Nghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu Long

Nghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu LongNghiên cứu thăm dò ý kiến từ giảng viên và sinh viên tiếng Anh về nhận thức và thực hiện dạy học tự chủ đối với sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại một Trường Đại học ở Đồng Bằng Sông Cửu Long

Background of the research

Recently, the importance of autonomy in second language learning has been intensively concerned Autonomy plays a vital role in language education because in any educational contexts, learners are autonomous when they establish their own learning goals and have responsibility for planning, managing and evaluating particular learning activities and the learning process overall The practice of learner autonomy (henceforth LA) not only depends upon, but also develops and expands the learner’s ability for detachment, critical reflection, decision making, and independent action (Little, 1991) Yet, LA is originated from European education (Benson, 2006) and whether it is suitable for Asian learning style (Pennycook, 1997) is both Western educators’ and Asian educators’ concern Therefore, how Vietnamese university students, can be encouraged to increase their autonomous practices, which is a challenge to the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) as well as educators.

In the context of the informative technological development these days and the changing situation of ELT in the 21 st century, autonomy is considered as a crucial goal in teaching and learning process Therefore, the Vietnamese MOET has supported the Law of Higher Education to promote the quality of the higher educational system approaching international standards in the 21 st century Recently, the Vietnamese MOET has tried to integrate and develop LA in the credit education system A number of new policies have been issued In Article 40, the Vietnamese Education Law (National Assembly of Vietnam, 2005, p.13) mentions the requirements on contents and methods of education in higher education, in which LA plays a crucial role: “Training methods in higher education must be brought into play to foster the learners’ability to be active learners, to study and to research by themselves, and to foster their practical abilities, self-motivation, creative thinking,and ambition” Hence, teaching and learning method in higher education needs to be fulfilled with three aims: (1) fostering students to learn autonomously, self-research, (2) helping students to increase their creative thinking, (3) training practical ability, attending scientific research and application Meanwhile, the government indicates that Vietnamese education system should be innovated totally to enrich students’ creativity, autonomous learning, and lifelong learning.

Additionally, accompanying the Decision No.1400/QĐ-TTg, 30 September

2008 issued by the Prime Minister (Vietnamese Prime Minister, 2008) in “The National Foreign Language Project 2020”, teaching and learning foreign languages in National educational system in 2008 – 2020 period have been innovated to meet the requirements of industrialization – modernization and fast emerging economic conditions of the country in the market-oriented socialism so that up to 2020 the Vietnamese young, who graduate from colleges or universities, will have had enough foreign language ability to use it independently, communicate it confidently, learn, and work in the international integration based on multilingual and multicultural settings Furthermore, accompanying the official document number 2196/BGDĐT-GDĐH, 22 April 2010 issued by the Vice Minister (Vietnamese MOET, 2010) in instruction of constructing and announcing Outcome standards, one of the program outcome standards for learners after graduating from university is that they must own their updating knowledge ability, creation at work, lifelong learning, and professional development Meanwhile, Vietnamese teachers with the traditional role are to transmit knowledge to students; they would like to teach all things in classroom However, in the rapid technological information era these days students can find knowledge by a click on the Internet Hence, teachers’ roles should change to instruct students to shape their perceptions of a certain type of autonomous learning of language acquisition, help them discover their autonomous learning ability, and offer them opportunities to make decisions about their learning.

Besides, the National Strategy for Human Resource Development, 2011–2020(Decision No.579/QĐ-TTg, 19 April by Vietnamese Prime Minister, 2011),emphasises skills for Vietnamese human resource such as foreign language competence, especially English What is more, in the developmental education policy in 2011 – 2020 period, accompanying the Decision No 711/QĐ-TTg, 13 June 2012 issued by the Prime Minister (Vietnamese Prime Minister, 2012), the Vietnamese government has identified to go on innovating teaching methods and assessment, training students with the aim of developing their activeness, creativity, and LA ability In addition, accompanying the Resolution No.29/NQ-TW, 4 November 2013 issued by General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (Central Executive Committee, 2013), the duty of Vietnamese education to innovate education and training basically and comprehensively is to develop learners’ creative ability, learner autonomy, and lifelong learning Since 2015, Vietnam has been a member of the ASEAN and ASEAN Economic Community However, one of the challenges of Vietnamese students and Vietnamese young human resource is their weak foreign language competence (Nguyễn Đức Thịnh, 2015) In short, teaching and learning foreign languages, especially English, and fostering Vietnamese students’ LA ability have become a primary concern for the Vietnamese government and the MOET.

For Mekong Delta, the Decision No.1033/QĐ-TTg, 30 June 2011 issued by the Prime Minister on developing education, training, and vocational training inMekong Delta in the period 2011 – 2015 brought hopes for a breakthrough in enhancing the labors’ education and quality (Vietnamese Prime Minister, 2011).However, after five years this Decision was conducted, the quality of education and training in Mekong Delta was still lower than other regions in Vietnam (Đỗ Nam,Tân Thành, & Phùng Dũng, 2017) Mekong Delta consists of 13 provinces and the majority of local people live on growing rice, fruit, and aquaculture.Notwithstanding gaining a number of remarkable achievements of agriculture, this area has been a “depression” in Vietnamese education, especially in teaching and learning English According to Lê Văn (2017), foreign language competence isVietnamese students’ weakness, which is one of the conclusions of the report for analyzing Vietnamese education at the Educational Forum 2017 In this report, only13.55% of Mekong Delta students at schools gained the standard level of competence in English This report confirmed that students’ weak competence in English was the big barrier when they attended colleges or universities, or participated in labor market in the context of Vietnam For certain reasons, traditional teaching and learning English, or teacher-centered approach in Mekong Delta still somehow exists although educational reforms of English language education in Vietnam have been conducted for over ten years In the rapid technological information era these days students can easily use a wide variety of technological devices for English learning (Hoàng Nguyễn Thu Trang, 2017) As a consequence, teacher role should change so as to help students to foster their LA ability effectively Meanwhile, like many other countries in the world in general and other universities in Vietnam in particular, Mekong Delta’s higher education has applied a credit system in recent years Under this system, students are required to rely more on themselves in learning rather than on their instructors in the classes. The problem that appears here is how students are able to study independently of teachers given that they did not experience this during previous education.

Although there has been a lot of research about LA conducted around the world in many ways and a variety of studies of EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices towards learner autonomy in Western nations, Asian countries, and Vietnam such as Borg (2006), Borg and Al-Busaidi (2012b), Keuk and Heng (2016), Haji-Othman and Wood (2016), Tapinta (2016), Alhaysony (2016), Nguyễn Văn Lợi (2016), and Dogan and Mirici (2017) as well as EFL students’ perceptions and practices regarding LA in Asian contexts generally and in Vietnam particularly (i.e Balcikanli, 2010; Chan, Spratt, & Humphreys, 2002; Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012; Joshi, 2011; Lê Xuân Quỳnh, 2013; Talley, 2014), their results have yet to be comprehensively generalized and final conclusions have yet to be made Up to now, there have been one thesis of

LA (Trịnh Quốc Lập, 2005) and an article about this field (Nguyễn Văn Lợi, 2016) conducted in Cần Thơ University, in Mekong Delta, Vietnam Trịnh Quốc Lập(2005) explored LA with a tasked-based approach in a Writing course for EFL students at Cần Thơ University while Nguyễn Văn Lợi (2016) investigated EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices of LA in six universities – three in the central area and three in the South of Vietnam It needs to notice that Cần Thơ city has been the most developed city in Mekong Delta in Vietnam and Cần Thơ University is the biggest university in the South of Vietnam Therefore, further LA research in other provinces in the South of Vietnam, especially the poor and rural provinces, needs to be carried out because according to Smith and Ushida (2009) LA capacity should be localized and dealt with in particular social settings In this vein, teachers and students in different socio-cultural settings may conceptualize LA and implement it in their teaching and learning practices differently.

The present study was carried out at the Faculty of Foreign Language Education at a public university – Dong Thap University (DTU) – in the Mekong Delta, South of Vietnam DTU was upgraded to multidisciplinary university status in 2003 The strength of DTU is to educate teacher students DTU is considered a young, active university with a mission to train high-quality human resources of multi- careers, especially in educational science and pedagogies, to conduct scientific research and provide community services, to enhance the socio-economic development of the Mekong Delta DTU hopes to be a qualified and prestigious training center in the Mekong Delta and one of the universities educating high- quality teachers in Vietnam.

In addition, the Faculty of Foreign Language Education, where the researcher has worked, consists of twenty-two lecturers and has a duty to train English major teacher students and non-teacher students Like the students of the other faculties, EFL students are educated in a credit-based training system Under this system, for two periods of a subject in classroom, university students must prepare that lesson at home for four periods Additionally, accompanying the Decision No.805/QĐ-ĐHĐT, 28 October 2016 issued by DTU Rector (Dong Thap University, 2016) on issuing the Regulation for DTU students, students have to learn autonomously (at Article 4).

Since the Decision No.2080/QĐ-TTg, 22 December 2017 was issued by thePrime Minister on strengthening teaching and learning foreign languages inNational educational system for the period 2017 – 2025 (Vietnamese PrimeMinister, 2017), foreign-language autonomous learning has been developed.

However, most of English major students at Foreign Language Education Faculty at the University obtained their weaker background in English than others in the big cities like Cần Thơ City or Hồ Chí Minh City For EFL students in this faculty, especially the freshmen, they were not used to studying in a university environment because it was quite different from the learning styles during the previous stages. However, the current curriculum of English major at the University does not include any course like “LA skills in learning English at higher education” and there has not been any handbook of learning English major autonomously Thus, they faced with difficulties to adapt themselves to the needs of the university learning environment because to comprehend knowledge at higher education totally, students had to make significant efforts in learning, save a lot of time for learning autonomously, and adopt their own effective learning methods In this case, Thomas and Ben (2008) indicates that there is a wide and growing opportunity gap between urban and rural and between a wealthy elite and the great majority who remain poor For this reason, a large number of students in rural or remote or island areas have not had enough conditions to study English.

Importance of research on LA in teaching and learning English at DTU

The context of this study is that Mekong Delta tertiary education in general, and DTU in particularly have made an effort to be able to keep up with other big universities in other regions in Vietnam According to Dương Thị Hoàng Oanh (2011), autonomous skills are needed to give students necessary transferable skills for facing the real social situation after university Also, she claims that autonomy is very seldom and ineffectively practiced, and there is very little research in Vietnam into its concept and practice Actually, up to the time this study starting to be conducted in 2014, there had not yet been any research related to LA for both teachers and students carried out in this faculty, although it had run for nearly 15 years Hence, further research needs conducting in this field in such rural areas as in the Mekong Delta, South of Vietnam, especially in DTU to find out some solutions to improve EFL learners’ LA ability in a local context This study, thus, explored how much teachers and students understood the learner-autonomy concept and how they applied it in teaching and learning process in a university in Mekong Delta,South of Vietnam, where little research about LA among EFL teachers and students had been done The present study made an attempt to explore this as well as to provide more insights about LA in the views of Vietnamese-speaking EFL teachers and students, who were maybe the insiders of their own LA developing process.

Aims of the research

The present study sets out with three main aims First, it aims to understand how Vietnamese EFL teachers perceive LA and express it in their teaching practice.Second, it explores students’ understanding of LA and the ways they learn English autonomously Lastly, it investigates the relationship between the EFL teachers’ and the EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA.

Research questions

With the aims stated above, the following research questions are addressed in relation to EFL teachers and students in a Vietnamese university in the Mekong Delta:

1 What are EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices of LA?

2 What are EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA?

3 What are the relationships between EFL teachers’ and EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA?

Research significance

This study aimed to achieve some significance in LA field First of all, the present study provides necessary insights into models of LA from local EFL teachers and EFL students’ perspectives in learning environments in a rural area in Mekong Delta, South of Vietnam Second, understanding teachers’ and students’ practices of LA in EFL learning environment contributes to a LA profile for the local context in Vietnam Third, the current study contributes more knowledge to

LA field which is provided in Chapter Two.

Organization of the thesis

The thesis is held into five main chapters In Chapter One, the author would like to describe the important part of autonomy in language learning in tertiary education and the reason why this study was carried out Chapter Two discusses theories of autonomy with basic knowledge background so that the author uses them to discuss many solutions in later chapters The research design as well as methodology to fulfill this thesis presented clearly in Chapter Three After that, data were analyzed, and shown in findings, and then the results found were discussed effectively in Chapter Four Some suggestions and further research were given inChapter Five.

This chapter addresses a synthesized short description of learner autonomy in foreign/second language learning It begins with presenting the definition of LA and the role of learner autonomy in higher education is discussed Next, a summary of five definitions, and four aspects linking to LA are introduced Teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices of learner autonomy are then addressed Finally,both teachers’ and students’ assessment of LA are presented These are a base of exploring process of EFL teachers’ and students’ perceptions of LA and how they implement it in their teaching and learning.

Learner autonomy

Definition of learner autonomy

Learner autonomy was primitively defined as the “ability to take charge of one’s own learning” by Holec (1981, p.3) and up to now this definition has been cited in LA literature often Holec (1981) also states that LA ability is not inborn,but learners can obtain it by practicing it in formal education Hence, later LA has been believed and defined in practice in such a variety of ways that Little (1991) calls it as a “buzz word”.

Roles of learner autonomy

In the context of the rapid technological development today and the changing situation of teaching methods in the 21 st century, LA is considered to be a crucial goal in teaching and learning process LA in language learning is not new, but in the last three decades it has still been an interesting topic and had an extremely powerful effect on language teaching and learning (Benson, 2006; Blidi, 2017) In language learning, LA has been a major objective, especially in higher education(Sinclair, 2000) In Norman’s view (1994), LA should become an aim of education.These days, the important duty of education is to instruct students how to achieve knowledge by themselves, and how to continue to have their interest in learning.

Moreover, LA can make learners to gain their creation and independence in high levels Improving learners’ autonomous learning ability should be considered as one of the most vital factors that lecturers as well as educators try their best to conduct.

