Learner Autonomy &

Language Awareness

By: Melissa Riddle and Sarah Adelman

Promoting Learner Autonomy

“Learners must no longer sit there and expect to be taught; teachers must no longer stand up there teaching all the time. Teachers have to learn to let go and learners have to learn to take hold”Brian Page, 1992, p.84

Psychological Stand Point

Cognitive Psychology

Humanistic Psychology

Educational Psychology

Learner Autonomy in L2

Self-Instruction

Self-Direction

Self-Access

Individualized Instruction

DiscussionFocusing on a class you have taught or taken,

consider the degree of autonomy exercised by the learners

Think about factors that might have contributed to total, partial, or no learner control.

Narrow View vs. Broad View

Narrow View – chief goal of learner autonomy is to learn to learn

Broad View- chief goal should be to learn to liberate

Narrow View

Enabling learners to learn how to learnToolsTraining

Primary Focus- learner’s academic achievement through strategic engagement“ability to take charge of

one’s own learning”

Learner Autonomy

What it is..

Develop a capacity for critical thinking

Discover learning potential

Take responsibility for learning

Face weakness and failure

Develop Self Control & Self Discipline

Give up total dependence on teacher

Understand autonomy is complex

What it is not…

Autonomy is not indepence

Autonomy is not context-free

Autonomy is not a steady state

Four Processes – Anna Chamot

Enable learners to exercises control over learningPlanningMonitoringProblem SolvingEvaluating

Page 134

Learning StrategiesTaxonomy by Rebecca Oxford

6 categories3 direct3 indirect

Direct- directly involve target language

Indirect- support and manage language learning without indirectly involving the target language

Learner-centered

DiscussionIn what ways can teachers

contribute to the development of learner autonomy?

Learner Training

Teachers

Negotiate with learners

Share with learners Encourage discussion Increase awareness

of alternative strategies

Allow learners to form own view

Counseling and guidance

Learners

Identify learning strategies and styles

Stretch strategies and styles

Evaluate language performance

Reach out for opportunities

Seek teacher intervention

Collaborate with other learners

Opportunities to communicate

Broad View

Learn a language as a means to an end, the end being learning to liberate

Empowers learners to be critical thinkers in order to realize their potential

Paulo Freire- liberate learning from the constraints of schooling

Take into account the sociopolitical factors that shape the culture of the L2 classroom.

Meaningful Liberatory Autonomy

Encourage learners to assume the role of mini-ethnographers

Write diaries and journal entries

Help with the formation of learning communities

Enable them to think critically

Provide opportunities to explore unfolding frontiers

Degrees of Autonomy

Initial Stage- emphasis on raising the learner’s awareness

Intermediary Stage- emphasis on allowing the learner to choose from a range of options

Advanced Stage- emphasis is on learner determination of own goals, task, materials

Closing

Academic Autonomy vs. Liberatory Autonomy

Autonomy is COMPLEX

Teachers let go

Learners take hold

Fostering Language Awareness

Language awareness: “A person’s sensitivity to and conscious awareness of the nature of language and its role in human life” (Kuma 157)

Discussion

What role did a teacher (or anybody else) play in

promoting your sensitivity to language and its role in life?

Purpose of Language Awareness

British educators sought to bridge the gap between primary and secondary level school language expectations, and between first and second language teaching and activities

It was an attempt to eliminate prejudice and antagonism that are caused by ignorance

Whole Language Approach

America’s answer to Language Awareness

It integrated reading, writing, speaking, and listening to provide a richer language experience

It sought to acknowledge linguistic and dialectic variations within languages as well as between them as valid

Discussion

How can we as educators validate and utilize our students’ standard and nonstandard linguistic

backgrounds in the classroom?

Teachers and Language Awareness

Teachers with a limited knowledge of language functions and characteristics may result in failure to accommodate students’ learning needsAbout Language: Tasks for

Teachers of English was published to address this concern

LATE

Language Awareness in Teacher Education (LATE) is an alternative program designed to deal with teachers’ inadequacies in language awareness

A successful LATE class should:Take an experimental

approach to LAReject language as a productStudy language critically

Critical Language Awareness

Since LA focuses on details of languages rather than their overall role in life, CLA was developed to focus on that

English teachers should view themselves as “Language teachers” with no specific tie to the English language, but a devotion to all languages

Discussion

How do you feel about the notion that English teachers should consider themselves

“Language teachers?” How would this definition change your classroom?

Incorporating CLA into a Second Language Classroom

Select textbooks not only for their content, but their ability to challenge students’ intellectual abilities as well

Utilize open-ended questions and discussions in the classroom

Encourage discussion of social and cultural topics

(Kuma 166)

Microstrategies for Fostering Language Awareness

Examine register and formality and its effect in language

Examine doublespeak and its rhetorical effect

Examine language choice in politics and its effect on speakers and listeners

(More detail available in Kuma 168-175)

Conclusion

Language awareness is not a unit that can be incorporated into a classroom, instead it is a philosophy that must be lived every day. By ensuring that we are aware of the importance of language and its effects on us as listeners, we can help our students learn to harness and understand the power of language.