Developing learner autonomy

Learner Autonomy

In page 135, Kumaravadivelu states what to me are two indispensable aspects in the development of learner autonomy: the learners’ awareness of learning strategies, and (b) the teachers’ effectiveness of learner training.

Making students aware of the number of learning strategies that are available to them, of their own learning styles, of how these strategies have to combined for particular settings and of how strategies can change and be personalized as they move forward in the learning process depends on a number of factors that need to be looked at closely and that I will only mention here. Among these factors are the student’s previous home and school education, the type of learner he/she, student’s intrinsic/extrinsic motivation in learning the language, the student’s cultural background, and numerous socio-affective factors that influence the student’s involvement in his/her learning process, and many others.

Of course, it seems naive to believe that an individual teacher will be able to get to know all these factors in such a manner that he/she is able to offer each particular student what they require to learn and become willing to use a number of learning strategies which would eventually lead to different levels of autonomy. However, it is my belief that it is possible for the teacher to collaboratively find these strategies by engaging the students in the learning process. This is obviously no easy task. And I believe that one way to do this is by explicitly teaching learning strategies by pointing out their benefits and by modeling them in class session. I consider myself an advocate of this model and am willing to ‘neglect’ the teaching of content in order to make sure that students understand the importance of autonomous learning and mastery of learning strategies. I am convinced (this is something I would like to study through a comparative study by teaching two classes, one of them being a control group) that making students aware of the instructional goals as well as the ways strategies can be used to reach those goals is a much more effective way not only to obtain better pedagogical results, but to educate learner’s who will have more control over their language education and that will become lifelong learners.   

The biggest challenge in this, at least this what I can derive from my own experience, is to develop the rapport necessary for each student to open up and start looking at learning as an internal process rather than as something you get by someone else teaching in a class. This is probably the first step in transforming students’ minds and having them become willing to take over their own learning process. Put this way, this sounds simple enough but it is not, since it involves constant modeling, discussion, reflection and expertise.  This leads to the second aspect mentioned by Kumaravadivelu: the teachers’ effectiveness of learner training.

In my opinion, making teachers aware of the importance of these matters and, more importantly, having them become effective strategy ‘coaches’ is even harder than developing student’s autonomy. And here I’m taking about of teacher as a social force, not teachers at a particular school. I mean teachers across a country or in the case of the US, a state. Even if we sometimes go crazy with students because they don’t seem to care, because they want to be spoon-fed and not worry about how, why and what they learn, I have been able to meet teachers who work wonders on the most reluctant/indifferent/absent/uninterested/isolated students. No matter what their age is, I’m convinced that a person is always willing to learn if they realize we have something (interesting) to teach them (this is a quote from a Depeche Mode song). Of course, I reckon the idealism in this statement, but to me a teacher is (or should be) the eternal optimistic. Unfortunately, this seems to be the exception, not the rule. And this is to me the biggest challenge: to convince teachers as a whole that teaching is not only transferring knowledge, to make aware of the importance of the student’s agency and ability to control their own learning. This involves loosing what most teachers believe to be their source of authority: the belief that they are the proprietors of knowledge.

Transforming classroom practices require this paradigm shift, which is in itself a educational revolution. It requires changes at all levels in the educational system as well as a close examination of the type of education future teachers receive in college. It involves teaching becoming autonomous themselves so they are able to recognize the value of autonomy for learning. Probably, this requires a whole new generation of teachers to take place so we need to look carefully at how this autonomy is promoted amongst future teachers.