It goes without doubt that to improve students’ ability to learn autonomously becomes every teacher’s duty Borg and Al-Busaidi’s findings (2012a) point out that in terms of learner-autonomy impacts on second/foreign language learning, 93.4% of teachers agree that LA contributes to language learners’ success remarkably According to Bajrami (2015, p.149), LA promises “the positive outcomes at the university level, such as flexibility, adaptation, self-initiative, and self- direction” One more major reason for continuing exploring and developing LA at tertiary education is for the purpose of life-long learning for both teachers and students For example, in politics, lifelong learning is emphasized as “an investment in human capital” (Blidi, 2017, p.7) In other words, students should be fostered “a set of targeted skills and competencies” to meet the requirements of the present economy, culture, and job market (ibid.) It is extremely vital for research educators, policy-makers, administrators, and teachers to enhance suitable and necessary skills for students in lifelong learning In brief, LA plays an important role of instructing university students.

2.1.2.1 Learner autonomy in Asian EFL higher education

Recently, a large number of studies about the benefits of LA and the importance of fostering LA in foreign/second language education in Asian context have been conducted This shows the positive role of LA in this field in Asian university settings, especially in the context of LA considered to have originated from Western countries and so far to have been used in Asia with a crucial role to help students become active and autonomous learners For example, Dafei (2007) proves that learners’ English competence has a close-knit relationship with their LA ability In other words, when learners have good LA capacity, they will learn language better and vice versa In Balcikanli’s study (2010), when students have chances to decide their learning process, they show their positive attitude and it makes their learning more and more focused and purposeful To agree with the vital role of LA, Cakici’s findings (2017) show that LA is highly valued by participants, and they are willing to take more responsibilities for and make decisions about their own language learning Generally, the value of LA has extremely been appreciated by the researchers as well as the informants.

2.1.2.2 Learner autonomy in Vietnamese EFL higher education

These days, LA has appeared in Vietnamese MOET’s educative strategies, in Vietnamese Education Law, as mentioned in section 1.1 above, which shows the importance of LA in learning Mentioning the role of LA in higher education, Tr ịnh Quốc Lập (2005, p.17) indicates that one of the goals of English Language Teachers training programs in Vietnamese universities is LA development That means the programs aim to develop English major students’ personal and autonomous learning skills, which they will go on using after their graduation from university Therefore, by exercising autonomy learnt within the educational context, a person will have ample opportunity to practise autonomy by exposing himself to learning tasks (Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ, 2009, p.11).

In addition, Đặng Tấn Tín (2012, pp.26-27) indicates that LA “directly contributes to both processes and outcomes of learning activities”, helps “students to face the challenge of technical difficulties”, and “is especially important for knowledge construction and sustainable learning in today’s globalized world”. Besides, Lê Xuân Quỳnh (2013) considers the role of LA in three aspects such as ideology, psychology, and economy Dương Mỹ Thẩm and Seepho (2014) assert the increasing important role of LA in both academic study and teaching practices in the 21 st century by pointing out that students are taught not only knowledge but also the practices of LA Nguyễn Văn Lợi (2016) compares the Western concept of

“LA” with the Vietnamese one “tự học” (translated literally as study by oneself).After that he investigates the potential to increase LA in Vietnam and finds that the top- down education system has prevented the development of LA though it can be grown inVietnamese local context In short, LA is also crucial in learning English inVietnam.

Learner autonomy in foreign language education

Learner autonomy as ability

Holec (1981, p.3), one of the pioneers in this field provides a definition of

LA as “ability to take charge of one’s own learning” – one that is popularly cited by language researchers around the world Thus, LA is the ability to proceed to learning independently and consciously Additionally, Holec (1985, p.180) defines

LA as “a matter of acquiring those capacities which are necessary to carry out a self- directed learning programme” Meanwhile, others use the concept “capacity” instead of

“ability” for LA in their studies (Benson, 2006) For example, Little (1991, p.4) likens autonomy to “a capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent action” It is clear that Little (ibid.) emphasizes learners’ cognitive abilities to detach themselves, analyze and make decisions on their own, followed by being able to act or perform independently In more details,

Dickinson (1994) makes these LA cognitive abilities of language learners clearer through being able to recognize the objectives of what they learn in the classroom, plan their own learning goals, choose a suitable type of learning strategies, and manage and evaluate their implementation of learning strategies Moreover, Dam (1995, p.1) confirms the concept again when defining LA as “a capacity and willingness to act independently and in co-operation with others, as a socially responsible person” Littlewood (1996) agrees with others when he indicates two main attributes to LA are ability and willingness He explains learners’ autonomous learning ability is based on their “knowledge about the alternatives from which choices have to be made and the necessary skills for carrying out whatever choices seem most appropriate” (Littlewood, 1996, p.428), while learners’ willingness is based on their motivation and their confidence He strongly confirms that a learner who wants to be successful in practice autonomously must combine ability, willingness, knowledge, and skills together.

Benson (2001) also supports Holec’s view (1981, p.2) when defining LA as

“the capacity to take control over one’s learning” Although the former replaces the term “ability” of Holec (ibid.) with “capacity” and “take charge of” with “take control over”, both the former and the latter (ibid.) appear to focus on learners’ voluntary responsibility for learning In other words, Benson (ibid.) defines that LA is learners’ ability to take control over their own learning which is the main factor of all conceptualizations about LA Subsequently, he (2009, p.18) continues to develop the concept of LA as a combination of “abilities, attitudes or dispositions” Therefore, it is necessary for students to obtain their ability of learning autonomously and for teachers to adopt a crucial role in fostering this ability in learners.

Learner autonomy as responsibility

All of the above definitions of LA imply that language learners should take responsibility for their learning Holec (1981, p.3) also mentions that LA is - “to take charge of one’s learning is to have, and to hold, the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning” He emphasizes that through taking responsibility for their own learning, autonomous learners could manage all decisions about their learning such as determining objectives, clearly showing contents and progressions, choosing methods and techniques used, observing the process of acquisition, and evaluating their learning Dickinson (1987, p.11) points to LA as a “situation in which the learner is totally responsible for all of the decisions concerned with his or her learning and the implementation of those decisions” (as cited in Hui, 2010) According to Little’s definition of LA (1991, p.4), autonomous learners are people who take responsibility for their own learning apparently and obviously.

Ho and Crookall (1995) suggest a model with many certain activities for Chinese learners taking responsibility and for their learner autonomy ability studied and obtained They focus on learners’ taking responsibility for their own learning through certain actions such as making decisions about their learning, study plan, evaluation of their learning, monitoring, and assessment For instance, they show the ways to help students develop skills to make decisions, “take responsibility for the simulation tasks” namely “goal setting”, “weekly meetings to discuss the affairs of state”, and “for the learning and use of necessary skills” such as “conflict resolution skills, language skills for professional communication, and time management and contingency planning” (Ho and Crookall, 1995, pp 6-7).

Taking LA as responsibility also means developing a set of behaviors and skills which Benson and Voller (1997, p.2) classify into five main components. Specifically, learners can be considered autonomous learners if they are able to

“study entirely on their own”, form “a set of skills which can be learned and applied in self-directed learning”, activate their “inborn capacity which is suppressed by institutional education”, implement their “responsibility for their own learning”, and

“determine the direction of their learning” In addition, Littlewood (1999) maintains that autonomy should consist of two characteristics: 1 Learners should have a duty to their learning process; 2 Learners have to design their learning objectives, find their learning styles, and assess their learning process It can be clearly seen that learners should be directly responsible and active in their learning As a student pays attention to his learning, he will try his best to find out his suitable learning way for him, plan his short-term and long-term study, and then self-evaluate what he gains.

Through above researchers’ views of LA, it seems that autonomous learners have to take responsibility for their own learning activities To gain that, they need to have conscious attitudes in learning which are discussed in the immediate next section.

Learner autonomy as cognitive processes

One more definition of LA is supported as cognitive process by researchers. Specifically, Wenden (1991, p.15) believes that autonomous learners are the ones who “have acquired the learning strategies, the knowledge about learning, and the attitudes that enable them to use these skills and knowledge confidently, flexibly, appropriately and independently of a teacher” She argues that to develop LA, knowledge about learning strategies (cognition, self-management), knowledge about language learning (metacognition), and knowledge about learner attitudes are essential Dickinson (1995, p.167) also considers LA as “an attitude towards learning” In other words, students should be prepared to make decisions about their own learning In White’s study (1995, p.209), LA is thought as “an attitude on the part of the learners towards taking control of the language learning process”. Dam (1995, p.1) also gives one definition of LA: “Learner autonomy is characterized by a readiness to take charge of one’s own learning in the service of one’s needs and purposes” Little (2000, p.16) highlights the notions of individuality and independence as being the nucleus of the concept of LA He argues that “individual cognition is embedded in processes of social interaction” In brief, learners’ cognition of LA and their attitude to LA are very important for their own learning.

As mentioned above, metacognition is one of the important factors of learning attitude for autonomous students to take According to Hennessey (1999, p.3),metacognition is “awareness of one’s own thinking, awareness of the content of one’s conceptions, an active monitoring of one’s cognitive processes, an attempt to regulate one’s cognitive processes in relationship to further learning, and an application of a set of heuristics as an effective device for helping people organize their methods of attack on problems in general” Also, Rolheiser, Bower, and Stevahn (2000, p.32) define metacognition as “thinking about thinking” In other words, it is considered as learners’ understanding of their thinking processes with the aim of obtaining a number of “cognitive skills” to finish a task or gain a goal or final product Rolheiser et al (2000, p.34) indicate that “students who have acquired metacognition skills are better able to compensate for both low ability and insufficient information” The concept of metacognition is further supported by Harris (2003, p.4) who maintains that “metacognition is concerned with guiding the learning process itself and so includes strategies for planning, monitoring and evaluating both language use and language learning, key elements in developing autonomy”.

In short, learners’ consciousness in autonomous learning plays an important role How to help students control this cognitive process is very vital to develop their learning effects.

Learner autonomy in lifelong learning

According to Thomson (1996, p.78), language learning is “a life-long endeavor” LA lays the foundation of lifelong learning Jacobs and Farrell (2001,p.5) show that LA emphasizes the process of learning and students have to “see learning as a lifelong process” Kose (2006, p.29) mentions LA as “lifelong learning project” Borg and Al-Busaidi (2012b, p.3) hold that LA “prepares individuals for lifelong learning” Azizi (2014, p.130) indicates that LA is “a matter of lifelong process rather than a need for a particular situation or course” In addition, LA is learners’ lifelong learning process after they graduate from university According toBlidi (2017), the development of lifelong learning is deemed to strongly impact on policies of education and trends in teaching and learning in Europe as well as in the globe because it is considered as the solution to connect education products and the important and essential things of social economy Blidi (ibid., p.6) uses the image of the bridge as a metaphor of lifelong learning to fill “the gap between education systems and the socio-economic needs” In short, lifelong learning is an important perspective of LA in language learning.

Learner autonomy as cultural challenge

Recently, LA has been considered as a concept which affects language teaching and learning in different settings, and culture has become an important factor in relation to its suitability and effectiveness Additionally, LA has been considered as a cultural characteristic in Western countries versus Asia countries. Hence, Blidi (2017) indicates that it is necessary for researchers to give attention to the impact of culture on different characteristics of LA, and suggests that culture is the motivation of LA and a challenge to promote LA In this light, some research of

LA as a cultural challenge to ASIAN students has been conducted up to now Ho and Crookall (1995) show that Asian learners, consisting of Vietnamese learners, have the same strong beliefs of social relations and relational hierarchy in the classrooms Students must respect their teacher’s explanation or opinion Moreover, Littlewood’s view (1999) about this term is that East Asian students own reactive autonomy; meanwhile, Western ones have proactive autonomy In addition, Asian leaners consider the formal and teacher-led learning method important Đặng Tấn Tín (2010) claims that influenced by the Asian culture, the common philosophy of Vietnamese education practice is more absorbing and memorizing, but less experimenting and creating knowledge Besides, students’ creativity is less encouraged at schools Therefore, they have an intention of not taking responsibility for their own studying in their learning process Furthermore, Phan Thị Thanh Thảo (2012) indicates that East Asian students are used to teacher-centered method.

According to Nguyễn Thanh Nga (2014), there are three main differences between Western cultures and Asian cultures in academic environment First of all,the connection of teachers and students is mentioned In Western cultures, teachers and students are quite equal, and have informal relationship The students can comfortably question and challenge their teachers and their classmates Moreover,they are independent of learning Meanwhile, in Asian cultures, the teachers are always respected and stay in control of their students’ studies The students often have their passive way to learn and do not dare to put question to their teachers.Next, the second dissimilarity is learning styles and approaches to learning In

Western education, student-centered methodology is widely applied, and students are expected to learn deeply and responsibly as well as develop their critical thinking Asian students, in contrast, always wait to receive knowledge or information from their teachers The teachers have dominated both teaching and learning process Students pay attention to surface learning and learn by heart what teachers transmit in class Finally, the last different characteristic between Western and Asian students is attitudes to knowledge and learning Western students think people can possess their own ideas and they admit others’ ones They do not accept dishonesty or plagiarism in learning environment However, Asian students do not have the same thought as Western ones They think knowledge cannot be possessed and do not often cite the source of ideas or information in their writing.

