Week 7

Exploring learner autonomy has been really involving and thought-provoking. As it is a very popular topic nowadays, I’d worked on the issue and used it in my teaching before though sharing different views and experiences always gives new insights.

An article by Dimitrios Thanasoulas, What Is Learner Autonomyand How Can It Be Fostered?, offers some very nice definitions of learner autonomy by different scholars, and they together make a clear picture of an autonomous learner. It also presents five basic ways autonomy has come to be used in:

• ‘for situations in which learners study entirely on their own;
• for a set of skills which can be learned and applied in self-directed learning;
• for an inborn capacity which is suppressed by institutional education;
• for the exercise of learners' responsibility for their own learning;
• for the right of learners to determine the direction of their own learning.’ 

The points make it clear that learner autonomy is a very useful skill which should be promoted and developed at as an early age as possible. Adults, whose capacity of independent learning has been ‘suppressed by institutional education’ have to struggle more to develop the skill because as Samuel P-H Sheu puts it in his article ‘previous learning experience influences development of learner autonomy.’ However, there are two groups of strategies which can be suited and applied at different stages and levels, 1.Cognitive strategies such as repetition, note-taking, deduction, question for clarification, etc. and 2. Metacognitive strategies which I think better fit adult learners or later stages of a learning process. These include:

• directed attention, when deciding in advance to concentrate on general aspects of a task;
• selective attention, paying attention to specific aspects of a task;
• self-monitoring, i.e., checking one's performance as one speaks;
• self-evaluation, i.e., appraising one's performance in relation to one's own standards;
• self-reinforcement, rewarding oneself for success.

I have never thought of self-reinforcement as a strategy, which was mentioned in the same article. I like the idea of rewarding oneself for success and I think I should suggest it to my students too. I suppose they can decide on the rewards themselves.

The material pooled in our Wallwisher has made a wonderful bonus to encouraging learner autonomy. The tool itself can be used for brainstorming, collecting feedback, keeping notes, etc. Besides it can make an easy way for sharing ideas and suggestions while working in groups, e.g. on a project. It can also be used for making and posting letters, postcards, etc. on different occasions, which will help students develop their writing skills and at the same time promote building a community.  As simple as making a wish