Volume 8, Number 2, June 2017
Special Issue: Papers from the 7th Independent Learning Association Conference in Wuhan, China, 4-7 November 2016 Edited by Kerstin Dofs and Moira Hobbs Introductory Papers by Guest Editors Moira Hobbs and Kerstin Dofs •
Foreword (84-85)
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Opening Speech (86-87)
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Self-Access Centre and Autonomous Learning Management: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going? (88-101)
Papers by Keynote Speakers •
The Pedagogy of Learner Autonomy: Lessons from the Classroom by Sara Cotterall (102-115)
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Autonomy in the Time of Complexity: Lessons from Beyond the Classroom by Garold Murray (116-134)
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Language Learning Beyond the Classroom: Access all Areas by Phil Benson (135-146)
Papers by Presenters at the Symposium on Self-Access Learning •
The Evolution and Devolution of Management and Training Needs for Self-Access Centre Staff by David Gardner (147-156)
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Encouraging Autonomy Through a Community of Practice: The Role of a Self-access Centre by Maria Giovanna Tassinari (157-168)
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Promoting Learner Autonomy and Self-Directed Learning: The Evolution of a SALC Curriculum by Jo Mynard and Rob Stevenson (169-182)
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Autonomy and Complexity in Social Learning Space Management by Garold Murray (183-193)
Press Release •
Interview with Jianying Du, Kerstin Dofs and Moira Hobbs on Friday, November 4th, 2016, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST) by Wen Shanshan (194-198)
SiSAL Journal Vol. 8, No. 2, June 2017, 84-85
7th Independent Learning Association Conference in Wuhan, China, 4-7 November 2016: Foreword Moira Hobbs, Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand Kerstin Dofs, Ara Institute of Canterbury, New Zealand
Conference Delegates, 7th Independent Learning Association (ILA) conference, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China Huazhong University of Science and Technology were delighted to be selected to host this 7th Independent Learning Association (ILA) conference, as it was the first time they had held a full independent learning conference in China. They were awarded the rights to host this conference following the Independent Learning Association Conference held in Bangkok two years previously. It was also very exciting for many of the other European, Middle Eastern, Asian and Australasian delegates to be warmly welcomed to China and to share some experiences of Chinese culture, including academic, social, historical, artistic and culinary aspects. Both the editors of this special edition of SISAL (Kerstin Dofs and Moira Hobbs) helped the conference organisers by inviting an excellent selection of international keynote speakers to the conference. These were Andy Gao, Phil Benson, Sara Cotterall, Lawrence Zhang and Garold Murray. Throughout the conference, they also contributed with several major tasks:
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1. Before: Giving the welcoming speech at the opening ceremony on behalf of ILA, which we did bilingually in Mandarin (Moira, with assistance from her Mandarin teacher) and in English (Kerstin) 2. During: Organising and running a separate symposium included within the whole conference. The presenters were Self-Access Learning Centre managers and professionals from around the world who we invited to participate: Maria Giovanna Tassinari (Berlin), Phil Benson (Sydney), Garold Murray (Okayama), Jo Mynard & Rob Stevenson (Chiba), David Gardner (Hong Kong), Katherine Thornton (Osaka), plus Moira and Kerstin (Auckland & Christchurch) 3. After: Recap of the conference and a closing address to all participants and attendees. During the closing ceremony, it was announced that the next ILA conference is to be hosted in Kobe, Japan in 2018. The series of articles included in this special issue have been contributed by some of the presenters who shared their findings at the SAC Manager’s symposium, and the overall conference plenary sessions.
Kerstin Dofs and Moira Hobbs Giving the Closing Speech
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7th Independent Learning Association Conference in Wuhan, China, 4-7 November 2016: Opening Speech Moira Hobbs, Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand Kerstin Dofs, Ara Institute of Canterbury, New Zealand
Hello everyone Dajia hao It is with great pleasure that we are standing here before you today on behalf of the International Independent Learning Association – for several reasons Jintian wo-men hen rong-xing neng zhan-zai zheli dai-biao guoji zizhu xuexi xiehui he da-jia jian-mian Firstly, my colleague Kerstin and I are honoured to be invited to help welcome you all to this wonderful university. Shou-xian, wo de tong-shi Kerstin he wo hen rong-xing di bei yao-qing dao zhe ge fei-chang hao de da-xue lai huan-ying ni-men. Secondly, we are very happy to welcome you all to the 7th conference of the ILA. I was one of the original organisers of the first conference which was held in Melbourne, and Kerstin has been to every conference since then as well. Qi-ci, wo-men hen gao-xing huan-ying ni-men lai can-jia di qi jie zizhu xuexi guoji dahui. wo shi xiehui de di-yi-jie Melbourne huiyi de zuzhizhe zhiyi, Kerstin can-jia guo suoyou de huiyi. Thirdly, we are looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones, as we share an exciting few days of presentations at this conference. Di-san, zai jin-hou de ji-tian-li wo-men qi-dai he lao peng-you jian-mian, ye xi-wang jie-jiao xin de peng-you, hu-xiang jiao-liu, hu-xiang xue-xi.
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And, last but not least, we are privileged to have the opportunity of visiting such an ancient and developed culture and country that is so different from our own.
We wish to thank the staff Huazhong University of Science and Technology for hosting this conference. Zai zhe-li, wo-men xiang Hua-zhong Ke-ji da-xue de gong-zuo ren-yuan zhi-xie. Hen gan-xie ta-men zhu-ban zhe-ci hui-yi, tong-shi ye xiang yu-hui-de ge-wei tong-ren zhi-xie. Enjoy the conference! Yu-zhu da-hui yuan-man cheng-gong!
Kerstin Dofs and Moira Hobbs at the Conference
The Venue: Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China
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Self-Access Centre and Autonomous Learning Management: Where Are We Now and Where Are We Going? Moira Hobbs, Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand Kerstin Dofs, Ara Institute of Canterbury, New Zealand
As mentioned in the foreword to this journal special issue, in 2016, the editors helped organise the 7th Independent Learning Association Conference which was held in Wuhan in November, with lectures from keynotes and other global experts in the field. The main conference title was “Autonomy Within and Beyond the Classroom” and the editors also facilitated a symposium within the conference, “Management of Self-Access Learning Centres (SACs) and Autonomy”. This involved presentations from well-respected SAC managers and researchers from around the world. These authorities had gathered to discuss the past, present and future for SACs. The following article introduces and contextualises presentations given at the symposium and the conference by invited speakers and keynotes. Each of these presenters was offered the opportunity of writing a paper, and those that accepted are included in this issue of SiSAL Journal. Background Advisors and teachers have a key task of enabling autonomous learning for their students. This is not a simple task, as autonomous learning, and particularly exactly how it can be enabled, assumes diverse shapes and forms in different parts of the world - there is no ‘one size fits all’. Educational systems differ between countries, but they all have educators who are experts in how to teach and learn best in each of these specific environments, and each system has unique contexts of pedagogical histories of teaching and learning. The important thing then, is that learners and teachers everywhere are enabled to become aware of and understand how they can learn best. This could be through gaining a range of tools, techniques and strategies for learning, and having opportunities for learning successfully, either with others or alone.
