferences and workshops

The Independent Learning Association conference and the Autonomy
Research Network symposium at the AILA Congress have now become
regular events on the autonomy calendar. The annual IATEFL and JALT
conferences also usually include strands on autonomy and learner develop-
ment organised by the relevant special interest groups. Smaller conferences
and workshops on autonomy and related areas of practice are held regu-
larly in various parts of the world and offer an opportunity for researchers
to present their work.
18.3 Professional organisations

Several professional organisations have been formed to bring together tea-
chers and researchers with an interest in autonomy and self-directed learning.
The easiest way to contact these organisations is through their web sites.
RE S O U RC E S F O R R E S E A R C H A ND P R A C T I C E 245
AILA Research Network on Learner Autonomy

The AILA ReN on Learner Autonomy has approximately 300 members
from all over the world. Its main purpose is to gather and disseminate
information on research and to keep members abreast of events and pub-
lications. The Learner Autonomy ReN organises a regular symposium at
AILA Congress and publishes an annual newsletter, Learner Autonomy in
Language Learning, on its website.
<http://www.ailarenla.org/>
Hong Kong Association for Self-access Learning and Development

(HASALD)
HASALD promotes self-access and autonomy in tertiary, secondary and
private-sector language education in Hong Kong. It has held monthly
meetings since 1991 and publishes an annual newsletter, Self-access Language
Learning.
<http://www.cityu.edu.hk/elc/HASALD/>
International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign

Language Learner Autonomy SIG
The IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG was formed in 1986 (as the Learner
Independence SIG) and includes teachers, learning advisors and teacher
educators. The Learner Autonomy SIG publishes a regular newsletter,
Independence, organises regular workshops in Europe and organises a strand
on learner independence at the annual IATEFL conference.
<http://www.learnerautonomy.org/>
Independent Learning Association (ILA)

The ILA is an Asia-based organisation for language practitioners and
researchers working in independent language learning. Its main function is
to hold the ILA International Conference, which was held in Hong Kong
in 2009 and Tokyo in 2007.
<http://independentlearning.org/ILA/>
International Society for Self-Directed Learning

American based organization continuing the tradition of adult self-
directed learning research and practice (Chapter 2.2). The annual
International Self-directed Learning Symposium, held for the 24th year in
2010, was founded by Huey Long and led to the establishment of the
International Journal of Self-directed Learning in 2004.
<http://www.sdlglobal.com/>
JALT Learner Development N-SIG

National Special Interest Group of the Japan Association of Language
Teachers concerned with learner development and autonomy. The
Learner Development N-SIG publishes a newsletter in English and
Japanese called Learning Learning, holds regular workshops in Japan and
organises a strand at the annual JALT Conference.
<http://ld-sig.org/>
JASAL
The Japan Association of Self-access Learning offers practical support
for self-access related projects and hosts regular talks and lectures from
members and visiting colleagues.
<http://www.jasal.net/>
National Association of Self-instructional Language Programs

(NASILP)
United States-based professional organization providing self-managed
university-level self-instructional programmes in less commonly-taught
languages.
<http://www.coh.arizona.edu/NASILP/>
TESOL Arabia Learner Independence SIG

The TESOL Arabia Learner Independence SIG networks teachers and
researchers in the Middle East. It maintains a regularly updated website,
publishes a newsetter and participates in the annual TESOL Arabia
Conference.
<http://ilearn.20m.com/>
18.4 E-mail lists

AUTO-L
AUTO-L is an open e-mail discussion list devoted to autonomy in lan-
guage learning. Subscribers send information, opinions and queries and
regular moderated discussions are held. Subscribe though the web site at
<http://faculty.york.cuny.edu/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/list/autol>
RE S O U RC E S F O R R E S E A R C H A ND P R A C T I C E 247
18.5 Web sites

Association for Language Awareness
Includes the International Language Awareness Database and links to
other language awareness sites.
<http://www.languageawareness.org/>
CARLA: second language learning strategies

Web site on language-learning strategy research maintained by the Center
for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition at the University of
Minnesota.
<http://www.carla.umn.edu/strategies/>
Hayo Reinders
Hayo Reinders’s personal website with resources on learner autonomy and
CALL, including an extensive bibliography.
<http://innovationinteaching.org/>
International Tandem Network