In Vietnam, English has been a core subject from primary schools to universities, and educational reforms of English subject have been conducted for over ten years However, it has been facing lots of challenges and is considered one of the most serious issues worth concerning for future development In Kennett andKnight’s words (1999), sitting in rows of immobile tables and chairs, Vietnamese students’ learning follows the hierarchy of first listening to the teacher, then repetition, and then copying models Most of the time, classroom interaction is one- way, between the teacher and the individual student Students will answer the teacher’s question when asked Interruptions, arguments and asking for clarification are hardly observed Additionally, the English learning environment in Vietnamese classrooms could be described as a “cultural island” (Lê Văn Canh, 2000) in which the teacher is supposed to be the provider of knowledge of the target language The focus of instruction is on the language structure more than on its use It means that a comprehensive mastery of grammatical structures of the English language is an expected pre-requisite for teachers in teaching their students Another role of the teacher supposed to assume is a feedback giver Whenever a student makes a mistake, the teacher is expected to interrupt the student at once and to correct it If the teacher does not correct the student’s mistake, it is seen as a shortcoming and the teacher is deemed incompetent Students’ learning outcomes are evaluated within a product-oriented framework, so teachers assume another role of an evaluator who grades students’ performance on tests and exams, and makes the final decisions on a students’ grade Besides, they are the indicators of success or failure in learning As mentioned earlier, teaching and learning English are examination- driven, which leads to another role of the teacher as a high-pass-rate guarantor As not being expected, what and how the teacher teaches are dictated by the requirements of the examination, and are not linked to the learning needs of individual students In such a teaching context, students are expected to be the good listeners and good imitators of their teacher At the end of the semester, students are expected to “return” (Lê Văn Canh, 2000) what they have learned in their lessons in examinations This requires rote learning It has been observed that teachers hold a key role in the transmission of knowledge, and are as a learning quality guarantor. With such roles of the teachers, students are not provided with the opportunities to take an active role for their learning (Trịnh Quốc Lập, 2005) Đặng Tấn Tín (2010, p.5) claims that “being strongly considered part of the Eastern culture, teaching and learning in Vietnam are more teacher-centered”.

For students in Mekong Delta, LA seems to be one of the big challenges because of the following reasons Hồ Sỹ Anh (2018) indicated that only 12% of Mekong Delta people graduated from high school to university in 2014 That was the lowest rate in comparison with other regions in Vietnam In addition, Mekong Delta people have not been concerning their children’s learning It is a cultural trait in this region that becomes a challenge for teachers and students to practice LA.

Due to the above reasons, according to Palfreyman and Smith (2003), to apply LA in Asian context, the factor of learners’ cultural background is usually a difficult thing When Curtis (2004) did a LA study at RMIT University in Vietnam, he claimed that the first way to help them learn autonomously was to change their belief from learning by memory to the demonstration of comprehension According to Blidi (2017, p.10), students have different perceptions or opinions of LA and learning because of their different cultural backgrounds Notwithstanding students’ cultural background considered as a difficult thing to promote LA, if culture and LA are thought and redefined in the learning setting, culture can become a mainly advanced factor to develop students’ LA ability.

Scholars give all above definitions of LA in Western and Asian context of language education Research has been carried out to establish the appropriacy of

LA for Asian educational settings as Little (1999) does claim that autonomy is a popular kind of language learning and can apply in any culture Therefore,considering and redefining the meanings of LA in foreign language education inMekong Delta in Vietnamese setting are necessary.

Learner autonomy in this study

Reviewing elements or characteristics of definitions of LA is an attempt. However, it is difficult to determine what are the most important components of LA in language learning (Benson, 2006) Hence, based on above analyzed definitions of

LA and sociocultural conditions in Mekong Delta in the South of Vietnam, in the current study, LA is redefined as language learners’ cognition, ability to take responsibility for their own learning by setting learning goals, planning, practising, monitoring and assessing their autonomous learning processes through teachers’ guide and orientation, as well as their lifelong learning For teachers, interpreting students’ background cultures with regard to the autonomous learning context helps teachers understand their students more clearly, and then they can consult and orientate their students in autonomous learning Additionally, teachers can design a number of LA activities for their students It is important for teachers to encourage and motivate students in learning For students, the autonomous students must be active and motivated in their own learning (Nguyễn Thanh Nga, 2014) To be ready in studies, they need to understand deeply what they should do in autonomous learning Helping and fostering LA from teachers can make them become the autonomous learners After that and even after graduating from the university, they can learn autonomously.

Understanding the definitions of LA is important for both teachers and students; however, it is quite vital for teachers to know other aspects related to the concept of LA to develop LA better for their students It can be seen that current definitions of LA are not unanimously shared by researchers around the world. However, the unanimous focus seems to be on the learner’s perception, intentions and actions of his/her own learning , which can be realized in various detailed aspects as presented above.

Aspects of learner autonomy

Technical aspect of learner autonomy

According to Benson (1997, p.19), technical aspect of LA is clearly shown as

“the act of learning a language outside the framework of an educational institution and without the intervention of a teacher” He emphasizes the physical situation for autonomous learners to take and develop their responsibility for their own learning.

He uses positivism for this aspect because he believes that “knowledge is a more or less accurate reflection of objective reality” (Benson, 1997, p.20) The technical version of LA is linked to positivistic approaches to learning strategies and technical skills which are necessary for students to control their own learning.Specifically, it emphasizes the time, the place, and the way of learning, planning and organizing the study, and assessment of learning In view of this, it needs to equip learners with essential learning skills and techniques so as to enable them to learn a language and deal with circumstances in learning without a teacher Some previous studies (Gardner & Miller, 1999, 2011; Morrison, 2008) were based on this aspect of LA to enhance learner autonomy in self-access learning centres.Benson (2006) reviews a number of modes of LA beyond the classroom, namely self-access centre, computer-assisted language learning, distance learning, out-of- class learning, etc However, the technical perspective on autonomy would be hard to be moved without the psychology.

Psychological aspect of learner autonomy

Psychological aspect relates to learners’ attitudes and aware ability when they take their responsibility for their own study Benson (1997, p.19) defines psychological aspect of LA as “a capacity – a construct of attitudes and abilities – which allows learners to take more responsibility for their own learning” The psychological version of autonomy is connected to constructivist outlook and implies LA as an ability with cognitive features (Benson, 2001), namely attitudes and capacities influencing learners’ learning Additionally, it involves learners’ motivation and learning style In the vein of constructivism, learners have to discover knowledge and then may change complicated information to become their possession (Slavin, 2003) This perspective emphasizes the learners’ role in building their own target language version in language learning progress According to Oxford (2003), this psychological aspect relates to learners’ mental and emotional characteristics in developing their LA ability The psychological perspective starts to be clearer as Little (2003) connects Holec’s definition (1981) and his in order to concretize that autonomous students have full perceptions of and understand their courses’ goals, approve their responsibility, actively plan study and conduct their learning activities, and usually assess their learning effects Therefore,this aspect suggests enhancing more mental factors, namely positive perceptions, as well as abilities such as “reflection, and a readiness to be proactive in self- management and in interaction with others” (Little, 2003, p.1 ) for the students.

Political aspect of learner autonomy

Political aspect of LA is based on critical theory, and focuses on learners’

“control over the processes and content of learning” (Benson, 1997, p.19) This version of LA is the approaches that permit learners to manage both their own learning and the institutional settings It seems to be learners’ rights in learning.Also, critical theory emphasizes the social contexts and the form of LA as access, control, power, and ideology (Pennycook, 1997) which are looked for in particular locations, circumstances, groups, institutions, and socioeconomic positions In the same line, Oxford (2003) has the same idea as Pennycook’s opinion (ibid., p.88) when she confirms that the political-critical view “centrally involves issues of power, access, and ideology” It means that autonomous students have the right to manage their own learning circumstances, to opt their learning activities, and to become free from obligation.

Sociocultural aspect of learner autonomy

Basing on Benson’s three aspects of LA (1997), Oxford (2003) introduces one more aspect of LA into her framework that is sociocultural perspective This perspective emphasizes social interaction in shaping learners’ cognition and language development Oxford (2003) bases herself on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (1978) to form this aspect of LA According to Vygotsky (1978), through environmental stimulation and social interactions with learning environments, people’s cognition has developed Vygotsky (1978, p.86) describes the Zone of Proximal Development as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” In other words, learners can practise a task with teachers’ instruction or with peer cooperation instead of performing it alone Pennycook (1997, p.45) states that “promoting autonomy in language learning, therefore, needs to take into account the cultural contexts of the language learners, to open up spaces for those learners to deal differently with the world, to become authors of their own words” Palfreyman (2003, p.13) indicates that “sociocultural approaches provide valuable concepts for understanding how the behavior, attitudes and motivation of individuals interact with cultural meanings and social interests in particular learning situations” Little (2004, p.19) draws on Leni Dam’s example (1995) and has a belief that “learner autonomy involved collaboration” In addition, Little (2004, pp 21-22) claims that “Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory of development and learning explained the relation between collaboration and autonomy” Thus, this aspect relates to the interactions of the students and their environment, namely a variety of problems, community, and relationships.

It can be seen that three above aspects of LA advocated by Benson (1997, 2006) are necessary conditions The “social” perspective that Oxford (2003) suggests is the sufficient condition – the environment for educators to implement

LA This four-aspect model of LA is accepted in research and many Asian authors have adopted it to explore EFL teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices of autonomy (Lê Xuân Quỳnh, 2013; Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ, 2009; Nguyễn Thanh Nga,2014; Nguyễn Văn Lợi, 2016; Wang & Wang, 2016).

Perceptions and practices

Perceptions

A number of definitions of perception in scientific research literature in the world have been studied Perception is defined as a series of actions of awareness, organization, and analysis of input information More specifically, Angell (1906, p.122) defines perception as “the consciousness of particular material things presents to sense” Kanwisher (2001, p.90) indicates that the concept “perception” is considered as “the extraction and/or representation of perceptual information from a stimulus, without any assumption that such information is necessarily experienced consciously” Additionally, in Chambers Dictionary, perception is defined as the process of recognizing “one’s environment through physical sensation, which denotes an individual’s ability to understand” Bodenhausen andHugenberg (2009, p.2) base on social cognition to define perception as “essentially the interface between the outer and inner worlds” McShane and Von Glinow (2010 ,p.68) clearly show that “perception is the process of receiving information about and making sense of the world around us” It can be seen that perception is understanding of the real world shaped from information through the five physical abilities People are likely to bring meaning and significance, judgments and analyses, values, objectives to their actions What they do in their life depends on how they understand their position in the world In other words, people’s perception forms and determines their behavior Thus, in order to understand one’s behavior, it needs to understand their perceptions.

In the LA field, the term “perception” is utilized to explore both EFL teachers’ and EFL students’ perceptions of LA in a number of studies (Al Asmari, 2013; Azizi, 2014; Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012; Dogan & Mirici, 2017; Dương Mỹ Thẩm & Seepho, 2014; Gardner, 2007; Haji-Othman & Wood, 2016; Harati, 2017; Joshi, 2011; Wang & Wang, 2016) Based on the analysis above, in this current research the term “perception” is, therefore, used to explore teachers’ and students’ understanding or cognition on the concept of LA.

The concept of language teachers’ perception is defined by Borg (2006) as teachers’ cognition of what they consider, are familiar with, and believe Basing on Borg and Al-Busaidi’s questionnaire (2012b), Benson’s views (2011), and Little’s views (1991, 1999), Xhaferri, Waldispuhl, Xhaferri, and Eriksson-Hotz (2015) list ten concepts which are used as a framework to explore beliefs about LA They are technical views, psychological views, social views, political views on LA, the role of the teacher in LA, the relevance of LA to diverse cultural contexts, age and LA, language proficiency and LA, the implication of LA for teaching methodology, and the relationship of LA to effective language learning (Xhaferri et al, 2015, p.13). Xhaferri et al (2015, p.14) also claim that these ten concepts deal with “different theoretical aspects of learner autonomy and cannot be seen on the same level”. Many researchers (Haji-Othman & Wood, 2016; Keuk & Heng, 2016; Nguyễn Thanh Nga, 2014; Nguyễn Văn Lợi, 2016; Wang & Wang, 2016) applied these concepts in their set of questions to investigate EFL teachers’ perceptions or beliefs of LA.

Learners’ perceptions of LA are an important issue for both educators and learners themselves investigated by a number of language researchers Van Lier (1996) indicates that acting on learner’s perceptions regarding their own learning, they can develop their strengths and improve their weaknesses in learning ( as cited in Jacobs and Farrel, 2001, p.5) White (1995, p.209) states that only when learners have developed their “understanding of the nature of language learning, and of his/her role in that process”, can they gain ability to practice LA However, if learners possess erroneous beliefs, they may have ineffective language learning strategies, and not succeed in their language learning process.

Understanding LA is an important duty for teachers and students, especially EFL ones to approach new standards in the new century Besides, teachers’ perceptions of the valuable and meaningful LA from their academic knowledge will help them develop as professional foreign language teachers Also, students’ perceptions of LA and the importance of LA will help them succeed much in their own learning Therefore, finding how teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of LA affecting their practices of LA is necessary for educators to be able to support them in their language teaching and learning.

Practices

In this part, before both teachers’ and learners’ practices towards LA are discussed, the definition of practice is introduced Although a large number of the previous studies have explored teachers’ and students’ practices of LA recently, definition of practice has rarely been defined Normally, those studies just presented what teachers and students did to promote LA in practice In this research, the concept of practice is specified Dewey (1904) states that giving a definition of practice depends on one’s purpose Dewey (ibid., p.9) indicates that practice work is

“an instrument in making real and vital theoretical instruction; the knowledge of subject- matter and of principles of education” Additionally, practice is defined as “the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it” (Oxford living dictionaries online) It seems that practice gives students better opportunities to acquire knowledge.

Teachers’ practices of LA relate to the ways they instruct their students doing

LA activities One of Vygotsky’s three main themes is the Zone of ProximalDevelopment (Vygotsky, 1978), which is the distance where learners can study autonomously and might need helping during learning process To do this, Brown(1994, p 124) claims that instructing students how to study is an important duty for teachers According to Dam (1995), teachers have a vital role to play in enhancing

LA Also, Sheerin (1997, p 63) points to the “paradox of independent learning that almost all learners need to be prepared and supported on the path towards greater autonomy by teachers” (as cited in Benson & Huang, 2008, p 425) Besides, to persuade teachers to apply LA in teaching, Gardner and Miller (1999) emphasize three main reasons for teachers having a motivation to foster LA in teaching and learning language The first reason is that LA improves students’ characteristics. Second, it can be carried out both inside and outside of the classroom Finally, it is an important part in practices of education Đặng Tấn Tín (2012) claims that the development of LA needs to be fostered systematically and deliberately (Holec, 1981), and educationists and researchers have used various practices, depending on particular situations, to enable learners to take more control of their learning. Teachers’ important role in fostering students’ LA ability has been “expected to help learners develop the readiness and willingness to become autonomous” (Blidi,

2017, p.14) Thus, language teachers’ roles in promoting students’ LA ability have been researched.