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Current State of Self-Access Learning Centres Nowadays, there is a wide range of differently-orientated physical self-access centres around the world, each potentially having a range of differing philosophies underpinning them. However, the centres still all have the same aim of enabling learners as much as possible to be successful with their studies in a range of contexts, especially for self-study outside the classroom, whether this be in a self-access centre or some other place. Many centres around the world are currently undergoing some type of restructure, reimagining and renewal. These are often placed within a centralised campus-wide support centre, where students typically have one-on-one appointments with academic support personnel rather than self-study in a centre. For this reason, it is useful to re-examine the issues regarding self-access, autonomy, and independent learning in today’s environment. There seems to be an increasing trend for autonomy to be embedded within courses, and this is on occasion listed as a specific outcome in course documents, which requires increasing teacher awareness. Raya and Vieira (2015) strongly support autonomy and the associated necessity for teachers to endorse it, drawing on research … showing that the lack of autonomy is highly demotivating for humans and goes against the educative grain … Deep learning is only possible with some form of autonomy ... Therefore, the whole concept of teacher effectiveness must be reviewed in the light of the need for autonomy. (p. xi). Institutions today face large pedagogical and physical changes, set within an educational environment of more flexible, blended/online teaching and learning models. Therefore, there is a need for educators to be made more aware of the requirements, needs and benefits of learner autonomy. Kolb and Kolb (2005) foreshadowed the situation that is currently apparent in around New Zealand and the rest of the world, when they imagined “… a holistic program of institutional development that includes curriculum development, faculty development, student development, administrative and staff development, and resource development … coordinated around an institutional vision and mission to promote learning.” (p. 209). They also believe in other features integral to the new social, learning and spatial developments, such as self-direction and development of students’ metacognitive skills to foster learning and responsibility for learning. As previously outlined by Benson & Voller (1997) and Dofs and Hobbs (in press), simply providing a range of appropriate facilities (such as suitable resources and study space)
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within the social, learning, and spatial developments in institutions, does not automatically lead to the outcome of student centred learning or autonomy. Some of the desired outcomes of these facilities are: increased self-motivation, more knowledge about how to learn, and more responsibility taken on by students themselves for their own learning. Self-access learning centres, and indeed other support structures within institutions, should scaffold learners and assist them in developing useful strategies so they can perform their own needsanalysis, goal-setting, and decision-making about what and how to learn. These academic support networks also need to help students to select appropriate content, manage their own learning methods and strategies, and give them the necessary skills to self-assess their learning achievements. For this to happen, advice and information about metacognition is imperative, as is a high standard of language learner advising. To allow self-access learning centres and their staff to fulfil their roles, several important areas should be addressed, i.e., social aspects of studying and learning, the evaluation of centres, the role of centre management, how to enable encouragement of autonomy, and looking forward to adapt to what the future may hold. Self-Access Learning Centres as Social Spaces During the last forty or fifty years, autonomy has been developing and moving through several theoretical bases, beginning with learners being thought of as individuals capable of accepting and taking responsibility for all aspects of their learning. After this, a more social interpretation became popular, whereby autonomy was considered in terms of ‘inter-dependence’, rather than simply ‘independence’. Little (1991) observed that merely by being in the same physical space, people are in fact part of an interdependent social situation. We will now give a brief overview of the papers which are included in this special issue. They were presented at the 2016 ILA Conference at Wuhan, China. The first of these, by Murray, describes how complex dynamic systems comprise many interacting components and these can self-organise, thus allowing new phenomena to emerge. In this way, these new phenomena may challenge predictions and work across different levels of organisation, because as open systems they may utilise outside resources. This could then bring about a new set of affordances for learners, new opportunities not necessarily present in the current environment, and these may also only start emerging as the learners interact with their environments. These potential affordances are naturally restricted by the learners’ own perceptions and imagination, and could be indirectly influenced by the discourses
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surrounding their space. Murray suggests that currently, ethnographic and narrative enquiry is leading academics to research social learning spaces and how managers of these spaces could go about providing affordances and opportunities for learning, as they continue to foster conditions for complex emergence, in either physical or virtual spaces. He explains that complex emergence can be promoted within centres, by staff sharing control with users, facilitating peer interactions that benefit both parties, and preparing the learning space in such a way that these affordances are encouraged. It can also be realised in part by advisors and teachers, through them recognising and capitalising on the ‘teachable moment’ as it arises. Cotterall’s paper also discusses the pedagogical model of affordances, citing occasions when students actually interact and engage directly with their goals. This is done via engagement, exploration, personalisation, reflection and support. This supports a previous claim by Macaro (2008): 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 purpose of that learning … Autonomy resides in being able to say what you want to say rather than producing the language of others … (pp. 59-60). Cotterall further extends this to encompass both advisors and teachers - she describes conference attendance, reading papers, networking, and belonging to an ‘academic tribe’ as being affordances for staff working within the language learner advising discipline.