A network of institutions offering opportunities for, and conducting
research on, tandem learning, coordinated by Helmut Brammerts at the
Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany. Includes resources and an exten-
sive bibliography.
<http://www.slf.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/>
18.6 Bibliographies
Autonomy in language learning
<http://innovationinteaching.org/>
compiled by Hayo Reinders and Phil Benson
Language Learning in Tandem

<http://www.slf.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/learning/tanbib.html>
compiled by Helmut Brammerts.
Self-instructed Foreign Language Learning

<http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/f.r.jones/default.htm>
compiled by Francis R. Jones
18.7 Self-access centres

Many self-access language learning centres maintain web sites containing
information about their facilities and services. The following list covers
centres mentioned in the text of this book.
• CRAPEL, University of Nancy 2, France
<http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/CRAPEL/>
• City University of Hong Kong (Self-access Centre)
<http://www.cityu.edu.hk/elc/study_sac.html>
• University of Hong Kong ( Virtual English Centre)
<http://ec.hku.hk/vec/>
• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Language Centre (Self-
access Centre)
<http://lc.ust.hk/~sac/>
• Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Centre for Independent Language
Learning
http://elc.polyu.edu.hk/CILL/
• University of Hull Language Institute (Open Learning Centre)
<http://www.hull.ac.uk/langinst/open.htm>
• University of Auckland, English Language Self-access Centre (ELSAC)
<http://cad.auckland.ac.nz/index.php?p=elsac>
• Kanda University of International Studies, Self-Access Learning Centre
<http://www.kandagaigo.ac.jp/kuis/salc/>
• Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona (Centre d’Autoaprenentatge de Llengües)
<http://www.uab.eu/servlet/Satellite/la-facultat/mes-serveis/centre-d-
autoaprenentatge-de-llengues-cal—1180074651237.html>
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Index
action research, 195–6, 202–3 essential reading, 243–4

collaborative, 181, 203 etymology, 50
activity theory, 46–7 and family support, 44, 136–7
adult education, 36–8, 93–6 fostering of, 123–6, 207–9
advising see counselling vs. independence, 15
affective strategies, 88, 98–9 individual vs. collaborative approaches,
agency, 45–9, 81 12–6, 35, 49, 57, 60–1, 141–2
AILA Research Network on Learner measurement of, 65–9, 208–9
Autonomy, 245 origins of concept, 9–10
Allwright, R.L. and Hanks, J. pedagogy for, 174
on teaching methods, 64 in political philosophy, 49–56
ALMS see Autonomous Learning Modules proactive vs. reactive, 62–3, 113
anxiety, 88–9 and proficiency, 210–2, 230– 4
Asian Institute of Technology, 179 research case study, 230–4
assessment see self-assessment profiles of autonomous learners, 117–8
Assinder, W. readiness for, 94–6
study of peer-teaching, 166 research areas, 203–12
Association for Language Awareness, 247 vs. self-directed learning, 37
attention, 100–3, 111 vs. self-instruction, 76–7
attribution theory, 83 uneven development of, 67–8, 211–2
Auerbach, E.R. versions of, 62– 4
on power and control in the classroom, 172 and younger learners, 18–9, 57
AUTO-L e-mail list, 246
autonomous learning Barcelona, Universitat Autònoma, 191
definition, 124 Barnes, D., 40
autonomous learning groups, 75, 220 beliefs, 66, 89–91, 96
Autonomous Learning Modules (ALMS), Bialystok, E.
179–81, 191 on attention, 102–3, 111
autonomy Block, D.
approaches to, 124–6 study of learner agendas, 80
vs. autonomous learning, 14, 123–4 Boud, D. et al.
bibliographies, 247 definition of reflection, 104
as a capacity, 66–7 Brammerts H.
convergence vs. divergence, 113 on tandem learning, 132
and culture, 69–72, 222–6 Breen, M.P.
definitions, 2, 14, 58–61 on process syllabus, 177
and economic development, 20–5 study of learner agendas, 80
and education policy, 17–21 Breen M.P. and Littlejohn A.
and education reform, 23, 27–36 on negotiation, 177
and effective learning, 120, 123–6, 208–9 Breen, M.P. and Mann, S.
and employability, 20, 24 profile of autonomous learner, 117–8
278
INDEX 279
Breen M.P. et al. cooperative learning, 178