A number of various technical terms are used to describe the teachers’ new roles in autonomous learning contexts differing from traditional ones such as facilitator, helper, coordinator, counsellor, consultant, manager, advisor, knower, and resource (Riley, 1997, as cited in Benson & Huang, 2008, p 426) In the same vein, Benson and Voller (1997) give three roles of teachers in fostering LA in learners – a facilitator, a counsellor, and a resource For the teacher as a facilitator, Lowes and Target (1999) claim that teachers’ duty is to control the classroom activities and support students to build their own learning plan For the teacher as a counsellor, Nunan (2003) suggests that teachers should listen to learners’ learning problems and give them the best advice which is suitable for every situation For the teacher as a resource, teachers are advised to direct learners to choose and use materials which are appropriate for their own learning styles Also, Al Asmari (2013, p.1) indicates that as facilitators and counselors, teachers “help students to take their responsibility by setting their own goals, planning practice opportunities, or assessing their progress”, and “guide the students to accept responsibility for their own learning, guide them to be reflectively engaged in planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning”.

Additionally, Boakye (2007) indicates that it is important for teachers to help students recognize their erroneous beliefs about using language so as to bring them closer to becoming the good language learners Little (2009) developes this idea more clearly that teachers have to support students to recognize their own learning wants Similarly, Yan (2012) gives an opinion on it as follows:

Autonomy requires the understanding of new roles between teachers and learners It is necessary for teachers to change their role so as to adapt themselves to the new requirement of autonomy The promotion of autonomy is dependent greatly on how teachers are aware of their new roles (Yan, 2012, p 3)

Yan (2012) also indicates that teachers should move their role from teacher-centred teaching method to learner-centred teaching method and consider learners as the central to their teaching process Furthermore, Benson (2016) emphasizes the teachers’ role in enhancing students’ LA like this:

It is important that teachers who intend to foster autonomous learning attend to the personal relevance of the language that is being learned Learners are, of course, often the best placed to determine their individual interests and purposes, while teachers can play a role in scaffolding self-determined goals and decision-making processes that follow them Teachers can also play an important role in guiding students towards resources and activities that will meet their personal learning goals (Benson, 2016, p xxxiv)

He also showed five following steps for teachers who desire to enhance LA for their students First, teachers should positively engage in students’ learning Second, they supply choices and learning materials to their students Third, they give their students options and chances to make their own decisions Forth, they should help their students when they have problems Finally, they should encourage students to reflect what they have already done in practice LA Additionally, ten strategies are identified and mentioned in his study to help teachers who want to develop their profession through fostering LA for their students They are 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 student outcomes, self- and peer-assessment, encouraging reflection (Benson, 2016, p xxxix).

Regarding students’ practices of LA, based on Holec’s definition (1981) of

LA, it seems that he clarifies students’ LA ability and responsibility for their learning through five vital actions to practice LA Those are “determining objectives, defining content and progressions, selecting methods and techniques to be used, monitoring procedure of acquisition, and evaluating what has happened” (Holec, 1981, p.3) Based on the previous definitions of LA, Dam (1995) specifies autonomous learners’ duty in learning They autonomously have to opt for “aims and purposes”, “materials, methods, and tasks”, and “criteria for evaluation”, establish learning objectives, and use “choice and purpose in organizing and carrying out the chosen tasks” To complete these activities well, they must be active or even proactive in learning, create their opinions, and make study opportunities.

From a different angle, many researchers have tried to rank LA into its continuum of linked representation For example, Macaro (1997, pp.170 -172) suggests a three-phase model including “autonomy of language competence”,

“autonomy of language learning competence”, and “autonomy of choice and action” Agreeing with Macaro’s views, Littlewood (1999) gives a model of three features: language acquisition, learning approach, and personal development.Additionally, Littlewood (1999) develops definition of learner autonomy in two levels of proactive autonomy and reactive autonomy He indicates that East Asian students own reactive autonomy as Western ones get proactive autonomy In the way of proactive autonomy, learners work individually and set up their “directions which they themselves have partially created” while reactive autonomy “which does not create its own directions, but once a direction has been initiated, enables cognition action learners to organize their resources autonomously in order to reach their goal” (Littlewood, 1999, p.75) In practice, students should move from reactive autonomy to proactive autonomy Furthermore, Scharle and Szabó (2000, p.1), when discussing the growth of autonomy, introduce a three-stage model of “raising awareness”, “changing attitudes”, and “transferring roles” Like the afore- mentioned authors, Benson (2001) tries to give a model of levels of LA: learning control and organization, a series of cognition, and the learning content According to Benson (2006), each of the above models proposes a positive advance of LA from lower to higher stages.

Relationship between perception and practice of learner autonomy

Discussing the interaction between perception and practice, Bodenhausen and Hugenberg (2009, p.14) indicate that “perception is linked to action in some fairly obvious ways” They illustrate the connection of input, perception, cognition, and action in a diagram:

Figure 2.1: The interaction of perception, cognition, and action

The figure 2.1 shows that one’s perception through his or her cognition guides his or her action and the action, then, impacts on perception The present study uses this circle to discuss the relationship of perception and practice.

Teachers’ perceptions are a crucial part in teaching practice because they straightly influence teachers’ selection of objectives and activities Buchmann (1986) shows that objectives of education may shape teachers’ beliefs regarding what is suitable for teaching and teachers’ conceptions about their professional role. Conceptions of their role, in turn, shape their teaching practice Reflecting and trying

Perception to understand how their beliefs affect their teaching are critical to teachers’ development and change in teaching practices Similarly, Florio-Ruane and Lensmire (1990) state that positive change depends on teachers’ beliefs, attitudes, and experiences before and that meaningful change in instruction is based on fundamental change in what teachers know and believe Moreover, Blake and Pope (2008) claim that learners who are instructed in learning can achieve a lot of success in study. When teachers understand and use these, they can gain success in teaching.

According to Horwitz (1987), learners’ beliefs can affect their attempts in learning new languages and decide what they do Moreover, Riley (1996, p.128) shows that learners’ beliefs strongly influence their language learning process more than their teachers’ stimulation on them because “it is their beliefs that hold sway over their motivation, attitudes, and learning procedures” Wenden (1986) and Erlenawati (2002) also give their views about learners’ beliefs impacting on their learning strategies, practices, evaluation, and motivation.

In short, one the one hand, teachers’ and students’ perceptions orientate and guide their practices of LA explicitly or tacitly On the other hand, teachers’ and students’ practices of LA might be present to direct their informed perceptions. Researchers on over the world show various opinions about the inconsistency between the teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices of LA and take notice of the different contextual characteristics in the large sociocultural environment where the teachers and students live in The section 2.6 will indicate more detail.

Assessment as learning in learner autonomy

Assessment as learning as an indispensable segment of LA

Talking about relationship between assessment and learning, Boud (1995, p.36) states that “assessment always leads to learning” and then explains “every act of assessment gives a message to students about what they should be learning and how they should go about it” Boud (ibid.) emphasizes learners’ cognition of assessment as well as the relationship between their learning and their assessment.

Assessment is an important and “natural part of the teaching and learning process and is undertaken to support learning” (Berry, 2008, p.17) She explains that students can use data from assessment in order to establish their learning goals, make learning decisions about their becoming better in learning, and increase their cognition of standard work In addition, students can assess both their own learning and their friends’ learning They can discuss their current learning situation and have not only their teachers but also their friends give feedback To summarize these views of this field, Berry (2008, p 17) defines the concept “assessment” as

“conscious and systematic activities used by teachers and students for gathering information, analyzing and interpreting it, drawing inferences, making wise decisions, and taking appropriate actions in the service of improving teaching and learning” From the definitions of LA, the importance of LA, and the aim at turning learners into “authors of their own worlds” (Pennycook, 1997, p 45) in language learning mentioned above, it can be seen that assessing LA should be integrated in learners’ autonomous learning Boud (2002, p.2) considers assessment as the most important “prompt for learning” and “a message to student about what they should be learning and how they should go about it” It means that assessment affects learners’ decisions on how and what to study Thus, assessment is a vital part in students’ learning, and it is necessary for students to understand it more clearly so that they can judge their own learning progress.

One of the three assessment approaches, assessment as learning (AaL), is used in LA According to Earl and Katz (2006, p.41), AaL is “an active process of cognitive restructuring that occurs when individuals interact with new ideas” In this process, students are “the critical connectors between assessment and learning”.Similarly, Berry (2008, p.47) states that this approach offers students’ learning responsibility, urges students to learn in depth, and focuses on “assessment as a process of metacognition for students” Additionally, Berry (2008, pp 48-49) emphasizes that AaL has three major functions: 1 helping learners understand standards expected of them, 2 promoting learners’ capacities of self-monitoring, self- assessing, self-evaluating, and self-correcting their learning, 3 enabling learners to develop their own study plans Furthermore, this approach focuses on learners’ thought of their learning as well as the strategies they apply to enhance their studies. Hence, AaL in LA is necessary for development of LA in higher education.

In general, AaL is a crucial part in LA for both teachers and students The important objective in AaL is to help students to obtain the skills and the habitual behavior of mind to have metacognition on developing their autonomous learning.AaL emphasizes the direct enhancing of students’ ability for a time to help them become the best assessors However, to do this, teachers’ role is to introduce,instruct, and give chances for students to assess themselves (Earl & Katz, 2006).

Teachers’ role

In assessment as learning, teachers play the crucial role, including “designing instruction and assessment that allow all students to think about, and monitor, their own learning” (Earl & Katz, 2006, p.42) Furthermore, Earl and Katz (2006) suggest teachers’ duties in fostering the increase of autonomous learners through AaL Teachers are to:

• model and teach the skills of self-assessment;

• guide students in setting goals, and monitor their progress toward them;

• provide exemplars and models of good practice and quality work that reflect curriculum outcomes;

• work with students to develop clear criteria of good practice;

• guide students in developing internal feedback or self-monitoring mechanisms to validate and question their own thinking, and to become comfortable with the ambiguity and uncertainty that are inevitable in learning anything new;

• provide regular and challenging opportunities to practise, so that students can become confident, competent self-assessors;

• monitor students’ metacognitive processes as well as their learning, and provide descriptive feedback;

• create an environment where it is safe for students to take chances and where support is readily available.

Likewise, Berry (2008) states that teachers’ role in AaL is extremely important She indicates that teachers plan their teaching with the opportunities, which helps students self-assess and peer-assess their learning.

Furthermore, teachers should observe and assess learners’ practices of LA. They can learn where students’ LA ability and students’ strengths and weaknesses are, and then they may have a teaching plan to support their students to develop autonomy Gardner (1999) shows teachers’ three duties in this process First of all, teachers have to increase learners’ awareness of positive points of self-assessment. Next, teachers have to instruct them to carry out self-assessment forms Finally, they have to make students have in-depth understanding of advantages of self- assessments in their autonomous learning.

Besides, teachers have to self-assess their instruction of LA activities because of the following reasons Airasian and Gullickson (1994, p.196) define teachers’ self- assessment related to the terms as “the reflective practitioner”, “personal theorizing”,

“connoisseurship and criticism”, “teacher research”, “reflection in or on action”, “self- understanding”, and “analysis of practice” It means that teachers should look back on their teaching actions by research, analysis, and criticism to self-realize the effectiveness or the ineffectiveness of their teaching activities Additionally, Boud (1995) suggests that teachers should provide a number of self- assessment forms with a checklist of standards for both teachers and learners In the same line, according to Madsen (2005, p.21), teachers’ self-assessment was explored in the previous research as “teachers’ thinking and reflection” Teachers reflect their teaching practices to self-assess whether those activities are effective or not, and then have suitable solutions for the next time Nova (2017) summarizes benefits of teachers’ self- assessment in previous studies and indicates the needs of conducting it due to the following reasons First, teachers can recognize the necessity of setting up activities in teaching Next, using self-assessment, teachers can foster their performance in teaching practices Importantly, by self-assessment, they can self-reflect to study situations in teaching and have more duty with their next performance.

Learners’ role

To become the active, involved and critical assessors in assessment as learning, students are like ones with personally analyzing, evaluating, and critically considering what they implement in learning Then, they can adjust, adapt, or change their present study goals, and plan their new learning objectives Therefore, students are the connectors between teaching and learning (Berry, 2008).

From definitions of LA in section 2.1, autonomous language learners have to take responsibility for their own learning and their progress That is the reason for self- assessment to be used in higher education since it helps “to prepare students not just to solve the problems we already know the answers to, but to solve problems we cannot at the moment even conceive” (Brew, 1995, p 57) Furthermore, Gardner (1999) considers self-assessment as an important element to look back and decide learners’ level of knowledge and skills Furthermore, Little, Hodel, Kohonen, Meijer andPerclova (2007) indicate the significance of self-assessment to promoting the development of LA to language teachers According to Little et al ( ibid.), self- assessment plays an important role in learner reflection in both their language learning and their target language Therefore, learners can look back their learning goals, their learning objectives, learning activities, and their results depend on their perceptions regarding LA In Little’s study (2010, p.3), LA is “to take charge of their own learning by engaging them fully in planning, monitoring and evaluation” One of the important elements of learners’ evaluation is self-assessment It can be said that self-assessment is the key term to promote LA because the self-assessment forms can facilitate LA in language study By using self-assessment, learners can shape their own standards to measure and self-assess their strengths and weaknesses in their own language learning Little (2004, p.22) indicates that one of three pedagogical principles of a theory regarding LA is “learner reflection” which “acquires independent status by virtue of the key role played by self-assessment in the development of learner autonomy” It means that students have to assess their learning results and identify their strengths and their weaknesses as well so that they will set up suitable learning goals and study plan in the next time This also shows students’ ability in assessing their development in learning.