Centre Evaluations It is important to consider the evaluation of SACs to ensure that they are adequately providing the above-mentioned affordances for students and staff, as well as committing to other learning centre roles. For example, evaluations should also aim to promote both efficiency (good use) and effectiveness (good outcomes). While learning gains may be essential in the evaluation and operation of self-access centres, the measure of this gain, and indeed, autonomy itself, has always been rather problematic, ever since the emergence and growing popularity of SACs around the world. Some of these problems arise because it is difficult to describe autonomy and isolate what variables may be having an influence. However, “evaluating the development of metacognitive awareness in learners is central to any evaluation of autonomy” (Sinclair, 1999, p. 107), and this would call for the development
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of suitable criteria and scales for grouping and analysing data accrued from learner’s selfreporting. While “The variety of types and scope of learning makes any attempt at its definition, analysis and measurement problematic” (Morrison, 2005, p. 270), later experts also debate the value and authenticity of measuring autonomy (Benson, 2010; Dam & Legenhausen, 2010; Lamb, 2010). They believe the main difficulties involve controlling the variables within the diverse population that make up SAC users. There are also complex and difficult decisions to be made about what the foci of the evaluations should be, and what actual data would be most valuable to try and capture (Gardner & Miller, 2014; Thornton, 2016a). Thornton’s presentation at the SAC managers symposium (Thornton, 2016b) focused on the proposition that there is definitely a greater need now than ever before for reliable research and evaluations to prove that centres can and do offer multiple learning affordances and advances for learners. This is for two main reasons - firstly, to show that dedicated physical language learning centres are valuable investments for institutions financially, particularly at a time when many tertiary institutions are finding budgets decreasing or at least unable to increase in real terms. Secondly, and undeniably more importantly, managers can gain deeper insights about the most beneficial facets of their programmes and activities through research and evaluation. As a result, staff in centres can better meet the needs of the students, and in turn, enable the learners to better meet their own needs. Thornton described three main types of tools for such evaluation: (1) language tests, for a sound diagnostic basis to students’ initial planning, and then to measure any linguistic gains that may occur (2) student learning journals, to aid the development of metacognitive skills contributing to autonomy and learning improvement, and (3) interviews with learners themselves, to allow them to develop insights into their self-awareness, and to enable them to notice and assess their increasing language ability and achievements. For learners to be able to self-assess, they need to have the capacity to control their own learning, and, according to Huang and Benson (2013), three key components need to be present; “ability, desire and freedom” (as cited in Murray, 2014, p. 7). Students need freedom to exercise their desire to use their ability to maximise their potential. This includes an inherent critical need for personal relevance and ownership of the study goals and purpose. Students need to value their studies and take part in choosing what they do - they need to
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know that whatever they have in terms of class contact time is be used effectively and efficiently “… to teach those aspects of the language which the learners themselves deem to be the most urgently required.” (Nunan, 1988, p. 3). In his keynote speech at the ILA conference in Wuhan, Benson discussed the role of staff training involving exploratory practice projects (Benson, 2016). Benson proposes that: teachers design and implement sustainable and transferable pedagogical strategies for autonomy … (including) … encouraging student preparation, drawing on out-of-class experience, using ‘authentic’ materials and ‘real’ language, independent inquiry, involving students in task design, encouraging student-student interaction, peer teaching, encouraging divergent outcomes, self- and peer- assessment, encouraging reflection. He believes that professional development should be about closing the gap between desirability and feasibility. In his paper included in this special issue, Benson furthers the discussion of language learning beyond the classroom (LLBC) as he stresses the importance of language learning environments and then investigates the ecology of learning. He shows how fully autonomous self-instructed learners (FASILs) outperform classroom-trained learners (CTLs) in several ways. Learning Centre Management Along with ongoing evaluations, another vital area is the management of SACs, particularly with respect to critical thinking about key tasks that require training for both managers and other staff in the centres. Gardner focuses on this area in his paper in this special issue. He notes that the management of staff professional development requires skills and knowledge not currently included in regular classroom teacher training programmes. He describes how centre managers need to be involved in, and take care of, five major resource areas. Three of these come under the umbrella of human resources, that is: learners; teachers; senior managers and other SAC staff, and their professional development. The two other major resource areas are: physical resources, such as materials, activities and equipment; and the learning environment. Without doubt, the manager’s role is very demanding, as it may incorporate among other things: research, budgeting, report writing, planning, purchasing and creating materials, developing and maintaining a collection policy as done in libraries, managing SAC-focussed
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public relations within the institute, human resourcing, and close coordination with contentteaching departments and teachers. Gardner and Miller (2014) summarise the multifaceted and somewhat difficult role of centre managers: It is clear that the role of the Self-Access Language Learning (SALL) manager has become more complicated since it was first introduced specifically with the intention of managing a self-access centre. The modern role includes elements of both management and leadership ‌ and extends to physical and virtual resources as well as a collaborative role in integrating SALL into taught courses ... The role is inevitably one of middle-management squeezed between higher managers and teachers with all the concomitant complications such a role brings (p. 46).
Encouraging Autonomy Whatever the background and approach of advisors, there is great value in belonging to a community of practice as educators, and it is important to also include students in this community. Tassinari’s paper in this special issue focuses on the important areas of communities of practice, and peer support for managers. It is important for managers to discuss and reflect on: their beliefs and attitudes to teaching, their beliefs about learning and autonomy, their learners’ beliefs and attitudes, institutional changes happening to most advisors around the world, how the concept of autonomy can be incorporated into future institutional developments, and how new technology can be used to help enable and support autonomy. People have a lot to learn from each other, wherever they work in the world. Kodate and Foale (2012) endorse the value of peer support: In particular, it seems to underscore the role of informal learning as an important complement and supplement to more traditional forms of professional development, and highlights the ways in which practice shapes identity and vice-versa. It also suggests a potential wealth of untapped knowledge within communities of practice which, if utilised well, may support better practice, more effective professional development and the advancement of advising for language learning as a legitimate and more broadly recognised profession in the field of language education (p. 293).
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Evaluating Learning As mentioned above, there are recognised links between evaluating the learning centre and evaluating autonomy and learning gains. These days, many courses have autonomous learning embedded within coursework, so exactly how to include autonomous learning in curriculum development should also be addressed. The move to integration and embedding is familiar to many SAC managers in different parts of the world, even if they may take different forms. Therefore, it can be argued that institutions need to find an appropriate way of evaluating gains through autonomous learning. Mynard and Stevenson’s paper in this special issue claims that particular steps need to be taken by both students and educators. They propose that there is a need for preparation for future learning, and research-based decisions to make, as well as new technology to make use of and incorporate. Also, there needs to be careful consideration about integrating all this into successful in-class and out-of-class learning. It would need to have measurable linguistic gains, preferably ‘measured’ by the learners themselves, with the understanding that this selfevaluating is very important for autonomous learning development. Datwani-Choy’s (2016) study shows that regular feedback, such as this from the learners about their own learning, and adapting support services accordingly, is vitally important to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of a SAC, as it can give managers a wider perspective. It also offers insights into the evaluation of the support services, which are essential when making important decisions for enhancement. Datwani-Choy states: … evaluation of the effectiveness and efficiency of the self-access centre requires more than summative reports based on headcounts. There needs to be sharing of good practices, development of a core team which operates as a supportive Community of Practice and a quality “tool kit” of resources for continuous improvement through constant feedback and evaluation. (p. 407). The Role of the Advisor Another notable issue is advisor vulnerability. Echoing and extending Gardner’s discussion of SAC staff workloads, Gao’s keynote address described the twin problems of crisis management, and the contradictions of research requirements on staff, leading to professional vulnerability (Gao, 2016). Teachers and advisors are not merely pawns in the current educational reform process. Gao suggests that lecturers, teachers, advisors, and