on roles in teacher education, 194 Cotterall, S.
Brookfield, S. on control of learning content, 115–6
study of expert self-directed learners, 93 on course design for autonomy, 179
study of readiness for autonomy, 95–6
CALL see computer-assisted language learning Council of Europe Modern Languages
Cambridge, University of, 9, 10 Project, 9–10, 29
Cameron, D. counselling, 10, 130, 180, 191–3
on self-improvement, 22 research case study, 222–6
Cameron, L. Coyle, D.
on autonomy and young learners, 18–9 on differentiation and autonomy, 165
Candy, P.C. Crabbe, D.
on learner control, 163 on autonomy and the curriculum, 176
profile of autonomous learners, 117 Crabbe, D. et al.
on reflection, 108 on counselling, 192
Carpenter, C. CRAPEL see Centre de Recherches et
study of peer-teaching, 166 d’Applications en Langues
Centre de Recherches et d’Applications en critical language pedagogy, 33, 38, 172–3
Langues (CRAPEL), 9–14, 129 culture see autonomy: and culture
Centre for Advanced Research on Language curriculum-based approaches to autonomy,
Acquisition (CARLA), 247 176–84
Châlon, Y., 9 effectiveness of, 183–4
Chamot, A.U. and Rubin, J.
on effectiveness of strategy training, 156 Dam, L. and Legenhausen, L.
Chapelle, C. research case study on language
on evaluation of CALL, 152 acquisition in autonomous classrooms,
Chatbots, 150–1 230–4
China, 139, 181–3 dependence, 15
classroom-based approaches to autonomy, deschooling, 33– 4
15–6, 163–75 Dewey, J., 29–30, 116
effectiveness of, 173–5 definition of reflection, 104
research case studies, 226–30, 230– 4 on problem-solving, 30
see also peer-teaching, planning, self-assessment DIALANG, 170
Clemente, M. diaries see journals
research case study on counselling, 222– 6 Dickinson, L.
cognitive strategies, 97 definition of autonomy, 14
Cohen, A.D. on autonomy and effective learning, 120
definition of learning strategies, 96 differentiation, 165
on strategy training, 155, 160 –1 distance learning, 133–6
collaborative learning, 15–6, 166 course materials, 134 –5
Common European Framework of Reference technology, 135
(CEFR), 170
communicative language teaching, 64, 177 Ellis, R.
communities of practice, 47, 218–21 on necessity for formal instruction, 79
computer-assisted language learning (CALL), on individual learner differences, 82
146–8 emancipatory reflective learning, 105
Computer-Mediated Communication for emotion, controlling, 88–9
Language Learning (CMCL), 148–9 English clubs and corners (China), 139,
concordancing, 147 218–21
constructivism, 38– 43 Esch, E.
control of learning, 2, 58– 61, 73–91, 92–118, study of learner training programme,
204–7 159
of classroom learning, 163–75 EuroPAL, 17
of cognitive processes, 100–12 European portfolio, 170
of learning content, 112–6 experiential learning, 15–6, 41, 105, 107,
of learning management, 74–9, 92–100 178
of psychological factors affecting learning, expert vs. non-expert learners, 74 –5
81–91 exploratory practice, 160, 202
280 INDEX
feminism, 51–2 India, 114

Fernández-Toro, M. and Jones, F.R. individual differences, 82
study of self-instruction, 137 individualisation, 12– 4
Finland, 179–81 individuality, 16, 20 –2
formal instruction, effectiveness of, 77–9 informal education, 34, 38, 74
Freeman, D. and Cornwell, S. information processing theory, 97
on teacher autonomy, 188 inner speech, 42
Freinet, E., 28 interdependence, 14–16, 35
Freire, P., 31–3, 55–6, 116 International Journal of Self-Directed
on transformative learning, 32 Learning, 245
International Self-Directed Learning
Galileo, G. Symposium, 38
on teaching and learning, 27 International Society for Self-Directed
Gao, X. Learning, 245
on English clubs and corners, 139 International Tandem Network, 131, 247
research case study on out-of-class learning, Internet, the, 75, 76, 140, 148–52, 218–21
218–21 writing, 151–2
Gardner, D. and Miller, L.
on self-access language learning, 128 JALT Learner Development N-SIG, 246
Gee, J.P. Japan, 137
on autonomy and economic development, Japan Association of Self-Access Learning
21 ( JALT), 246
Gibbons, L. et al. Jones, F.R.
study of expert self-directed learners, 93 studies of self-instruction, 137–8
globalization, 51–2 journals and diaries, 109, 159–60, 217
Harri-Augstein, S. and Thomas, L. Kant, I., 49–50, 53