Previous studies on EFL teachers’ and students’ perceptions and

Recently, a number of studies have been conducted to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices of LA and achieved some results More specifically, in the Western, Dogan and Mirici (2017) conducted a study with 96 EFL instructors in nine Turkish universities to explore their perceptions and practices regarding LA. The results of their study reflected teachers’ positive ideas and definitions of LA like previous studies, namely “responsibility, awareness, control, freedom, choice, curiosity for further improvement and independence” (Dogan & Mirici, 2017, p.183) They kept their perceptions strong about its advantages in learning language Dogan and Mirici’s study’s results (2017) reported that there was a missing link between teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding LA Teachers felt it hard to involve students in making decisions on their own language learning. Besides, Balcikanli (2010) fulfilled a study with 112 EFL student teachers at Gazi University, Turkey through a survey and 20 volunteers of them in interview. The results from both questionnaire and interview indicated that they possessed a clear understanding of LA However, it was difficult to involve themselves in making decisions on some aspects such as choosing time and place of a class, or in selecting materials in learning because they were not allowed.

In Asia, Borg and Al-Busaidi (2012b) carried out a study of 61 EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices about LA in a university language center in Oman They emphasized the necessity to investigate teachers’ perceptions of LA to enhance LA for learners The findings showed that the teachers had positive perceptions towards the notion of LA and its advantages for language students Moreover, Borg and Al-Busaidi (2012b) showed two main views: (1) teachers’ beliefs could strongly form both what teachers did and the studying chances students received, (2) teacher education had an influence on teachers’ practices when it was based on an understanding of the beliefs teachers hold As mentioned above, Borg and Al-

Busaidi’s findings (2012b) showed that they found that teachers’ thought of enhancing students’ role to decide their learning (i.e objectives, assessment and materials) had a mismatch with their practices In their survey, almost 80% of the teachers answered that their teaching offered their students many chances to increase LA The results from the interviews and workshops showed that there were five activities, namely sharing the importance of LA with their students, inspiring students to interest autonomous performance, having students reflect on their LA activities, applying LA activities inside the classroom, and designing LA activities outside the classroom, which those teachers used to inspire learners’ LA However, the participants shared difficulties which they met were fixed curriculum, students’ weak LA experience, students’ demotivation, students’ trust in their teachers, students’ learning English out of classes, students’ aim in passing exams, limited learning materials for both teachers and students, students’ weak capacity of exploring learning resources, students’ weak competence in learning English, etc. Wang and Wang (2016) reported a study of perceptions and practices of 44 language teachers regarding enhancing LA in a Chinese university through questionnaires, interviews, and holding four workshops Their research showed that the participants lacked a clear understanding of the aspects of society and culture affecting LA and did not make students increase their perceptions of LA or instruct them to evaluate their learning Moreover, the findings showed that 88.6% of participants agreed that they enhanced LA for their students, and in the interview the LA-oriented activities which they used were studying topics related to learning in classes, self-editing or peer-grading their writing, different types of working in groups, quizzes, students’ presenting textbook materials, online assignments, free reading at home and then sharing in the classroom, etc Yet, their students’ LA ability was negative and this was the challenge for them to apply LA practices.

In addition, as educators, teachers have to understand learners’ perceptions towards LA to be able to promote LA in many aspects A number of studies of exploring students’ practices of LA have been carried out in the last decade For instance, Chan et al (2002) conducted a research with 508 undergraduates at

HongKong Polytechnic University to explore their attitudes and behaviors of LA by using questionnaire and interview The results showed that their perception and motivation did not create their practice of LA; most informants believed teachers had to take responsibility for the methodological aspects such as choosing what materials and what activities to use to learn English in English lessons, deciding what to learn next in the English lessons and the objectives of the English course, evaluating their learning; many of them perceived they had to take main responsibility for deciding what to learn outside the class, making them work harder, making sure they make progress outside class; one-fourth of participants believed they had good/very good decision-making abilities The results were used to guide “curriculum development, syllabus and material revisions and inform classroom practice regarding the promotion of learner autonomy at tertiary level” (Chan et al, 2002, p.3) Additionally, Chan et al’s findings (2002) about LA activities outside the classroom showed that over 50% of informants answered that they “sometimes” or “often” conducted 10 activities, especially sending e-mails, using English for the Internet, and watching English movies, and rarely practiced the 12 others For the inside activities, they rarely made suggestions to the teachers. After that, Chan et al (2002) concluded that there was a distance between students’ attitudes and practices regarding LA As mentioned earlier, the students had positive perceptions on LA and high motivation, but these were not present in their performance of learning language autonomously.

In the same vein, in Iran, Azizi (2014) conducted a study with 61 Iranian EFL students to explore their perceptions of LA in foreign language classes and of their teachers’ role in learning language autonomously The findings showed that students believed in some LA activities they and their teachers shared duty together.Yet, in some others, students perceived that they had to take certainly responsibility for conducting them, namely making progress outside class In some others,students thought that their teachers took responsibility, especially the activities related to methodological aspects, study planning, activity control.

In Southeast Asia, Keuk and Heng (2016) carries out their research on 70 Cambodian EFL teachers’ beliefs and practices The findings showed that the teachers had the same beliefs as ones in Oman and they implemented LA activities in classes with the aim of fostering students’ LA ability effectively in learning English But they admitted that it was hard for EFL teachers to apply the current curriculum, learning resources, desirable level of LA in practice, and they did not have enough necessary knowledge and skills to conduct studies of LA Also, Haji- Othman and Wood (2016) investigated 32 EFL teachers’ beliefs of LA in a specific Brunei context The results indicated that 81% of participants perceived that LA influenced language learning positively; 63% deemed LA effective in helping students learn language In addition, Tapinta (2016) conducted a study on 35 Thai EFL teachers’ perceptions of development of LA in Thai university context Her study revealed that the participants had a strong belief in developing LA They also recognized the role of them as facilitators in students’ learning process Likewise, in the Philippine university context, when exploring and finding 50 EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices on LA, Ranosa-Madrunio, Tarrayo, Tupas, and Valdez (2016) state that their teachers deemed LA gained with a variety of class activities. Furthermore, in Vietnam, Nguyễn Thanh Nga (2014), for example, explored

LA at ten universities in Ha Noi with 188 teachers answering questionnaires and 4 teachers taking part in interviews and observed lessons The results indicated that overall teachers did not have full understandings of the concept and did not enhance

LA due to many factors such as difficult conditions of their teaching settings, and the strict courses Especially, they did not know how to foster LA Nguyễn Thanh Nga’s study’s results (2014) indicated that the participants could not enhance LA for their students due to the difficulties of their teaching setting, the strictly-fixed syllabuses, and the fixed table-and-chair class One more important finding in her study was that the teachers “did not understand what learner autonomy was and so did not know how to apply it in the classroom” (Nguyễn Thanh Nga, 2014, p.148).

Additionally, Phan Thị Thanh Thảo (2015) explored three EFL teachers’ understanding of and their perceptions of pedagogic approach to foster students’ language autonomy The findings showed that teachers believed that LA consisted two major elements: (1) ability (goal setting, planning, implementing, and evaluating), (2) attitude (Phan Thị Thanh Thảo, 2015, p.247) They also focused on implementation in LA to improve students’ LA ability Besides, Nguyễn Văn Lợi (2016) investigates 84 English language teachers’ beliefs and practices in six universities in Vietnam The results indicated that though English teachers showed their appreciation of the crucial role of LA in language learning, their perceptions of

LA about students’ ability in making choices and decisions were weak Instead, they perceived they decided and set up class activities According to Nguyễn Văn Lợi (2016), most teachers in his study offered their students some activities such as giving assignments and then checking, project work and presentations, helping students to recognize the role of LA in learning, and instructing both learning skills and choosing learning resources to develop LA ability Nguyễn Văn Lợi (2016) found the same problems as previous researchers in LA He indicated that teachers rarely created opportunities for students to make choices and decisions in their own learning.

In addition, Đặng Tấn Tín (2012) explored Vietnamese EFL students’ perceptions of LA in online and offline learning environments through developing a four-dimension model, namely monitoring, initiating, goal-setting and evaluating, and using Information Communication Technologies The findings indicated that goal- setting and evaluating learning was more valued than monitoring learning processes. Besides, the participants had positive perceptions of initiating learning opportunities as well as of the vital role of technology to help their learning In this light, Đặng Tấn Tín (2012) found that Vietnamese EFL students’ perceptions of LA and their practices on

LA activities based on four dimensions had a high correlation They cared to conduct what they deemed crucial for their language learning However, he stated that analyzed data in his study indicated that “the relationship between perception and performance of LA is not strong [ ] Learners cannot always do what they want to do for their learning even though they understand that it is necessary and useful to do so” (Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012, p.184) The findings from the interviews showed that they could not implement their LA activities due to

“travelling problems, part-time job commitments, or friend-related issues” (Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012, p.184).

Furthermore, Lê Xuân Quỳnh (2013) studied Vietnamese students’ perceptions of LA at a private university in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam According to his study’s results, students showed their main perception of LA as the initiating learning, namely self-study, and as the elements of Littlewood’s reactive autonomy (1999) Lê Xuân Quỳnh’s findings (2013) showed that most of the students in his study practiced audio-visual LA activities such as listening to music; many of them carried out social-interaction LA activities, and a few others applied metacognition in learning language He found that students performed LA activities which had characteristics of Littlewood’s framework of reactive autonomy (1999) Students met many difficulties when promoting their LA ability, namely teacher-dependence learning habit in previous education, traditional teaching methods, a few chances to implement English, and so on Additionally, Phan Thị Thanh Thảo (2015) investigated EFL students’ understanding of and their awareness of pedagogic method to enhance language learner autonomy at a University in Vietnam through project work Accordingly, students showed their beliefs in the link between LA and language accomplishments, in the perfect learning surroundings in which practices and evaluation of LA focused.

Notwithstanding a variety of studies investigating EFL teachers’ LA perceptions and practices, the obtained results are by no means invariant across the board at all aspects under investigation Although they are mostly positive, EFL teachers from different contexts understand LA and get involved in developing it for EFL students at dissimilar levels The present study revisits LA by exploring how EFL teachers from Dong Thap University, a rural area in South Vietnam, think of LA values and what they are trying to do for its development The study results are hoped to provide more evidence to the current literature and to open for practical instructions and further studies, at least at this university.

Summary

This chapter presents an overview of definitions, aspects, perceptions, and practices of LA in literature in previous studies Moreover, it provides a number of achievements of LA research as well as the constraints both EFL teachers and students have met when they have implemented LA activities The chapter also discusses the role of assessment as learning in LA process for EFL teachers and students which is rarely mentioned in previous studies It introduces the theoretical framework for the current study to be conducted While a modest amount of previous research explored LA as lifelong learning, especially LA studies inVietnamese context, and assessment as a part of autonomous learning, the current study filled this gap in literature Furthermore, this study mentioned LA as a cultural challenge in Mekong Delta, the South of Vietnam, which has not constituted in previous studies The next chapter will describe the research design and methods used in the present study.

In this chapter, research methods are presented First of all, it provides good reasons for research approaches applied in this current study After that, it presents a detailed description of the research design with full information about research participants, data collection instruments, and data analysis.

Research approach: Mixed methods research

It is a large number of complexities surrounding learner autonomy that appeals a multiple research approach rather than a single one in order to raise the degree of confidence in responding the three research questions in this study Thus, the present research employed a mixed methods approach, typified by a process of combining and analyzing both qualitative and quantitative data (Creswell, 2014; Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner, 2007) to gain “greater depth of understanding and corroboration of findings” (Johnson et al, 2007, p.124) The results of a combination of diverse data resources, got at different phases in conducting a study, can be “the most informative, complete, balanced, and useful” (Johnson et al, 2007, p.129) and provide more details about the circumstance explored (Creswell & Clark, 2011; Creswell, 2012, 2014) According to Hesse-Bier (2010, p.1), the development of mixed methods research is “a result of a convergence of the factors” The benefits of this mixture help more full comprehension of research difficulties than using separate approach (Creswell, 2012, 2014) Next, there are a number of models of mixed-method approaches While Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill (2009) present three basic types of mixed methods research, namely exploratory, descriptive, explanatory, Ivankova and Creswell (2009) introduce four basic designs – Explanatory, Exploratory, Triangulation, and Embedded Depending on research purpose, researchers can choose a suitable kind of mixed methods design for their study (Saunders et al, 2009).

In this research, an exploratory study of mixed methods design was opted because the aim of this research kind was to find “what is happening; to seek new insights; to ask questions and to assess phenomena in a new light” (Robson, 2002,p.59) Saunders et al (2009) indicate that exploratory research is particularly advantageous for researchers when they want to clarify their comprehension of an area The current study searches to understand the EFL teachers’ and the EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA at a university in Mekong Delta, the South of Vietnam where there is little research available in this field Up to now, there has been only Trịnh Quốc Lập’s work (2005) about Writing for EFL students conducted at Can Tho University – the biggest university in Mekong Delta, the South of Vietnam Therefore, exploring other aspects of LA in other provinces in Mekong Delta is necessary to have full understanding of LA field in the local contexts According to Cooper and Schindler (2014, p.129), the exploratory research is extremely useful in circumstances in which information is limited, and basing on exploration researchers progress “concepts more clearly, establish priorities, develop operational definitions” They suggest that for new or vague field, researcher should conduct exploratory research to study something about the difficult situations they are facing.

Besides, Cooper and Schindler (2014) state that different techniques, including both quantitative techniques and qualitative techniques, can be applied in exploration though an exploratory study is based more heavily on qualitative techniques Next, to conduct an exploratory study, in procedure of fulfilling the study, at first the researcher started by investigating with qualitative data, and analyzed them Then, the results of analyzed qualitative data were used to build quantitative data in the second phase (Creswell, 2014) The qualitative data can provide some aspects in details about what EFL teachers and EFL students think about LA and its role in learning English, and what they utilize LA in local teaching and learning situation in order to build more information in this field in literature and to be foundation for designing a set questionnaire for quantitative research The quantitative data permits the study to recognize the local EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA in depth This combination of two data resources can support the research to understand the study problem clearly (Johnson et al, 2007) Hence, it is completely suitable for the researcher to use an exploration with both qualitative and quantitative techniques for this study.