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researchers actually all have a socio-cultural mediated capacity to act purposefully and reflectively through both their own individual and the group collective agency. Through these agencies they can claim the identity they want to become, and the core values of who and what they commit to be in the classroom as well as within a SAC. The Broad Situated Context Another important aspect of autonomous learning is the broad situated context. Examples of this are: the work of advisors and associated affective factors, including the social aspects of status, emotion and socio-cultural theory, and working within a business model rather than a social service model. Teacher autonomy, learner identity, and strategy training may also have an impact as well, as outlined by Dofs & Hobbs (2011). The link between a SAC and the classroom could encompass classroom-taught strategies for autonomous learning awareness which learners can transfer to their out of class self-studies. Advisors can be another link and they need to reflect on their learners’ identities (Riley, 2001), which are in part formulated by other people. Therefore, there is always the potential for these others to “… take decisions for us, and even if those decisions are for our own good, there is a risk that we may not approve of them” (p. 174). For this reason Riley states “advisors and learners cannot hope to understand what is going on within the advising situation unless we have a clear idea of the identities of the participants involved” (p. 182). This would also include other social factors, for example, the emotional and psychological investment students have in their own goals and future outcomes. These can affect their sense of belonging, ownership, engagement and autonomy, so it is important for advisors to try to create a learning environment where students want to learn. Zhang reflected in his keynote on how socio-political contexts and situatedness can feed into continuously changing and adapting learner metacognition, which is well known to be a key factor for autonomy (Zhang, 2016). What the Future May Hold With autonomous learning becoming increasingly embedded within the context of particular courses, new technology, and online teaching becoming more common, and as spaces for undertaking advising are changing, it is important to look forward and ‘imagine’ the future of advising in SACs. Also the advisory roles undertaken by SAC staff need to be reconsidered. Hurd (2001) argues that “in order to be in a position to advise and support
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appropriately and effectively, it is necessary to address the many variables that exist in any body of learners, including beliefs and attitudes, styles and strategies (p. 135)” Nowadays, and in the future, different modes of advising are needed to cater for open and distance learning environments, such as via emails, as suggested by Altshul (2001). With constant and rapid digitisation of teaching and learning pedagogies still taking place, the topic of advising modes is still being researched (Hurd & Murphy, 2012). They conclude that advisors need to span the distance between one-to-one sessions on campus (an individual approach) and online group sessions, (a collectivist approach). Therefore, learner support has to be responsive and flexible to be able to satisfy the needs inherent in a variety of constantly evolving learning environments. These days it is not uncommon for advisors, in New Zealand at least, to combine practices – they use Skype, Zoom, telephone, Googledocs etc., and/or face-to-face and small group sessions on site. In the SAC managers symposium, Mozzon-McPherson described how Higher Educational learning hubs in England are being set up, where it is expected that self-access centres play a major role in creative learning and innovative teaching (Mozzon-McPherson, 2016). Centre staff are also supposed to investigate autonomous learning within the research community and how this impacts on students’ ability to prepare for their future in a globalised world. In New Zealand, many tertiary institutions are moving to centralised student services, where ‘Learning Support’ networks situated within wider Library Hubs are integrated closely with faculties and student cohorts. Some of these also include discrete language learning centres within the broader academic support centre. The technological environment and rapid communication available to learners and teachers, were familiar to many of the centre managers at the Wuhan symposium. This includes utilisation of such modes of learning and teaching as: flipped classrooms, blended learning, web-based learning, massive open online courses (MOOCs), and collaborative learning situations. With the increasing move towards blended, online learning, and distance learning evident in institutions today, there may also be an increasing need for enabling learners to learn how to learn, and to increase their metacognitive awareness, including how to plan and monitor their learning. Paradoxically, while going virtual, non-virtual skills may be more necessary. There is also a viewpoint that social factors in learning may now be even more important in helping encourage student involvement and engagement, to create situations where students help each other to learn enjoyably and effectively. Since Aristoteles’s days it has been known that if you want to teach something to someone else, you will first have to learn it very well yourself, thus benefitting both parties.
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A noteworthy facet within the learner-centred approach advocated and used by advisors for several decades is one-to-one advising sessions with learners, whether this be online or face-to-face. Indeed, the spin-off benefit of building positive relationships was considered one of the most important outcomes of such advising in a recent conference project by Hobbs and Dofs (2016). Advisors from around New Zealand articulated that “The first most important step in any advisor–student relationship was thought to be building a good working rapport with the students” (p. 189). This initiates a framework for social communication which encourages students to reflect on their own learning experiences, identify areas of need, and negotiate their own learning journey with the support of an expert. Advisors can help activate this process through discussion, thereby empowering the learner to develop their own belief systems and thoughts about autonomy and independence. This input could maybe even inspire learners to change the way they choose to have responsibility for, and take control of, their learning. As Wayne Dyer famously said: “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change” (Dyer, n.d.). Through ongoing assistance and support, learners are nurtured within learning centres so they can be successful in their studies and have the autonomous knowledge and skills to manage their own learning effectively and efficiently, particularly when they are not in formal classroom teaching settings. Through reading the papers in this special edition of SiSAL Journal, the editors hope that you will discover that SACs around the world are faced with similar challenges and that they have met these in a variety of different ways while experiencing continuous evaluation and transformation, either internally driven by the learning centres themselves, or externally driven, due to institutional imperatives. Whatever the reason for these transformations and changes of practice, they create a rich variety and depth of autonomous learning support for an increasingly diverse student population. Notes on the Contributors Kerstin Dofs manages a Language Self Access Centre (LSAC) at Ara Institute of Canterbury. She has a Master of Arts in Language Learning and Technology, through the University of Hull in The UK. She is now undertaking PhD studies through the Linguistics Department at Macquarie University in Sydney. Her research interests are around self-access centres, autonomy, adjustment and study abroad.
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Moira Hobbs has worked within the education field for many years, the past seventeen of which have involved developing and managing a Language Learning Self-Access Centre at Unitec in Auckland, New Zealand. She has an MA(Hon) and her research interests encompass self-access and self-access centres, autonomy, and language learner advising. References Altshul, L. (2001). Advising by email. In M. Mozzon-McPherson & R. Vismans (Eds.), Beyond language teaching towards language advising (pp. 161-170). London, UK: Centre of Information on Language Teaching and Research. Benson, P., & Voller, P. (1997). Autonomy and independence in language learning. London, UK: Longman. Benson, P. (2010). Measuring autonomy: Should we put our ability to the test? In A. Paran & L. Sercu (Eds.), Testing the untestable in language education. (pp. 77-97). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Benson, P. (2016, November). Teachers’ perspectives on autonomy and professional development. Paper presented at the 7th international Independent Learning Association Conference, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China. Dam, L., & Legenhausen L. (2010). Learners reflecting on learning: Evaluation versus testing in autonomous language learning. In A. Paran & L. Sercu (Eds.), Testing the untestable in language education (pp. 120- 139). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Datwani-Choy, D. (2016). Evaluating a self-access centre’s effectiveness and efficiency: A case study and reflection. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 7(4), 397-411. Retrieved from https://sisaljournal.org/archives/dec16/datwani-choy/ Dofs, K., & Hobbs, M. (2017). ‘Spaced out or zoned in? An exploratory study of spaces enabling autonomous learning in two New Zealand tertiary learning institutions’. In G. Murray & T. Lamb (Eds.), Space, place and autonomy. Oxford, UK: Routledge. (in press). Dofs, K., & Hobbs, M. (2011). Guidelines for maximising student use of independent learning centres: Support for ESOL learners. Christchurch & Auckland, New Zealand: Ako Aotearoa. https://akoaotearoa.ac.nz/download/ng/file/group-7/guidelines-formaximising-student-use-of-independent-learning-centres.pdf Dyer, W. (n.d.). Wayne Dyer quotes. BrainyQuote. Retrieved from https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/w/waynedyer384143.html
Gao, A. (2016). Language teacher agency and identity commitment. Paper presented at the 7th international Independent Learning Association Conference, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
