Title Learner autonomy and second/foreign language learning
Why learner autonomy?
Helping language learners to become autonomous
Current developments and future trends
Learner autonomy is a problematic term because it is widely confused with self-
instruction. It is also a slippery concept because it is notoriously difficult to define precisely.
The rapidly expanding literature has debated, for example, whether learner autonomy
should be thought of as capacity or behaviour; whether it is characterised by learner
responsibility or learner control; whether it is a psychological phenomenon with political
implications or a political right with psychological implications; and whether the
development of learner autonomy depends on a complementary teacher autonomy (for a
comprehensive survey, see Benson 2001).
There is nevertheless broad agreement that autonomous learners understand the
purpose of their learning programme, explicitly accept responsibility for their learning,
share in the setting of learning goals, take initiatives in planning and executing learning
activities, and regularly review their learning and evaluate its effectiveness (cf. Holec 1981,
Little 1991). In other words, there is a consensus that the practice of learner autonomy
requires insight, a positive attitude, a capacity for reflection, and a readiness to be
proactive in self-management and in interaction with others. This working definition
captures the challenge of learner autonomy: a holistic view of the learner that requires us
to engage with the cognitive, metacognitive, affective and social dimensions of language
learning and to worry about how they interact with one another.
Why learner autonomy?
There are two general arguments in favour of trying to make learners autonomous. First, if
they are reflectively engaged with their learning, it is likely to be more efficient and
effective, because more personal and focused, than otherwise; in particular, what is
learned in educational contexts is more likely to serve learners’ wider agendas. Second, if
learners are proactively committed to their learning, the problem of motivation is by
definition solved; although they may not always feel entirely positive about all aspects of
their learning, autonomous learners have developed the reflective and attitudinal
resources to overcome temporary motivational setbacks.
In the particular case of second and foreign languages there is a third argument. Effective
communication depends on a complex of procedural skills that develop only through use;
and if language learning depends crucially on language use, learners who enjoy a high
degree of social autonomy in their learning environment should find it easier than
otherwise to master the full range of discourse roles on which effective spontaneous
Helping language learners to become autonomous
Attempts to theorise the process of ‘autonomisation’ (e.g., Little 1999, 2000a, 2000b) have
been strongly influenced by neo-Vygotskian psychology, which sees learning as a matter
of supported performance and emphasises the interdependence of the cognitive and
social-interactive dimensions of the learning process. According to this model, the
teacher’s role is to create and maintain a learning environment in which learners can be
autonomous in order to become more autonomous. The development of their learning
skills is never entirely separable from the content of their learning, since learning how to
learn a second or foreign language is in some important respects different from learning
how to learn maths or history or biology.
Dam’s (1995) account of the gradual ‘autonomisation’ of teenage learners of English in a
Danish middle school provides a classic illustration. Her key techniques are: use of the
target language as the preferred medium of teaching and learning from the very beginning;
the gradual development by the learners of a repertoire of useful learning activities; and
ongoing evaluation of the learning process, achieved by a combination of teacher, peer
and self-assessment. Posters and learner logbooks play a central role in three ways: they
help learners to capture much of the content of learning, support the development of
speaking, and provide a focus for assessment.
How to support the development of learner autonomy is also a key issue for self-access
language learning schemes. Where self-access learning is not embedded in a taught
course, it is usually necessary to provide learners with some kind of advisory service:
learner counselling is central to the self-access literature. The most successful self-access
projects tend to be those that find effective and flexible ways of supporting learners;
particularly worthy of note is the approach developed at the University of Helsinki
(Karlsson et al. 1997).
It is sometimes assumed that the central research question to be answered is: ‘Does
learner autonomy work?’ But this is to confuse ‘autonomy’, which works by definition, with
attempts at ‘autonomisation’, which can take many different forms and may or may not
succeed. Similarly misguided are attempts to measure the development of autonomy in
learners as if it could be detached from the goals and content of learning.
For more than a decade Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen have studied the linguistic
development of Dam’s learners using empirical techniques derived from second language
acquisition research. They have provided a wealth of evidence to show how and why
Dam’s approach is more successful than mainstream teacher-led approaches (see, e.g.,
Dam and Legenhausen 1996, Legenhausen 1999a, 1999b, 1999c). Approaches that
equate the process of ‘autonomisation’ with ‘strategy training’ have been less successful:
the benefits of teaching learners strategies have still to be demonstrated.
Another important research question has been whether learner autonomy is an exclusively
Western cultural construct and thus alien to learners in other cultures. There is convincing
evidence to support the view that learner autonomy is a psychological phenomenon that
can transcend cultural difference, though learning behaviour is always and inevitably
culturally conditioned (see, e.g., Aoki and Smith 1999, Littlewood 2001).
Current developments and future trends
Despite the ever-expanding literature, learner autonomy remains a minority pursuit,
perhaps because all forms of ‘autonomisation’ threaten the power structures of educational
culture. The Council of Europe’s European Language Portfolio (ELP; Little 2002), however,
is a tool that may bring ‘autonomisation’ to much larger numbers of learners. The ELP was
first launched as a concept in 1997 and has since been realised in almost 40 different
models, all of which conform to Principles and Guidelines laid down by the Council of
Europe (http://culture.coe.int/portfolio). The ELP has three obligatory components: a
language passport, which summarises the owner’s linguistic identity; a language
biography, which is designed to provide a reflective accompaniment to the process of
learning and using second and foreign languages; and a dossier, in which the owner
collects evidence of his or her developing proficiency in second and foreign languages.
Perhaps because regular goal setting and self-assessment are central to its effective use,
the ELP has been shown to engage teachers as well as learners in processes likely to
lead to more autonomous learning (see Schärer 2000, Little and Perclová 2001, Ushioda
and Ridley 2002). It seems probable that in the next few years much of the research
relevant to learner autonomy will be prompted by the desire to explore the impact of the
ELP on learners, teachers and educational systems.
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Dam, L. and Legenhausen, L. (1996). The acquisition of vocabulary in an autonomous
learning environment – the first months of beginning English. In R. Pemberton et al.
(eds), Taking Control: Autonomy in Language Learning, 265–80. Hong Kong: Hong
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Holec, H. (1981). Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning. Oxford: Pergamon. (First
published 1979, Strasbourg: Council of Europe.)
Karlsson, L., Kjisik, F. and Nordlund, J. (1997). From Here to Autonomy. A Helsinki
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Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 38: 77–88.
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Autonomy: Future Directions, 15–23. Harlow: Longman/Pearson Education.
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