Saunders et al (2009, p.140) indicate three major ways to carry out an exploratory study, namely “a search of the literature, interviewing “experts” in the subject, and conducting focus group interviews” The present researcher sought to understand both EFL teachers’ and EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA more deeply and completely in different aspects as well as their advantages, their disadvantages, and their self-assessment of practicing LA In order to get information from EFL teachers about their thoughts of their students’ autonomous learning and the ways they practiced LA in their teaching, and to have more students’ experiences of learning autonomously to be further explored, the researcher used neither interviewing “experts” nor focus group interview as Saunders et al (2009) mentioned above The reasons were that the EFL teachers and the EFL students maybe were not experts of LA, and the participants were not asked to discuss LA in conversation Instead, in-depth interview for EFL teachers and group interview for EFL students were used in qualitative research, and questionnaire was utilized in quantitative research Figure 3.1 illustrates research design in this study.

Qual Qual Connect Quan Quan Interpret

Figure 3.1: Exploratory design procedure in this study

In brief, integrating quantitative research and qualitative research in this study is necessary to have in-depth understanding of teachers’ and students’ thoughts and real situations of applying LA in learning and teaching in Mekong Delta Questionnaire can supply numerical data of a large number of respondents; meanwhile, interview data usually collects a clear, deep understanding of informants’ perceptions and practices (Kendall, 2008) Simultaneously, collecting data from questionnaire and interviews provides a variety of sources of information in different aspects of LA which are a foundation to give some suggestions in the following chapter of this study Besides, both qualitative research and quantitative

Codes and categories Developing survey items

Internal consistency reliability; content and construct validity

Interpretation based on QUAL and QUAN results research support together to increase the reliability to answer three research questions for this study.

Research participants

Teacher participants

A total of 20 Vietnamese-speaking EFL teachers in Foreign Language Education Faculty, at a university in Mekong Delta, South Vietnam (where the present author has been working as an EFL lecturer for nearly 10 years, and this Faculty has 26 EFL teachers in total), voluntarily took part in the interview There were six more EFL teachers in the Faculty, but for some personal reasons they refused to join the interview They were all MA holders, 13 females and seven males from 23 to 50 years old, currently teaching English major classes Like their partners in other universities throughout Vietnam, most of them have so far taught several different subject courses (i.e speaking, listening, reading, writing, and grammar) It should be noted that by the time the current study was conducted, none of them had attended any workshops or training programs exclusively on EFL students’ LA They were asked about their perceptions of LA as well as the role of

LA in students’ learning in university environment Besides, these voluntary teachers responded whether or not they instructed their students learning autonomously outside classroom If yes, how they implemented and how they checked their students studying autonomously The reason why teachers were interviewed in this research was because as mentioned in literature review section,teachers recognized their role in students’ autonomous learning, which was very vital They shared their real stories about students’ autonomously learning ability.They were valuable evidence to evaluate the reality of applying LA.

Student participants

The second participant group were 285 current English majors (243 females and 42 males from 18 to 25 years old) in Foreign Language Education Faculty at the university They included 52 freshmen, 107 sophomores, 55 juniors, and 71 seniors.The number of participants depended on the total of students of each academic course and their willingness to take part in this study They all had around ten years’ experience of learning English at secondary and high schools All of them volunteered to join the survey, and complete the questionnaire Of 285 participants,

60 voluntary students responded to interview questions of what they learned after school They were six males and 54 females (which represented well a male-female student ratio in this faculty in current years) from 18 to 22 years old It included 15 freshmen, 15 sophomores, 15 juniors, and 15 seniors (2016 -2017 academic year). The researcher wanted to interview 60 students because she would like to have the large qualitative data to serve the purpose of this research as well as to get more information for this study After fully informed of the purpose of this study by the author, all of them volunteered to join this research, and answered interview questions relating to both their perceptions of LA and what they did to develop LA in their learning It should be noted that none of them have yet to attend any training programs exclusively on EFL students’ LA.

Data collection methods

Interviews

The benefits of interview have been appreciated by many researchers. According to Kvale (1996, 2003), interview is a powerful way to receive informants’ narrative deeply Communicating with one or more people through spoken way is one of the most effective methods to gain their ideas about the research topic Also, Cohen, Manion, and Morison (2007, p.29) show that the benefit of interview is “a valuable method for exploring the construction and negotiation of meanings in a natural setting” Moreover, Kumar (2011) gives some benefits of interview; for example, it is more suitable for complicated contexts, a helpful tool to collect clear, deep data; the researcher can describe interview questions more clearly In interview process, the interviewees not only report their views detailedly but also they can

“speak in their own voice and express their own thoughts and feelings” (Berg, 2007, p 96) It is a common tool in collecting data in research.

There are a number of types of interview, and it is crucial for researchers to choose a suitable interview for their studies; hence, it is not except for this study As mentioned above, in-depth interview and group interview were used in this study instead of other kinds of interview because of the following reasons According to Saunders et al (2009), one of three principle paths to carry out an exploratory study is focus group interview However, these researchers also state that in an exploration, in-depth interview is very suitable to seek information; structured interview is effectively used in descriptive research; and semi-structured interview is helpful for an explanation Similarly, Cooper and Schindler (2014) indicate that one of four exploratory techniques is focus group interview Normally, a focus group includes from 6 to 10 participants exchanging their opinions, feelings, and experiences on a particular topic, and they must discuss their ideas together.Meanwhile, in this study, there were 20 teacher interviewees and 60 student interviewees If both teacher and student informants had been interviewed as focus groups, it would have been hard for the researcher to obtain the results as expected because the aim of this research was to investigate respondents’ perceptions and practices about LA at a university Specially, their experiences of autonomous learning in the past, at present, and their intention in the future were explored carefully Their real stories about LA in learning and teaching were valuable data for this study They did not “exchange” or “discuss” their ideas and experiences; instead, they just told the interviewer their working life and their learning life with

LA According to Creswell (2014, p.32), qualitative research is used to explore and understand “the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem” With qualitative method, researchers can focus on small samples but details and in depth Hence, in-depth interview was opted to be able to gain the outcomes of this research according to Saunders et al’s view (2009) and Creswell’s (2014) In this interview, the teachers told the interviewer about their LA working life individually, and group interview was utilized for students The concepts of in- depth interview, their values, and benefits of group interview were analyzed in the following.

A number of international researchers have recognized the contribution of in- depth interview to education in general, and TESOL and applied linguistics in particular Robson (2002, p.59) indicates that in-depth interview is extremely useful to “find out what is happening [and] to seek new insights”, and is analyzed clearly in the following section Using in-depth interview, the researcher can explore “as much depth as possible the respondent’s experiences, views, or feelings” and obtain

“the richness of insight” (Richards, 2009, p.185) Similarly, Saunders et al (2009,p.321) talk about the advantages of in-depth interview as investigating the general field in depth and the participants given a chance “to talk freely about events,behaviors, and beliefs in relation to the topic area” They indicate that in-depth interview supplies the researcher “with the opportunity to ‘probe’ answers, where the researcher wants his/her interviewees to explain, or build on, their responses”(Saunders et al, 2009, p.324) According to Cooper and Schindler (2014), individual depth interview provides “detailed individual experiences, choices” for the researcher Therefore, this type of interview is suitable for this study to explore the teachers’ perceptions and practices of LA.

Two ways of interview techniques were used in this study For EFL teachers, individual depth interview was used to collect more information about LA from them Regarding EFL students, group interview was considered a helpful way to understand deeply EFL students’ thought of LA The benefits of group interview are discussed in the following.

Group interview has a lot of benefits which have been researched by many researchers on the world (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992; Watts & Ebbutt, 1987) First of all, using group interview helps researchers develop and obtain a wider set of answers from interviewees through their own stories than in individual ones Next, it brings to researchers diverse thoughts or ideas And then, it saves time because the interviewer can interview a group of people at the same time Psychologically, when interviewed in groups, students will not be asked alone and can be stimulated to remind them of more ideas relating to the topic while they are listening to their friends’ story To summarize the advantages of using the group interview, Aubel (1994, p.8) lists ten points:

1 The group setting can potentially provide a secure atmosphere in which participants can spontaneously express their ideas.

2 Participants do not feel pressured to respond to every question asked.

3 People generally enjoy being asked to discuss their experiences and share their ideas in a receptive group setting.

4 The flexible format allows the facilitator to explore related but unanticipated topics or issues as they arise in the discussion.

5 A wide range of information can be generated in a short time.

6 They are often less expensive than studies which require a random sample of interviewees.

7 Results are available more quickly to project personnel, particularly when they participate directly in the study.

8 The group exerts a certain degree of control over participants which can dissuade them from giving dishonest or false answers.

9 The technique fosters a flexible and fluid communication process with project beneficiaries.

10 Participation by project personnel can improve their communication skills.

To help interviewees to feel more comfortable and freer tell their stories about how they have ever learnt independently, interviewers should create warm and friendly interviewing atmosphere In order to get learners’ information, Josselson and Lieblich (1995) suggest that researcher should have learners tell their learning experiences, emotions, and ideas by using a set of questions related to their learning Another reason of using group interview is that students could learn from their friends’ LA style In this study, after the students listened to their friends’ stories, they could support their story with some details they forgot before This helped the researcher gain rich data which served the purposes of this study. Therefore, two sets of interview questions designed to serve interviews of both teachers and students will be introduced in part 3.3.1.3 and 3.3.1.4 below.

Teacher interviewing questions were divided into three parts They were asked about definitions and role of LA, teachers’ reflections about applying LA in their teaching, teachers’ assessment of their EFL students’ autonomous level and their self- assessment of instructing and organizing LA activities for their students These purposes were to get EFL teachers to tell what they thought about LA and what they implemented LA activities outside the classroom These interview questions designed based on definitions of, four aspects of LA, LA role at university environment, teacher role in teaching, and assessment in autonomous learning which were mentioned in Chapter Two The information collected from the teachers’ stories helped to answer research questions 1 and 3.

Table 3.2: Summary of the teacher interview clusters

Teachers’ perceptions of definition, role, and demonstration of LA 1-2

Teachers’ teaching practices of LA 3-5

Teachers’ assessment of their LA activities 6-7

EFL students’ interview questions were designed with three parts The EFL students had to answer their perceptions towards definitions of learner autonomy and its role in higher education, their reflections of what they learned autonomously after class, and their self-assessment of their own LA ability The contents of the interview guide also based on the foundation of definitions of, four aspects of, and self- assessment of LA discussed in Chapter Two These research data answer research questions 2 and 3 Students were interviewed in groups of five.

Table 3.3: Summary of the student interview clusters

Students’ perceptions of definition, role, and demonstration of LA 1-2

Students’ self-assessment of their LA 11

Questionnaire

As discussed above, in an exploration, analyzed data from interview were used to build questionnaire in quantitative research; therefore, quantitative research was utilized in this study to have complete understanding of this situation Fowler(2009) suggests using questionnaires or structured interviews to collect data in this kind of method Additionally, Creswell and Plano Clark (2011) indicate that the researchers can conduct a quantitative method with large samples According toCreswell (2014, p.32), quantitative research is applied to test “objective theories” through numbered data analyzed in statistical procedure Survey research is applied because it “provides a quantitative or numeric description of trends, attitudes, or opinions of a population by studying a sample of that population” (Creswell, 2014,p.42) In the context of this study, questionnaire was only used for EFL students,not for the EFL teachers because there were only 20 EFL teachers at the university where this study was carried out and this number of teachers was too small to answer questionnaire It is completely suitable for the purpose of studying participants’ cognition of LA field in this research Hence, questionnaire tool is appropriately used to collect data for EFL students.

One more reason explaining questionnaire method opted is that it is an effective tool to collect information data and save time for informants to answer. Kumar (2011, p.141) indicates the benefits of questionnaire that “it is less expensive”; “it offers greater anonymity” It means that the researcher can save his or her time, finance, etc when he or she uses questionnaires to investigate a scientific problem Cohen et al (2007, p.317) cited Wilson and McLean’s words (1994) about the concept of questionnaire “is a widely used and useful instrument for collecting survey information, providing structured, often numerical data, being able to administered without the presence of the researcher, and being comparatively straightforward to analyze” Yet, Kumar (ibid.) argues some problems when the researchers use this tool such as limit application, low response rate, a self-selecting bias, lack of chance to clarify issues, and so on.

A constructed questionnaire was made into scale for statistical analysis These questions used a five-point Likert-type scale These kinds of scales are the most useful in behavioural research because they can help avoid loading participants with an immense workload and ensure an overall view of the focus of the research (Hinkin, 1995) Likert-type scales can vary in the number of scale points (e.g 4 or 7 points) as well as the descriptors For the current study, the unbalanced scale (5) was used because a 5-point Likert-type scale was widely accepted as a proxy interval level of measurement in line with common practice in educational research (Dornyei, 2003) Additionally, Likert method is considered as “almost perfect over other techniques in this field” (Singh, 2006, p 207).

The questionnaires were grown in four steps: 1 piloting, 2 revising, 3 testing again and getting feedback, and 4 including feedback into a final version of the questionnaire.

The items of the questionnaire in this study were first developed from interview data Quantitative pilot questionnaire conducted with 30 EFL students in different levels at the end of the first semester of school year 2016 -2017 provided some clear, deep understanding of LA in Mekong Delta setting in Vietnam. However, the quantitative data showed unexpected findings that made the researcher look back her questionnaire and revise it Actually, the researcher just asked students for 50 general questions with 8 clusters about perceptions and practices of LA for general students, not for English majors They are what is LA? (8 items), LA role at higher education (8 items), setting goals (4 items), planning study (5 items), learning styles and study methods (10 items), time and life management (6 items), materials and resources (3 items), and self-assessment (6 items) Additionally, there was not metacognition in learning language As a result, the researcher omitted, added, and changed many of items in the revised version to have the final questionnaire presented below.

The researcher looked back qualitative data carefully, and based on the theories in LA for language learners in literature, empirical studies, and mixing previous questionnaires in this field such as Chan et al (2002), Dafei (2007), Sakai and Takagi (2009), Duruk and Kecik (2014), and Talley (2014), to formulate a new questionnaire More specifically, from item 27 to item 38 were in Chan et al (2002); items 65, 66, 67, 70 were adapted from Talley (2014); item 68 was in Dafei (2007); from item 71 to item 85 were in Duruk and Kecik (2014); item 86 was adapted from Sakai and Takagi (2009) Perception, setting goal, and planning study sections were not adapted from previous studies because they were not suitable for purpose of the present research Therefore, the rest items were designed and developed due to interview results and literature review.