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Gardner, D., & Miller, L. (2014). Managing self-access language learning. Hong Kong: City University Hong Kong Press. Hobbs, M., & Dofs, K. (2016). Best practice ideas for learner advising in New Zealand. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 7(2), 182-192. Retrieved from https://sisaljournal.org/archives/jun16/hobbs_dofs/ Huang, J., & Benson, P. (2013). Autonomy, agency and identity in foreign and second language education. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 36(1), 7-28. Hurd, S. (2001). Managing and supporting language learners in open and distance learning environments. In M. Mozzon-McPherson & R. Vismans (Eds.), Beyond language teaching towards language advising (pp. 135-148). London, UK: Centre of Information on Language Teaching and Research. Hurd, S., & Murphy, L. (2012). Learner contribution in an open and distance language setting. In J. Mynard & L. Carson (Eds.), Advising in language learning: Dialogue, tools and context (pp. 213-230). Harlow, UK: Pearson Educational Ltd. Kodate, A., & Foale, C. (2012). Communities of practice as a source of professional development in advising for language learning. In J. Mynard & L. Carson (Eds.), Advising in language learning: Dialogue, tools and context (pp. 279-295). Harlow, UK: Pearson Educational Ltd. Kolb, A., & Kolb, D. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 4(2), 193-212. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40214287 Lamb, T. (2010). Assessment of autonomy or assessment for autonomy? Evaluating learner autonomy for formative purposes. In A. Paran & L. Sercu (Eds.), Testing the untestable in language education (pp. 98-119). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Little, D. (1991). Learner autonomy 1: Definitions, issues and problems. Dublin: Ireland: Authentik, Macaro, E. (2008). Learning strategies in foreign and second language classrooms. London, UK: Continuum. Morrison, B. (2005). Evaluating learning gain in a self-access language learning centre. Language Teaching Research 9(3), 267-293. doi:10.1191/1362168805lr167oa Mozzon-McPherson, M. (2016). The future of SACs. Paper presented at the 7th international Independent Learning Association Conference, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China. Murray, G. (Ed.) (2014). Social dimensions of autonomy in language learning. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Nunan, D. (1988). The learner-centered curriculum. Cambridge. U.K.: Cambridge
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University Press. Raya, M. J., & Vieira, F. (2015). Enhancing autonomy in language education: A case -based approach to teacher and learner development. Berlin, Germany: de Gruyter Mouton. Riley, P. (2001). The learner: Self-made man or man-made self?. In M. MozzonMcPherson & R. Vismans (Eds.). Beyond language teaching towards language advising (pp. 173-183). London, UK: Centre of Information on Language Teaching and Research. Sinclair, B. (1999). Wrestling with a jelly: The evaluation of learner autonomy. In B. Morrison (Ed.), Experiments and evaluation in self-access learning (pp. 95-109). Hong Kong: HASALD. Thornton, K. (2016a). Evaluating language learning spaces: Developing formative evaluation procedures to enable growth and innovation. Studies in Self-Access Learning Journal, 7(4), 394-397. Retrieved from https://sisaljournal.org/archives/dec16/thornton/ Thornton, K. (2016b). Evaluating SACs. Paper presented at the 7th international Independent Learning Association Conference, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China. Zhang, L. (2016). Promoting learner autonomy as a dynamic metacognitive enterprise: Context, culture, and strategic endeavours. Paper presented at the 7th international Independent Learning Association Conference, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
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The Pedagogy of Learner Autonomy: Lessons from the Classroom Sara Cotterall, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Abstract Learner autonomy in language learning has been the focus of enthusiastic investigation for the last 25 years. Research has focused on three key areas: the nature of autonomy, efforts to foster learner autonomy and the relationship between learner autonomy and effective language learning (Benson, 2011). This article focuses on the second area – the pedagogy of learner autonomy – and reports on insights gained from a career spent exploring learners’ efforts to learn a language. The paper is organized around a pedagogical model (Cotterall & Murray, 2009; Murray, 2013) which aims to enhance learner engagement and autonomy. The model consists of five affordances - engagement, exploration, personalization, reflection and support – which emerged from analysing the interviews and written narratives of Japanese university students engaged in independent language learning. The paper first discusses each of the five affordances and the way they contribute to the quality of language learning opportunities (Crabbe, 2003) in a given environment. Next, the affordances are illustrated in relation to five different learning contexts in an attempt to highlight the diverse ways in which learner autonomy can be promoted. Rather than prescribe particular classroom activities, the model identifies principles which can guide pedagogical decision-making. The paper concludes by considering the model’s potential as a set of guidelines for teachers who wish to promote learner autonomy. Keywords: learner autonomy, pedagogy, affordances Within the field of research into learner autonomy in language learning, I see myself principally as a pedagogue and am usually happy to leave theory-building to colleagues. However, this paper emerges from an attempt to theorise what I have learned from 30 years spent trying to promote learner autonomy in a range of language teaching/learning contexts. It focuses on a pedagogical model developed by my colleague Garold Murray and myself while working together in Japan. The model, which aims to promote learner engagement and autonomy, consists of five affordances. In the paper I illustrate the model by reflecting on ways in which the affordances emerged (or otherwise) in a number of different learningteaching contexts. The paper concludes by considering how the model might guide language teachers in creating environments in which their learners’ autonomy can flourish. The Pedagogical Model The model was developed as the outcome of a 3-year research programme into independent language learning in a Japanese university (Cotterall & Murray, 2009). It
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evolved from our analysis of qualitative and quantitative data gathered from 400 learners enrolled in an independent learning course over that period. The data included the learners’ language learning histories, portfolios, language learning beliefs survey, course evaluations, interviews, and focus group discussions. The model emerged from our analysis of the learners’ perceptions of the progress they had made in developing their language proficiency and enhancing their metacognitive knowledge and skill. After identifying a number of recurrent elements in the learners’ reflections, we conceptualised them as representing affordances in the environment which enabled learner autonomy or independence to flourish. Menezes (2011) makes the point that affordances are neither properties of the environment nor of the individual. Rather they are “something which emerges from the interaction between both” (p. 61). In other words, they are a kind of magic that is created when learners embrace a particular learning setting and exploit it as a way of stimulating growth, change and progress. This accounts for the fact that different individuals perceive different possibilities for action in the same set of circumstances and act on them in different ways. Consequently, in the context of our self-directed learning course, affordances are opportunities for interaction which learners perceive within the learning environment and either act on, or not. The five affordances identified in our 1999 model are engagement, exploration, personalization, reflection and support. I argue here that by tracing the emergence (or absence) of each of these elements in a particular learning environment, we can better understand how we might enhance learning opportunities (Crabbe, 2003) in that setting. But first, a simple explanation of each of these elements is required. Engagement This affordance refers to the extent to which the pedagogic environment both allows for and encourages students to be engaged with the activities, topics, meanings, issues and concepts it focuses on. Unless learners are engaged by what is going on in the learning environment, there is no possibility that learner autonomy can flourish. Exploration The second affordance in our model is that of exploration. The learning setting must offer learners the opportunity to engage in genuine inquiry and expand their understanding of topics and ideas which matter to them. This means that the issues they explore in their language learning should not be trivial; on the contrary, they should
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represent authentic questions (of personal significance to the learners) which demand real answers. Gone are the days when it was acceptable to ask language learners to complete artificial tasks (I am reminded of the ‘display questions’ of my early language teaching career) simply as a way of practising selected language forms. Personalization Learners need to perceive personal relevance in the issues and activities we invite them to participate in. This represents a huge challenge for teachers since every learner has a unique set of interests and capabilities. It is therefore vital that learning curricula be openended and learner-centred. While, once upon a time this may have represented a major challenge for teachers, today it can be viewed as an essential and hugely positive reason for focusing on individual learners and their diverse motivations for learning the language. Reflection Many years of empirical research and classroom-centred practice have highlighted the central role of metacognition in effective language learning (Anderson, 2012). According to this view, for learning to become established, learners need to reflect on what they have done, achieved and discovered. Without reflection, learners cannot assess their past learning and learn from it as they make plans for future action. Language teachers should therefore aim to create opportunities for reflection in the learning environment.