on learning conversations, 45 Karmiloff-Smith, A., 111
HASALD see Hong Kong Association for Kelly, G., 39– 40, 42
Self-access Learning and Development on personal constructs, 39
Hedge, T. Kenny, B.
on autonomy and language teaching, 174 on autonomy as expression of self, 114
Holec, H., 9 on control of learning content, 115
on consumerism and autonomy, 24 Kilpatrick, W.H., 30 –1
on deconditioning learners, 108–9 Knowles, M.
definition of autonomy, 59 on self-directed learning, 36
on individualisation, 13 Kohonen, V.
on learner training, 12 on autonomy and interdependence, 15
on origins of autonomy, 10 on reflection, 107
on self-assessment, 171 Kolb, D., 41
Hong Kong Association for Self-access Krashen, S.
Learning and Development (HASALD), on course design for autonomy, 183– 4
245 on necessity for instruction, 78
humanistic language teaching, 35
humanistic psychology, 34 –6 L2 motivational self system, 85–6
Hyland, F. La Ganza
research case study on out-of-class learning, on teacher-learner roles, 167
213–7 LAALE see Language Acquisition in an
Autonomous Learning Environment
IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG, 245 Lamb, T.
identity, 22–3, 45–9, 51–2, 114, 215, 220 study on learner control in the classroom,
Illich, I., 33– 4, 116 152–3
imagined communities, 47 Language Acquisition in an Autonomous
Independence, 245 Learning Environment (LAALE),
independence vs. autonomy, 15 214–20
Independent Learning Association (ILA), language awareness, 97–8
245 web site, 233
INDEX 281
Lantolf, J.P. and Thorne, S. Macaro, E.

on agency, 46 on autonomy of choice, 112–3
LAPI see Learner Autonomy Project Mackenzie, A.
Inventory on teacher autonomy, 189–90
Lave, J. and Wenger, E. McDonough, S.
on schooling and identity, 47–8 on effectiveness of strategy training, 157
Lazáro and Reiders, H. McGrath, I.
study of technology in self-access, 129 on teacher autonomy, 190
learner agendas, 79–81 Mélanges Pédagogiques, 9
Learner Autonomy in Language Learning, 245 metacognitive knowledge, 66, 109–11, 227
learner-based approaches to autonomy, metacognitive strategies, 97–8
154–62 Mezirow, J.
definition, 154 on reflection, 105
effectiveness of, 161–2 Mill, J., 49–50
see also learner training, learning strategies Mobile Language Learning (MALL), 151
learner beliefs see beliefs motivation, 66, 83–7
learner centredness, 13 action control strategies, 87
learner control see control of learning cognitive approaches to, 68–71
learner development, 154 –62 control of, 83–7
classification of approaches, 154–5 process-oriented approach, 86–7
definition, 154 motivational thinking, 85–6
instructional vs. reflective approaches, Motteram, G.
157–61 on educational technology and autonomy,
see also learner training, learning strategies 145
learner training, 11–2, 154–62 Murayama, I.
materials, 158–9 on effectiveness of strategy training, 158
learning conversations, 42–3
Learning Learning, 246 narrative, 22, 48, 52, 81, 180
learning projects (Tough), 60–1 National Association of Self-instructional
learning strategies, 12, 44, 66, 82, 96 –100, Language Programs, 138, 246
156–7 naturalistic language learning, 76–8, 214
classification of, 97–100 negotiation, 177–8
definition, 96 new literacies, 38
strategy training, 156–7 Nicaragua, Universidad Nacional Autónoma
learning webs (Illich), 34 de, 129
Lim, H.Y. Noels, et al.
on autonomy and agency, 48 on motivation and autonomy, 84 –5
Little, D. Norway, 17–8
definition of autonomy, 59, 60 noticing hypothesis, 101
on isolation, 141
on metacognitive knowledge, 111 O’Malley, J.M. and Chamot, A.U.
on reflection, 104 on classification of learning strategies, 97
on teacher autonomy, 16, 188 on classification of metacognitive
on teacher education, 194 strategies, 98
on variability of autonomy, 66 Oscarson, M.
on Vygotsky, group work and autonomy, on benefits of self-assessment, 168–9
42 out-of-class learning, 16, 38, 47, 76–7, 138– 40
Little, D. and Singleton, D. research case studies, 213–7, 218–21
on learner beliefs, 90 Oxford, R.
Littlejohn, A. classification of social and affective
studies of learner control in the classroom, strategies, 98–9
164–5
Littlewood, W.T. paternalism, 54–6
on proactive and reactive autonomy, 62–3 peer teaching, 166
on skills in self-access learning, 143– 4 Pennycook, A.
Louden, W. on autonomy and voice, 114
definition of reflection, 104 on the psychologisation of autonomy, 25
282 INDEX
personal autonomy, 49–56 Rogers, C.R., 34 – 6