The following items were added to setting goals, planning study, LA activities, and self-assessment:

 I set appropriate learning goals for speaking English at the beginning of attending university.

 I set appropriate learning goals for reading English at the beginning of attending university.

 I set appropriate learning goals for listening to English at the beginning of attending university.

 I set appropriate learning goals for writing English at the beginning of attending university.

 I maximize my strengths of English study.

 I step by step minimize my weaknesses of English study.

 I try my best to solve English learning problems before seeking assistance.

 I watch English movies on TV or the Internet.

 I take part in English Clubs at university.

 I take part in extra activities of Faculty of foreign languages Education.

 I learn new words through videos or pictures focusing on teaching vocabulary on the Internet.

 I learn new words incidentally in reading passages.

 I learn structures in reading passages.

 I choose topics to write English at home.

 I read English stories to practice reading skills, learn vocabulary and structures.

 I prepare new lessons before English classes.

 I assess the quality of English language I have got.

 I assess the quantity of English language I have acquired.

 I self-assess my carrying out study plan of English after each semester.

In addition, some of items were deleted because they had the same idea as others:

 LA is key to EFL majors success at university and post-university.

 LA helps EFL students be active and positive in learning.

Besides, some items were reworded to simplify their meaning to help students understand them more clearly:

Original item: I set up my own long-term objectives of English study at university from the beginning of the 1 st semester to graduating.

Reworded item: I had my own long-term objectives of English study at the beginning of attending university.

Original item: I set up my own short-term objectives of each English subject from the beginning of the 1 st semester to now.

Reworded item: I had my own short-term objectives of each English subject at the beginning of attending university.

Original item: I set up objectives after university graduation.

Reworded item: I have objectives of English study before and after university graduation.

Original item: I could design my English study plans in details from the beginning of the 1 st semester to now.

Reworded item: I have designed my English study plans well at the beginning of attending university.

Original item: I could carry out those plans effectively.

Reworded item: I plan how to achieve my English study objectives.

At the third step, a revised version of the questionnaire was translated into Vietnamese Then, the researcher asked her two colleagues and her two students to re- read it in Vietnamese version to make sure that all readers could understand it Next, the Vietnamese questionnaire was delivered to 30 voluntary students to complete. After collecting, calculating, and analyzing this new version, quantitative data displayed remarkably expectable results.

In the final stage, the researcher collected all comments and feedback in the final questionnaire designed in two main parts Part one was demographic data of participants’ gender, age, and previous English education background at high school level Part two was designed with two sections In the first section, a five-point scale of strongly disagree, disagree, not sure, agree , and strongly agree was used to investigate students’ perceptions towards LA Meanwhile, another five -point scale of never, rarely, sometimes, often, and usually was used in the second one to explore how frequently students conducted LA activities The items of questionnaire were classified into two main sections such as perceptions and practices with ten subscales of eighty-six items and delivered at the stage two Table

3.4 below illustrates the number of items in every cluster in the questionnaire:

Table 3.4: Summary of questionnaire clusters

Ability and cognition of LA 1, 5, 9, 10

Learning activities outside the classroom 27-51

Table 3.4 shows that the number of items in perception section is smaller than in practice one because one thought can have diverse ways in practices The close relationship of items between perceptions and practices towards LA is presented inAppendix D The final questionnaire with 86 items was translated into Vietnamese and then delivered to 285 EFL students to ask them to complete from April 2017 toMay 2017 They were invited to respond the questionnaire in their free time After that, the researcher received 285 completed copies of the questionnaire.

Research procedure

Pilot study

In this stage, only quantitative pilot questionnaire was conducted The process of piloting the development of questionnaire was described carefully in section3.3.2.

Main study

In interviews, informants were recorded their experience of the topic.

Therefore, these could be considered as representations and interpretations of that topic (Muylaert, Junior, Galo, Neto, & Reis, 2014).

In stage one of the current research, 20 EFL teachers were interviewed to find out their understandings of LA and which LA methods they used in teaching The content of the interview focused on aspects as mentioned above They were interviewed individually about thirty minutes At first, the guide interview questions were designed in English But, when conducting the interview, the researcher used Vietnamese version to instruct the participants to tell their story in Vietnamese The author used two digital recorders (one is a mobile phone and another is a recorder) simultaneously to record all the interviews (one as a backup for the other). According to Kumar (2011, p.135), “the biggest advantage of narrative recording is that it provides a deeper insight into the interaction” The researcher also tried to avoid background noise by choosing quiet places for interviews.

Students were asked to share their cognition of LA and tell how they practiced autonomous learning in their early and current learning Like teacher interview, the content including English and Vietnamese versions of student interview consisted of the main parts as table 3.3 Students joined in interview in groups of five They took turn to tell their own autonomous learning life while their friends were listening to their story They could support their details later which they forgot during interview time The current researcher conducted this with 12 groups of students Each group shared their own story about an hour Additionally, two kinds of recorders were used, and the place where the interviews took place was quiet.

In this period, 285 EFL majors voluntarily received and answered the questionnaire They responded all questions in Vietnamese version after class or at break Then, all their responses were collected After that, the researcher used SPSS software to analyze data according to scales (see Table 3.4) The results of this survey helped to answer research questions 2 and 3 and to give some suggestions to improve students’ autonomously learning ability.

Coding questionnaire and interview data

In Phase 1, qualitative data were recorded and administered by the researcher. Every participant was coded for both students and teachers For instance, students No.1, No.2 were coded S1, S2, and teachers No.1, No.2 were T1, T2, and so on For student interview, each group of five students’ transcription was put and saved in separate file in order Similarly, every teacher’s transcription was stored separately. This helped the researcher distinguish them easily.

In Phase 2, after collected, questionnaire was managed and coded by the researcher Each finished questionnaire was numbered hand-writtenly in order on the first page In addition, it was coded with student year and put in order in the pile This was very crucial for the researcher to identify students in different years.

Data analysis

Qualitative data analysis

Transcribing data from an oral version to a written one is an important step in interviewing because according to Cohen et al (2007, p.365), “there is the potential of massive data loss, distortion, and the reduction of complexity” Kvale (1996, p.176) indicates that transcript is choosing information and can be “an opaque screen between the researcher and the original live interview situation” Thus, Cohen at al (ibid.) suggest that the researcher should make certain of data transcribed The researcher of this study transcribed her own interviews of EFL teachers and students thanks to Miles and Huberman’s suggestions of twelve planned ways (1994, as cited in Cohen at al, p.368, 2007) to interpret transcribed and interview data The researcher transcribed data from student interview and teacher interview in Vietnamese.

As mentioned above, interview questions were designed in English and then translated into Vietnamese and used to ask teachers and students in interview process After that, the current researcher had to translate the interviewed data into English to serve the purposes of this research.

Interpreting interview data is a challenge to researchers (Muylaert et al, 2014). Shutze and Bauer (2002) give a quite didactic framework of a process of analyzing interviews (as cited in Muylaert et al, 2014, p.187):

1 After transcription, they separate the indexed from the nonindexed material:

 The first corresponds to the rational, scientific, concrete content of who does what, when, where, and why

 The second, the nonindexed information goes beyond the events and express values, judgments, refers to the wisdom of life and therefore is subjective.

2 In the next step, using the indexed content, events are ordered for each subject what is trajectories.

3 The next step is to investigate the dimensions that are not indexed in the text.

4 Then, we group and compare individual trajectories.

5 The last step is to compare and establish similarities among individual cases thus allowing the identification of collective trajectories.

Also, Cohen et al (ibid., p.368) also give an example about many steps of data analysis such as “generating natural units of meaning; clarifying, categorizing and ordering these units of meanings; structuring narratives to describe the interview content; interpreting interview data” Creswell (2012) suggests that the researchers should use coding and categorizing processes to serve data analysis Creswell (2012) also presents steps of coding qualitative data with the different levels of codes For the present study, coding interview data based on five dimensions such as ability, cognition, responsibility, and cultural challenge of LA in the literature review.

In the current research, based on above outline, transcribed and translated information from interviews of EFL teachers and students was analyzed to respond questions 1, 2, and 3 These qualitative data were interpreted their meaning to be considered the reality of how teachers and students understood the concept, the role of LA at university environment, and what they did or did not carry out LA outside classroom Additionally, validity and reliability of qualitative data analyzed were focused According to Gibbs (2007), the researcher must test the qualitative validity of the findings through using assuredly collecting and analyzing data procedures. For qualitative reliability, the research approaches of this study must be stable.

After analyzed, teachers’ views were being compared with students’ ones to find out the relationship between their perceptions and practices of LA These made

“a coherent system for all interview in the research, being the final product the gathered interpretation of the relevant aspects to both researchers and informants”(Muylaert et al, 2014, p.187) From this evidence, some suggestions for bridging the gap between them were offered.

Quantitative data analysis

Report information of a survey through questionnaire was used a software program named Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) to code and give statistics This analysis indicated the means, standard deviations Furthermore, analysis based on coding and categorizing quantitative data according to scales of

LA as discussed above Besides, validity and reliability of these statistics were being paid attention because they “lead to meaningful interpretations of data”(Creswell, 2014, p 200) The results of this data analysis answered research questions 2 and 3.

Research reliability and validity

To check reliability of all statements in questionnaire before statistics were carried out to analyze the quantitative data, 86 items of ten subscales were measured their Cronbach’s alpha coefficients to assure their internal consistency Table 3.5 shows that twenty-five items of LA activities obtain the highest Cronbach’s alpha coefficient at 899 The next level is Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 892 of seventeen items of “metacognition in learning language” group Next, six items of students’ perceptions of responsibility of LA get Cronbach’s alpha coefficient at.885 Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of items of perceptions of role of LA and setting goals are nearly same when they gain in order at 852 and at 855 Self-assessment section has Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 830, and materials and resources are

.819 Items in “planning study”, “time and life management”, and perceptions of ability and cognition are lowest with 728, 752, and 700 In other words, all Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of 86 items in questionnaire have the acceptable value and show the good internal consistency among them Additionally, they indicate that all items measure the same thing and have high correlations.

Table 3.5: Summary of Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficients

LA activities outside the classroom 899 25

Ethical considerations

The EFL teachers and students took part in this research voluntarily That meant they had their own freedom to withdraw from the research whenever they wanted Students did not need to be afraid that their marks in class would be influenced when they stopped participating in this project Besides, all participants’ names would be protected The students did not write their name in the questionnaire paper Similarly, in the interview, the teachers’ and the students’ stories about LA were kept in a secret and just used exclusively for the study purposes Furthermore, the researcher could provide some information about LA of this study before interviewing the participants This helped them know what they would be asked about.

Summary

This chapter just presented the research design with a mixed methods approach of an exploratory study Each tool of quantitative research and qualitative research was introduced More specifically, an exploratory study with in-depth interview, group interview, and questionnaire was discussed with their benefits as well as the ways to conduct them The participants’ information, and two phases of the research were mentioned This is very important because it is the driving license for the study to collect data, analyze and then move ahead.

Chapter Four FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter reports the results of the present research The data collected from the questionnaire for students and interviews with both teachers and students are analyzed in three main sections: teachers’ perceptions and practices of LA,students’ perceptions and practices of LA, the relationships between teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices of LA Then, based on the findings of this study,discussion is made in responding to the three research questions.

Teachers’ perceptions and practices of learner autonomy

Teachers’ perceptions of the concept of learner autonomy

Twenty EFL teachers, who were interviewed about their understanding of EFL students’ LA, shared a number of ideas in three domains of LA: ability, responsibility, and cognition It needs to be noted that each participant shared his or her understanding of two or three dimensions of LA.

First, one-fifth of teachers stated that EFL students had to have their ability of autonomous learning in diverse ways For instance, T1 mentioned that EFL students had to “adjust their learning actively”, and master “the ways to learn autonomously, and self-research” Next, T7 added that EFL students with an LA ability had their own far vision of their learning as their “capacity” She indicated that “For those who only have low vision, they only think about solving their duty at that time such as doing homework However, for those who have LA ability have farther vision of their learning as well as their career, because when they research new things, they develop more than the others.” In addition, T17 seemed to understand the concept of LA deeply since she mentioned two LA terminologies, namely “proactive autonomy” and “reactive autonomy” She said, “The first type comprises students who absolutely learn autonomously The second consists of the students who learn autonomously with teachers’ instructions In other words, based on teachers’ plans, activities, and instructions, they are gradually aware of their LA ability On this basis, they can design their learning goals and their own learning plan by themselves which are suitable for them” It can be seen that these teachers had basic understanding of students’ LA ability In other words, they could indicate that autonomous learners had to own these abilities of LA as mentioned above.

Second, thirteen participants emphasized students’ “responsibility” for their own learning For example, T2 perceived that they had to “know what they need, what they do to obtain their learning goals If EFL students set up their clear learning goals, they will actively arrange their time, choose a place like the library to learn autonomously, buy books [ ] In general, they try to do what they can do to gain their good learning results” Also, T4 stated that when attending DTU EFL students had to “ know certificates of their outcome standard clearly They must actively ask their teachers, their supervisor, and officers in Faculty of Foreign Languages Education and Office of Academic Affairs to know their English program major including the number of units, subjects, and credits Basing on those, they themselves have to arrange their time to learn and have strategy for each semester in which they will register which subjects Parallelly, they must design their specific learning plan for each subject ” Furthermore, T5 believed that

EFL students with LA ability were for those who: 1 actively found materials to support the knowledge that the teacher explained in class, 2 needed to network or cooperate outside class to revise the knowledge they learned in classes and find new things T5 understood the concept of LA according to its technical aspect as well as sociocultural one when he mentioned the knowledge students searched outside classes and social learning environment According to T6, they had to prepare new lessons at home before going to class Besides, she mentioned when teachers gave their learning duty at home such as reading textbooks, studying materials, and doing homework, they had to complete them all T12’s view of LA was that EFL students had better practice their listening skills autonomously through videos on the

Internet, and their speaking to their English major friends; for those who lived in dormitory could talk together by daily simple English sentences Similarly, T13 added students had to “find forums to follow to learn more because the learning time in classes is not much enough for teachers convey all knowledge Besides, lecturers at university only instruct them main ideas, instead of showing them all knowledge” Clearly, these teachers stated that EFL students were autonomous learners when and only when did those students take these responsibilities for their own learning It cannot be denied that they indicated concrete LA activities which students needed to do in studying English.