Support The final element in our pedagogic model is that of support. As Vygotsky (1986) demonstrated, given support, learners are capable of achieving more than they can achieve alone. Language learning is no exception. Part of the pedagogue’s task is to anticipate the kind of support that learners need in order to achieve tasks that outstrip their current resources. Looking for Learner Autonomy in Different Pedagogical Contexts This section illustrates the model by analyzing five contexts in which I have taught and considering the extent to which each of the model’s affordances emerged (or not) in the respective learning environment.
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Public servants learning English at a language school in Paris, France One of my earliest teaching experiences involved teaching English to adults in a large commercial language school in Paris. At that time, I had a very rudimentary understanding of the language learning process and little knowledge of the principles of learning and teaching. In that school, neither teachers nor learners had the freedom to move beyond the prescribed textbook. The curriculum was outdated and rigid and the teaching materials were seriously inadequate. For instance, one memorable sequence in the textbook required the teacher to point to a picture of a man sitting in a restaurant and ask the learners – “Is this a man or a dog?”. Needless to say, when language learning is presented in such a meaningless way, engagement and exploration cannot thrive. To make matters worse, many of the learners were required to attend classes as part of their employers’ obligation to provide professional development for its employees. Few of them had a genuine need to learn English or any personal motivation. I was therefore engaged in TENOR – Teaching English for No Obvious Reason. While it is true that the teacher’s role is to make learning engaging even where resources are limited, the challenge I faced in teaching those students in Paris was overwhelming. As Table 1 indicates, (ü = yes and û = no), the learners were not engaged in anything remotely resembling intellectual exploration during lessons at the school. Instead, they were exposed week after week to the same formulaic, unimaginative materials delivered by mostly inexperienced teachers. In addition, there was no opportunity for the teacher to personalize the teaching activities. Any efforts to target the interests of individual learners were thwarted by the school’s policy of rotating teachers around the different Paris branches of the school. Given these constraints, the learning environment was far from supportive or stimulating, and there was simply no time to encourage learners to reflect on their learning. Given the choice, few learners would have opted to continue with their classes.
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Table 1. Affordances in Different Learning/Teaching Contexts
Adults learning English in a language school in France International students learning EAP in New Zealand Learner of Spanish at university in New Zealand Adult learners of English in Japan – learning independently Undergraduate students of academic writing in the United Arab Emirates
Engagement
Exploration
Personalization Reflection
Support
û
û
û
û
û
ü
ü
ü
ü
ü
û
û
û
û
û
ü
ü
ü
ü
ü
ü
ü
ü
ü
ü
International students learning English for Academic Purposes at university in New Zealand Approximately ten years later, I found myself teaching in a much more positive environment working with international students who were preparing to enter university in New Zealand. In most cases, the students had already been granted admission to their university courses on condition that they reach a particular level of English proficiency at the end of the EAP course. Consequently, most were highly engaged. The stakes were high, and their impatience to begin their degree courses was palpable. Students in the EAP programme (who mostly came from South East Asian countries), met in class groups in the mornings and participated in elective courses in the afternoons. Convinced that learners’ ability to reflect critically on their learning was an essential element of learning to learn effectively, the programme designers had incorporated a number of reflection-promoting features in the course. As Dam and Legenhausen (1999) argued: In an autonomous classroom . . . [evaluation] is viewed as the pivot of a good learning/teaching cycle . . . Evaluation has a retrospective
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and prospective function, in which the learning experiences of the past are reflected [italics added] upon and transformed into plans for future action. (p. 90) One important strategy for promoting reflection involved incorporating ‘metacognitive commentary’ in the in-house language learning materials (see Figure 1 below): Task 2
Reading for the gist
Before you read a text, you should stop and think about why you are reading it. This will help you choose a strategy that matches your reason for reading. Effective readers employ a range of different strategies such as reading for the gist, reading to locate specific information and reading to develop fluency. The strategy they use depends on their purpose for reading. Look at Text A and …. Figure 1. Extract from In-house Materials (English Language Institute, Victoria University of Wellington, 1991) However this focus on the how of language learning seemed novel for many learners. Some were more comfortable using journal entries for their reflections. Simple prompts asked learners to write briefly about what they had found easy, difficult, interesting or helpful during the week. Entries were then shared with the teacher who sought (in writing) to prompt further reflection. These journal dialogues also proved valuable in providing individualized support, since they enabled learners to ask for help with particular issues or to inform teachers of their personal interests. Perhaps the most highly valued kind of support offered in the programme was learners’ opportunity to meet formally with their class teacher twice during the 12 week course to discuss progress and learning plans. Such was learners’ enthusiasm for these interviews that it was sometimes difficult to limit conversations to the allocated 30 minutes. The smaller ticks in Table 1 for the cells labelled Exploration and Personalization indicate however that opportunities for learners to explore ideas of personal interest were less rich, given the predetermined study themes and curriculum.
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Learner of Spanish at a university in New Zealand The third context in which I wish to explore our model is that of foreign language learning at a university in New Zealand. Some years ago, I had the opportunity to track two learners enrolled in a first-year Spanish course at a university. The learners agreed to attend fortnightly interviews throughout the semester during which they discussed their language learning experiences and progress with me. One of the learners, Harry, paints a dramatic picture of what happens when learning is NOT personalized (Cotterall, 2005). Harry was an intelligent, mature student majoring in Philosophy and English Literature. He decided to enrol in Spanish so that he could communicate with people from Spain and Latin America and experience some of the ‘passion and colour’ of the country. Harry was thrilled when his classmates elected him President of the Spanish Club and enthusiastically started planning a semester of film nights, flamenco, tapas and sangria. Sadly, however, his learning experience offered him little opportunity to explore his interests, feed his imagination or personalize his learning. Very soon our fortnightly sessions became dominated by Harry’s complaints about the meaningless focus on form and lack of stimulus in the activities he was required to complete. Whereas he had enrolled in order to explore his Spanish L2 self (Dörnyei, 2009), essentially the course required him to complete grammar exercises and translate written texts. What was worse, Harry’s lack of success at memorizing verb conjugations or vocabulary resulted in damaging his L2 ego until he concluded that language learning was “all just rules” (Cotterall, 2005). In fact, it would not have been difficult for teachers to personalize some of Harry’s class activities, but engaging the learners did not seem to figure prominently on the course instructor’s agenda. At the end of the study, when I asked for feedback on the manuscript I had written about his experience, Harry replied saying: I personally think that living languages require learners who actively participate in breathing life into them. For me, Spanish was transformed from an enticingly colourful exciting promise into something flat, boring, uninspired and tedious … as the course went on, I felt little affinity with my classmates and therefore felt no desire to contribute to their experience ... (Cotterall, 2005)
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Harry’s words express the dismay he experienced as a result of having no opportunity to explore personally relevant ideas or engage with classmates during the course. This is sad, given that, in my experience, even a modest attempt to make connections between course content and learners’ identities, interests and goals are likely to result in more engaged learners. Unfortunately, the opposite was true for Harry. Eventually the course killed in him any desire to learn a foreign language.