vs. learner autonomy, 52–6 on facilitation, 35–6
personal construct theory, 39–40 Rowsell, L.V. and Libben, G.
planned vs. unplanned learning, 94 Research case study on self-instruction,
planning, 94, 164–8 235–9
portfolios, 170 Rousseau, J.-J., 27–8, 29, 34
power in classroom, 172–3 on teaching and learning, 28
problem-solving, 30
process syllabus, 176–8 SDLRS see Self-directed Learning Readiness
proficiency see autonomy: and effective Scale
learning, autonomy: and proficiency self, the, 20–3, 49, 51, 85– 6
programmed learning, 13 self-access, 10–1, 13, 37, 69, 127–31, 180,
project work, 31, 166, 178 187, 191–3
psychology of learning, 38– 49 curriculum integration, 130–1
definition, 128
Ramadevi, S. professional organizations, 245–6
on control of learning content, 114 teacher involvement in, 130
Raz, J. technology in, 128–9, 149
on personal autonomy, 51 web sites, 248
Rees-Miller, J. see also counselling
on effectiveness of strategy training, 156 Self-access Language Learning, 245
reflection, 30, 32, 41, 45, 97, 104–9, 159–60, self-assessment, 168–72, 227
166, 181, 195 self-determination theory, 84
definition, 104 self-directed learning, 10– 4, 35, 36–8, 74–9,
Reinders, H., 247 93–6, 106, 140
relational autonomy, 52, 57 definitions, 36–7
representational redescription, 111 readiness for, 94–6
research, 201–12 Self-directed Learning Readiness Scale
conclusions, 234 (SDLRS), 94 –6
discourse analysis, 222– 6 self-directed naturalistic learning, 76–7, 139,
interviews, 217 214
qualitative data, 221, 230 self-direction see self-directed learning
questions, 204 self-improvement, 21–2
questionnaires, 217 self-instruction, 75, 136–8, 142, 235–9, 214
triangulating data, 225– 6 bibliography, 248
virtual ethnography, 218 vs. autonomy, 76–7
see also action research, autonomy: research university programmes, 138
areas self-regulated learning, 43–4
resource-based approaches to autonomy, Shohamy, E.
127–44 on political implications of assessment, 172
collaboration in, 141–2 SILL see Strategy Inventory for Language
definition, 127 Learning
effectiveness of, 141–4 situated learning theory, 45, 47–8
and learning skills, 143– 4 Slimani, Y.
structure and support, 142–3 study of learner agendas, 80
see also distance learning, out-of-class SMILE see Strategies for Managing and
learning, self-access, self-instruction, Independent Learning Environment
tandem learning Smyth, J.
RICH Project (Zhejiang), 181–3 on emancipatory reflective learning, 105
Riley, P. social approaches to learning theory, 45–9
on autonomy and culture, 69 social strategies, 98–9
on autonomy and individualisation, 13 sociocultural theory, 41, 45–6, 81, 156, 209
on researching autonomy, 205 Spear, G.E. and Mocker, D.W.
Riley, P. and Zoppis, C. study of non-expert self-directed learners,
on self-access at CRAPEL, 11 94
Rivers, W.P. strategies see learning strategies
Case study on self-directed learning in the Strategies for Managing and Independent
classroom, 226–30 Learning Environment (SMILE), 192
INDEX 283
Strategy Inventory for Language Learning Victoria University of Wellington, 179