Adult learners of English in Japan, learning independently The fourth context I wish to discuss is the most exciting language learning context in which I have worked. From 2005 to 2008, in addition to teaching at a university, I worked as a language adviser in the Center for Independent Language Learning (CILL) in Akita, Japan established by my colleague Garold Murray. The CILL was the least institutional setting in which I have worked with language learners, and represents an excellent example of learner support and personalization. At the CILL learners registered as ‘members’ so they could work independently on their language learning while making use of the CILL’s resources. There were no teachers, no lessons and no exams. The Centre was open 6 days a week and employed two staff members who provided technical assistance as well as cataloguing, maintaining and developing language learning resources. CILL members were an eclectic group of learners (ranging in age from 18 to 80) who included business people, retirees, homemakers, university students, public service officials and secondary school students. Many visited the centre every day. However, whereas the CILL was distinctive for not providing a curriculum, teaching or conventional assessment, it provided support in abundance. The first kind of support was provided by the two full time staff members who worked in the Centre. They were there to welcome and interact with learners (in English and Japanese) and help them use the CILL materials. More formally, when members first registered at the CILL, each took part in an initial interview with one of the centre advisers (Garold or myself). The focus of the interview was on helping the learner identify some realistic goals and assess their approximate level in relation to the materials available in the centre. The second kind of support provided was access to a one-on-one learning advising session once a week. These sessions were sometimes conducted in Japanese, but the agenda was always the same; learners requested a session when they wished to ask about their
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progress or discuss a problem they were experiencing. As a result of these sessions, our relationships with regular members developed in a way that helped a learning community to develop. The third example of support was regular seminars provided on topics such as vocabulary learning, listening strategies or independent language learning itself. These were offered on Saturday mornings and were always well attended. Naturally a large amount of support was also provided through the texts, learning resources, technology and documentation we developed for the CILL. Learners who had difficulty understanding spoken English for instance, were directed to graded readers with audio recordings or TV programmes with subtitles in Japanese and English. In addition, over time we produced a bank of Strategy guides (in Japanese and English) in which we summarized advice about ways of addressing different language goals such as expanding vocabulary or improving listening skills. However, perhaps the most unique kind of support was the community itself. Members came to know each other through meeting regularly at the Centre, attending special CILL events such as Christmas and Easter celebrations, and taking part in regular events such as movie nights. One of the Japanese CILL workers believed that members’ relationships defied conventional Japanese social norms in that friendships developed rapidly and certain relationship rules did not seem to apply. For instance, some CILL members began socializing together outside the centre after having known each other for only a matter of weeks; typically relationships amongst Japanese people form over much longer periods of time. The ‘foreign-ness’ of this unique language learning environment may have helped make this possible. Other affordances which emerged in the CILL setting, as Table 1 indicates, were authentic learner engagement and personalization of their learning. For instance, one member had a daughter living in France married to a Frenchman. Saito-san’s1 goal was to be able to communicate with her son-in-law using English, their lingua franca. Accordingly she visited the CILL 5 times every week and worked on the vocabulary and listening skills she needed in order to be able to communicate with her son-in-law in English about the issues that mattered to her.
1
Not her real name
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Undergraduate students of academic writing, United Arab Emirates Finally, I would like to consider my most recent teaching context in relation to our model. From 2012 to 2016 I taught a research writing course (in English) to undergraduates at a university in the United Arab Emirates. In this course, learners were asked to explore an issue that they genuinely wished to know more about. While this might sound like a standard approach to course design, some writing courses seem to focus on issues that are already familiar for the learners and which therefore do not offer the opportunity for genuine exploration. One of the challenges I have encountered in attempting to make exploration a feature of the pedagogical environment is learner resistance. By the time students arrive at university, they have been exposed to a range of teaching approaches, many of which assign them a passive role. If, in the past, they have been prevented from making choices about the focus of their classes, they can be reluctant to accept this responsibility. Over a four year period teaching the research writing course, I observed my students engage with a huge range of issues and gain confidence in arguing a case. For the sake of coherence, I asked that all their research projects relate in some way to the UAE. Consequently, learners were able to share readings and debate common issues. Over the years, learners explored issues such as the causes of the horrendous road toll, the increasing rate of divorce amongst Emiratis, and the growing incidence of obesity amongst UAE residents. But the most memorable student research paper for me was that of a Syrian student who investigated reasons for the high cost of tuition at the university. His motivation for exploring this topic was his sense of personal guilt at the enormous financial sacrifice his family in Syria had made in order to fund his studies. The final draft of Said’s research paper was the best I read in four years of teaching the course. His success was due in part, no doubt, to his strong personal motivation for writing about the topic. In addition to creating a learning environment in which engagement and exploration were fostered, the course provided high levels of learner support through constant conferencing and extensive oral and written feedback (from peers and the teacher) on successive drafts. While producing their research papers, learners not only discovered and shared new knowledge, but also learned to critique existing knowledge, practices and policies – a key goal of university education. The entire approach was based on personalizing the research. Opportunities for learners to reflect on their learning (about writing and about
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research) were offered throughout the course but for most students, understandably, the project itself (the content rather than the process) tended to dominate.
Pedagogical Implications So, what do these five stories tell us about the pedagogical model? First of all, I hope they reflect a profound respect for the learner. Any attempt to create a learning environment rich in these affordances should be based on an understanding that the most important element in the learning situation is the learner. Armed with an understanding of the conditions needed for effective language learning and knowledge of our learners’ needs, pedagogues are able to shape the learning environment in a way that favours effective language learning. Second, I hope this discussion highlights the feasibility of promoting learner autonomy in vastly different learning contexts and learners. If we believe the affordances in the model are important, we need to think of ways of creating the conditions where they can flourish. However, there is no need for us to engage in this endeavour alone. By inviting learners to talk about what most interests and motivates them, we can learn better how to help. Third, I hope that my analysis of the five different settings has highlighted ways in which the different affordances overlap and interact. While the model may provide a useful heuristic method for investigating and analyzing different language learning settings, it is of course artificial to view these affordances as discrete phenomena. Taken together, the affordances provide a means of evaluating the language learning environments where we are operating, and considering ways in which the context could be manipulated in order to enhance the learning opportunities. Engagement If learners are to be fully engaged in their language learning, their teachers need to know them well enough to be able to create appropriate links between the learners and the learning activities. Using learners’ texts is likely to increase engagement. Last semester in my academic writing class, I talked to learners about the importance of making the first few sentences of their research papers attractive for the reader. While the principle I was discussing might have been clear, naturally enough, one learner asked me for examples. So overnight I cut and pasted into a handout the first few sentences of each learner’s paper.