(SILL), 99, 180 Vieira, F.
study abroad, 140 study of teacher education for autonomy,
195–6
Talkbase, 179 Voller, P.
tandem learning, 131–2, 142, 143 on teacher roles, 186–7
web sites, 247 Vygotsky, L., 41–2, 45–6, 85, 141–2, 172
task-based learning, 56–7, 177–8, 182
teacher autonomy, 16, 187–91 Walker, E.
teacher-based approaches to autonomy, 16, on controlling of anxiety, 89
185–96 Wall, S.
effectiveness of, 196 on requirements for autonomy, 53
see also teacher autonomy, teacher Wang, M. and Peverly, S.
education, teacher roles on autonomy and effective learning,
teacher education, 16, 181, 183, 193–6 42–3
teacher roles, 167, 184, 185–7 Web-based Induction and Independent
technology-based approaches to autonomy, Learning Development (WIILD), 193
145–53 WebQuest, 150
definition of, 145 Wenden, A.
effectiveness of, 152–3 on classification of learning strategies, 97
see also computer-assisted language learning on learner development and autonomy,
TESOL Arabia Learner Independence SIG, 158
246 on metacognitive knowledge and
Thavenius, C. autonomy, 110
on teacher autonomy, 188 studies on learner beliefs, 90
Tomlin, R.S. and Villa, V. Wicken, C.D.
on attention, 101–2 On attention, 103
Tough, A. willingness to communicate, 87
on autonomous learning groups, 75 Wright, T.
transformative learning, 31–3, 106 on teacher roles, 186
Umino, T. Zimmerman, B.
on self instruction in the home, 136 on self-regulation, 43
studies of broadcast materials, 137 zone of proximal development, 41–2, 85

Teaching and Researching Autonomy, Second Edition

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Teaching and Researching Autonomy

AP P LI ED LI NGU I STIC S I N AC TION

Christopher N. Candlin and David R. Hall

Books published and forthcoming in this series include:

Teaching and Researching Computer-assisted Language Learning Ken Beatty

Published 2013 by Routledge

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

Copyright © 2001, 2011, Taylor & Francis.

The rights of Philip Benson to be identiﬁed as author of this

ISBN 13: 978-1-4082-0501-3 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Typeset in 10.5/12pt Janson by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

General editors’ preface ix

Section I: What is autonomy? 7

1 The history of autonomy in language learning 9

2 Autonomy beyond the ﬁeld of language education 26

2.1 Educational reform 27

3 Deﬁning and describing autonomy 58

4 Control as a natural attribute of learning 73

Section II: Autonomy in practice 121

7 Fostering autonomy 123

9 Technology-based approaches 145

10 Learner-based approaches 154

11 Classroom-based approaches 163

12 Curriculum-based approaches 176

13 Teacher-based approaches 185

Section III: Researching autonomy 199

15 Research methods and key areas of research 201

16 Case studies 213

16.3 Case study 3. The discourse of language advising 222

Section IV: Resources 241

18 Resources for research and practice 243

Applied Linguistics in Action, as its name suggests, is a series which

Each book in the series has been carefully designed to be as accessible as

This book is the product of a lifetime of autonomous, and at times not

the things they would learn better of their own accord.

• The concept of autonomy is grounded in a natural tendency for learners

reﬂects both the growing maturity of research on autonomy as well as the

This section will:

The history of autonomy in

1.1 Origins of the concept

Concept 1.1 The origins of autonomy in language learning

According to Gremmo and Riley (1995), interest in the concept of

1.2 Autonomy and self-access

Riley and Zoppis on the Sound and Video Library at CRAPEL

At CRAPEL, self-access was seen as a means of facilitating self-directed

1.3 Autonomy and learner training

learners would need to develop skills related to self-management, self-

Holec on learner training

As the practice of learner training became more widespread in the 1980s

1.4 Autonomy and individualisation

suggested in the introduction to their collection of papers on individualis-

Riley on autonomy and individualisation

Individualisation (‘individualised learning’, ‘individualised instruction’) is, his-

The early association of autonomy with individualisation may also be

1.5 Autonomy and interdependence

Concept 1.2 Independence, dependence and interdependence

The theory and practice of autonomy escaped from this crisis of

to the development of autonomy as a psychological capacity, stating that

Little on teacher autonomy

. . . since learning arises from interaction and interaction is characterized by

The idea of interdependence in the classroom was also developed

1.6 Why autonomy? Why now?