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Underneath each student extract, I listed a couple of strategies which I believed would make their opening livelier, as in the following example: Student early draft: Attaining social, economic and environmental sustainability is a national aim for advanced countries. Since the United Arab Emirates’ land is arid, desalination plays a major role in providing UAE’s citizens with the government’s subsidized free, or almost free potable water. Teacher commentary: I suggest you highlight some of the contrasts in the UAE context e.g. material wealth v scarcity of water; economic wealth v environmental degradation. Try to add some drama and contrast; use hyperbole to create an impact with your opening sentences. Student final draft: Although the United Arab Emirates is the land of lavish wealth and opportunities, its people may go thirsty in the near future. The tragedy of the UAE is the poverty of its fresh water resources. While the land is rich in oil, it is also extremely arid and barren, which threatens its environmental sustainability. This task successfully engaged even the most reluctant writers. Many reported that although they found it challenging to evaluate their classmates’ introductions, the strategy was easy to apply to their own work. Exploration If we accept that exploration is a key affordance of autonomous language learning, we need to ensure that our materials and tasks stimulate genuine curiosity and allow for multiple, diverse responses. Whether we are teaching reading or writing skills, or providing speaking and listening practice, there must be an element of the unknown in the tasks, the texts, the procedures and the outcomes. In this way, language learning proceeds through an authentic search for meaning. Personalization The implication of teachers embracing the principle of personalization is obvious. It begins with a requirement that teachers really know their learners so that they can cater effectively to their needs, interests and learning styles. It also requires an ongoing
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conversation with learners and an openness to incorporating their interests. Often this results in increased preparation time. But resisting learners’ wishes is futile. If they cannot see how the subject matter and tasks relate to them, learning will not be effective. The other implication is that diverse approaches are needed, since individual learners will prefer different types of activities. This makes the teacher’s job both more complex and more demanding. However, it also makes the learning more real. Reflection Acknowledging the importance of reflection in autonomous language learning demands that teachers constantly focus on transferring particular learning into general insights. While much classroom discourse is dominated by talk about a particular text or task, if it is to be useful, today’s task must enhance tomorrow’s learning (Paul Nation, personal communication). This is one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. For instance, after a group of learners finish working with a particular written text, it is essential that the teacher connect that learning experience to a discussion of what makes reading any text easy or difficult. I see this as a kind of two-dimensional dialogue; in fact, this was the reasoning behind our incorporating ‘metacognitive commentary’ into our early language learning materials at Victoria University of Wellington. If we converse with our learners only about particular texts or tasks, we are not helping them understand how they can continue learning independently in the future. Support The pedagogical implications of providing appropriate learning support are profound. It is our responsibility to create learning environments where the activities we engage our learners with are achievable, given the range of scaffolds we have provided. Once again, this implies that teachers know their learners well enough to be able to accurately anticipate the kind of support they need. It also implies that the learning environment is one in which learners feel comfortable asking for help. Most classroom teachers are expert at providing structured ways to support learners, through conferences, email, in-class discussions, and written and oral feedback. We also need to systematically build support into our materials and activities. Conclusion I am not proposing a neat formula for classroom practice – a kind of PPP of autonomy. Rather, I am suggesting the kind of language learning environments and
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opportunities and environments needed for learners to learn to be effective independent learners. There is no doubt that it is challenging to ensure these affordances can emerge in the language learning contexts where we work. It is, however, an important and worthy goal. Collaborating with learners in order to create these opportunities is essential if we wish to facilitate effective language learning.
Notes on the Contributor Sara Cotterall has conducted research into learner autonomy in language learning for more than 30 years. She is a former convenor of the AILA Research Network on Learner Autonomy in Language Learning (19986-2002) and has taught in Australasia, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Sara is currently an Adjunct Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. References
Anderson, N. J. (2012). Metacognition: Awareness of language learning. In S. Mercer, S. Ryan & M. Williams (Eds.), Psychology for language learning: Insights from research, theory and practice (pp. 169-187). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Benson, P. (2011). Teaching and researching autonomy. Harlow: Longman/Pearson. Cotterall, S. (2005). “It’s just rules … that’s all it is at this stage …” In P. Benson & D. Nunan (Eds.), Learners’ stories: Difference and diversity in language learning (pp. 101-118). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Cotterall, S., & Murray, G. (2009). Enhancing metacognitive knowledge: Structure, affordances and self. System, 37(1), 34-45. doi:10.1016/j.system.2008.08.003 Crabbe, D. (2003). The quality of language learning opportunities. TESOL Quarterly, 37(1), 9-34. doi:10.2307/3588464 Dam, L., & Legenhausen, L. (1999). Language acquisition in an autonomous learning environment: Learners' self-evaluations and external assessments compared. In S. Cotterall & D. Crabbe (Eds.), Learner autonomy in language learning: Defining the field and effecting change (pp. 89-98). Frankfurt, Germany: Peter Lang. Dörnyei, Z. (2009). The L2 motivational self system. In Z. Dörnyei & E. Ushioda (Eds.), Motivation, language identity and the L2 self (pp. 9-42). Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. Menezes, V. (2011). Affordances for language learning beyond the classroom. In P. Benson & H. Reinders (Eds.), Beyond the language classroom (pp. 59-71). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Murray, G. (2013). Pedagogy of the possible: Imagination, autonomy and space. Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, 3(3), 377-396. doi:10.14746/ssllt.2013.3.3.4
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SiSAL Journal Vol. 8, No. 2, June 2017, 116-134 Tassinari, M. G. (2016). Emotions and feelings in language advising discourse. In C. Gkonou, D. Tatzl & S. Mercer (Eds.), New Directions in Language Learning Psychology (pp. 71–96). Basel, Switzerland: Springer. Uzuka, M. (2016). Five years at the L-café: The secret of its success. In G. Murray & N. Fujishima (Eds.), Social spaces for language learning: Stories from the Lcafé (pp. 21–30). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave. doi:10.1057/978113730103.0006 van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Boston, MA: Kluwer. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. 1
I am greatly indebted to my colleagues, Naomi Fujishima and Mariko Uzuka, who worked with me on these projects. 2 For more information and photographs of the English Café, the L-café, people and events, visit the L-café homepage and Facebook page: http://l-cafe.ccsv.okayamau.ac.jp/english/activities.html; and on Facebook, type ‘L-café Okayama University’ into the search window, or type the full address into your search engine: https://www.facebook.com/lcafeokayamauniversity/
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