Third, three informants focused on EFL students’ LA as “cognition”, and

“self-consciousness” outside the classroom More specifically, T8 indicated that

“EFL students with a good LA ability do not need to go to classes as one period in class is fifty minutes and students practice English very little Instead, they can actively listen to more English at home, practice speaking to their friends, and writing as well” This showed the power of awareness of LA in learning In other words, when students had good cognition and self-consciousness in learning, they could develop and practice LA activities well outside the class.

In conclusion, all participants stated their positive perceptions towards the concept of learner autonomy Furthermore, their perceptions of three dimensions of

LA related together It means that their perceptions of one dimension are dependent on other dimensions.

Teachers’ perceptions of the role of learner autonomy

All of the participants appreciated the extreme importance of the EFL students’ LA in learning a foreign language in the integrated time and technology era these days and in their job in the future In other words, they mentioned the dimension “lifelong learning” of LA Each of them showed their perception of role of LA and expressed their thought diversely in three following themes.

First, of twenty teachers, six perceived that LA helped students learn better in classes and get good learning results For instance, T1 believed that “after class the students need to self-research and self-discover knowledge to seek new things from what they have learnt in class” Next, T2 talked about the limited time in class in the credit-education system and emphasized that if EFL students wanted to master the language skills, they had to allocate their time to practise inside or outside classes to speak English fluently T8 considered that LA played an important role for the EFL students at DTU because their background of learning English was lower than others in other universities in Vietnam in general and in Mekong Delta in particular However, he claimed that if they learned autonomously well and practised English effectively in four years at university, after graduating, they could keep in touch with other English major ones in other universities Specifically, T3 added “students will get good learning results And through LA, when they research problems by themselves, they know information clearly related to their major”’ T16 mentioned that EFL students’ outcome standard was that they had to master their language; therefore, their LA would determine sixty percent of their success.

Second, one-fourth of teachers expressed one more function of LA: “It also helps EFL students with lifelong learning spirit”, and learning was the people’s lifelong activity T2 stated that “if the students build their LA ability clearly when they are at university, they will learn autonomously during their life When they are at work they have to continue to learn because there will be some knowledge they have not been taught at university” T4 thought that LA was like people’s instinct for survival, and anything that students knew originated from LA T10 said that EFL students had to learn more autonomously to make progress and their necessary skills such as critical thinking, communication, etc in the 21 st century should have been built.

Finally, twelve teachers mentioned the benefits of LA in students’ future jobs. For instance, T3 believed that if they had good LA ability, “after graduating from

DTU, they are more confident and have LA experience ” She felt that when they were at university, they were instructed by teachers But at work in the future they had to decide their work, so if they did not have LA ability, they would meet difficulties there One more thing she mentioned was that EFL teacher students could show their learning experience to their students in the future According to

T5, their practices of LA brought them different experience which would mainly affect their jobs in the future because first they would know how to interact with their co-workers and the others in society; second, LA brought them problem solving skills to deal with difficult situations they would meet in society in the future; third, LA maybe trained them to have leader ability in small companies or ability to work in groups or in pairs Similarly, T7’s opinion seemed to summarize other aforementioned ones, and she had a deep look at the role of LA to EFL students below:

If students’ learning in classes is important, their practice of LA is more important For students, LA is the background for them to enrich their knowledge In addition, when they are at work in the future, LA is professional development Furthermore, when they are at work, they may have a few chances to be trained their profession more Specially, LA forms EFL students in the habit, and if they are school teachers of English in the future, though they will not be participated in training courses, they can foster themselves.

It cannot be denied that the importance of LA in learning language and all the teachers agreed with this theme They also recognized the role of lifelong learning of LA for EFL students both at university now and in their work in the future.

4.1.3 Teachers’ self-report of practices of learner autonomy

When asked to talk about the ways to instruct their students to do LA activities, a number of the teachers reported that they used the same methods For example, at the beginning of a course, they designed their detail teaching plans with

LA which occupied twenty percent of the total grade for the subjects they taught In addition, they gave homework, exercises or assignments, or questions to students to do at home Then, in the classes, they checked whether the students did their duties.Besides, some of the teachers had their own special ways to hold and instruct their students to carry out LA as follows.

Teachers’ self-report of their practices of learner autonomy

T3 – using portfolios and Edmodo in Writing

T3, in the Writing courses, held a portfolio-like activity The students would submit their paper on time and have another assessment of that paper at the end of the semester They could self-correct their papers and submit the best final ones at the end of the semester to her Furthermore, she set a small project for the third-year students. She asked the students to write their dairy on their notebooks with topics given by her or chosen by themselves and submitted their notebooks to her every week In another class, she had them write journal entries about what they acquired as well as what they did not understand in that writing class in order to help her have a plan to support them.

In the first semester of the school year 2016 – 2017, she instructed her EFL students to do peer-correction in writing on Edmodo – an educational technology website where teachers can share contents, distribute quizzes, assignments, and manage communication with students, colleagues, and parents both inside and outside the classroom Students self- or peer-corrected their versions and submitted their best papers to her at the end of the semester She could control whether they corrected their friends’ mistakes in Edmodo or not She said to her students, “I can see you log in Edmodo or not If you spend a lot of time on commenting or correcting your friends’ writing, I give you high marks and vice versa”.

T4 – using groupwork, self- and peer-assessment, and Google Drive

T4 always asked his students to learn autonomously in his instructional courses.

He believed that LA was like the people’s instinct for survival, and what they knew originated from LA In the first period of every course, he gave them clear rules, shared his experience and contents, and told them the class requirements, as well as possible problems, which they would meet during that course, and what they had to do to get good results In addition, he instructed them, step by step, to get familiar with the learning methods in a few next periods, and after that they had to learn autonomously by themselves For example, in a Translation class, before each class, he gave the students an assignment, and they used the reading skills to read the text and underlined difficult words or phrases which they did not know and looked them up in dictionaries When they learned new words, they had to explain the words by their own definitions or explanations, and thus they had to use monolingual dictionaries (English-English dictionaries rather than English-Vietnamese ones). After that, they translated those assignments and posted them on their folder in the Google drive They could see their friends’ work He also asked them not to copy their friends’ answers and if they did, he would give them a zero mark Besides, he divided the class into four groups and gave them a list of topics Each group discussed to choose some of the topics to translate into Vietnamese at home and then divided work for each member They edited their work so that other students could understand They evaluated their group members’ work In class, four groups would evaluate each other; for example, group No.2 and group No.3 evaluated group No.1, and to do so, they had to see other groups’ work on the Google drive For example, they evaluated the organization of that translation version and the ways of using words effectively, compared with the English version, and then gave marks After that, the evaluated group could address to two observing groups about what they agreed or disagreed with This made a debate in the class and they could learn autonomously from each other Even the evaluated group could say they agreed or disagreed with the marks they received and explained the reasons honestly; for instance, a group gave the evaluated group 7.5 points and the other gave them 8 points However, the evaluated group was willing to accept 7.5 points and pointed out some explanations The teacher thought that this way helped students increase their

LA ability, activeness, honesty, and responsibility for learning.

For Teaching practice subject, he only divided students into groups to practice teaching skills in Pedagogic professional competence training course 5 th and course

6 th He often asked each group to choose a type of skill lesson and language focus one first to design lesson plans and posted them on Google drive to adjust Next,each group’s members chose different lessons in different grades at high school orA2 or B1 programs to discuss, design, and practise teaching outside the classroom.During their time of designing lesson plan, they could discuss it on Facebook, etc.Then, they had to practise teaching their lesson and took photos to show him that they worked in groups They could post their lesson plans on the Google drive to discuss and then brought the final ones to teach in class He gave marks for whole group but it did not mean that every member in a group received the same marks since then they evaluated and gave mark to each member of their group based on his marks Who worked effectively got higher marks, and who did not work could get zero mark If they did not know how to learn autonomously, he had to instruct them too much He had some forms for them to fill and instructed them step by step.

T10 – using project-based learning and no homework

For Speaking classes, T10 told students that to speak well they needed to listen very much However, in reality, their listening skills were weak, so they had to spend at least one hour or as much as possible on listening, and learning vocabulary so that those helped them be able to express their ideas Besides, they spent time on reading newspapers, books increasing their social knowledge which helped them have ideas to talk Specially, she held project-based learning for them in American Culture and British Culture They were divided into groups and almost learning method was LA With teacher’s instruction, students explored the problem as they did small research on any topics After that they reported their result of that research in groups She could see that LA occupied students’ time in those two subjects.

T13 – using English clubs and the Internet

For Speaking classes, T13 held English clubs for them to practice together. Also, she told them when they had a chance to meet a foreigner, they should talk to him or her so as to practice listening and speaking Concerning Writing classes, as all students had their account on Facebook these days, she organized some groups on Facebook for them to post and peer-review their papers In addition, she held another group for those who liked to compose or create new things If they wanted,they could write and post their products on their group’s Facebook page, and the others would read and comment For British Literature classes, she gave some links with stories or poems and from two to five questions for them to read and answer at home to check their understanding, and then they wrote a short report to share their ideas after they read in classes As for Listening classes, she also introduced some websites of short English news such as BBC, VOA, and links of movies to them. Additionally, she sent a long list of English songs to them to fill in the blanks and sing to practice both listening and speaking because she thought that singing is a high level of speaking If she told them to speak English alone and autonomously, they could not or were not patient, but when she told them to sing, they could. Those were some ways for them to learn autonomously with her instruction, not from their self-consciousness For Reading classes, EFL students were required to get C1 when they graduated from DTU; thus, she introduced some short stories collections, websites of short stories or fables to them so that they could have more vocabulary and train their reading habit because they could read in Vietnamese and were not familiar with reading in English They were afraid and did not dare to read when they saw a text which was full of an A4 sheet Therefore, she showed them gradually by short stories with a half of an A4 sheet, or an A4 sheet, and then long stories As a result, their skills were increased For tests, after a time, she checked whether they did all reading tests in time or not For Listening and Speaking, she often based on the results of final exam to evaluate because she could not assess those parts outside the classroom or by feeling.

T16 – designing activities based on students’ levels

T16 usually held a large number of LA activities for EFL students In Reading classes, the activities were designed to be based on students’ levels For example, the simplest activity was a reading passage to read at home, and a short quiz in class to check which students read it and which ones did not At the next level, she gave them from one to three passages and they designed questions at home At level three, the students chose their favorite passages and wrote questions She mingled their reading passages among groups and the students worked again on them in class When they finished, the authors checked their friends’ answers At level four, each student chose their favorite passage with its source, wrote a five-minute report, and then presented it in class At the most difficult level, they did the reading tests in TOEFL books or ones of the Vietnamese Standardized Test of EnglishProficiency tests They did one reading test in class and one at home every week.She gave marks for all their activities.

It seems that five teachers above diversified their teaching activities for their students Likewise, they combined technology information and assessment in teaching language.

4.1.3.2 Teachers’ achievements of organization and instruction of students’ LA activities

In this theme, there are two main types of ideas from participants More specifically, three-quarters of the interviewed teachers reported that when students practiced LA outside the classes such as peer-correction, preparing old and new lessons at home, doing homework or assignments, they saved time to explain lectures or correct students’ homework, and students learned faster and better in classes Besides, through LA activities, teachers could understand students more and design other ones in the following semester The rest stated that basing on the Internet and technology, the teachers and their students had e-communicative environment Students used technology well and joined English clubs.

Clearly, teachers gained some benefits in teaching when their students prepared the new lessons at home, did assignments before the students went to the class Besides, that students learned English major subjects autonomously outside the classroom helped the teachers teach better in the classes as they saved time to explain new lesson to students and just focused on the important points.

4.1.3.3 Teachers’ difficulties of organization and instruction of students’

Three-quarters of teachers stated that they met difficulties because some students were lazy, passive, unconscious of the importance of LA They did not have enough time to give feedback to students’ LA activities in the classroom They could neither manage nor measure their students’ LA at home Some students felt too much pressure when going to classes because they were asked to work perfectly The large-size classes also affected their instructions of LA activities.

A quarter admitted that the teachers did not understand students’ needs to design suitable LA activities Moreover, the students were inpatient, and had no free time to learn autonomously due to their second foreign language and Informatics classes, and extra-activities as well.

All the evidence above proved that some students lacked their self- consciousness in their own learning They were still passive and inpatient in learning Regarding the teachers, they knew these difficulties, but they could not design effective measures to foster their students’ LA ability.

4.1.3.4 Teachers’ assessment of their students’ LA ability

When asked to evaluate their students’ LA ability, one-fourth of teachers stated that in general, the EFL students’ LA ability was from good to very good. Students invested their time to learn autonomously However, T2 recognized students had the biggest problem that the students did not know what and how they should learn Sometimes the students learned autonomously, but their learning quality was low.

Additionally, six teachers claimed that their EFL students’ LA ability was average T4 explained that students carried out LA activities following teacher’s requirements while true LA was more than that For instance, when taking about Tram Chim Ramsar, he asked them what Ramsar meant and they did not know, so he had to instruct them that when they learned this subject autonomously, and they saw the word “Ramsar”, they should have put a question why it was called Tram Chim Ramsar instead of Tram Chim National Park before Besides, T8 considered that his students’ LA ability was average because their beginning background of English was low.

Also, three of twenty teachers mentioned that from 60% to 70% of EFL students had low LA ability T3 and T11 shared the same view that the main reason for this situation was that their consciousness of LA was not good Only excellent or good students had LA ability and had their self-consciousness more than the others.

Students’ perceptions and practices of learner autonomy

Students’ perceptions of the concept of learner autonomy

From the interviews with 60 student participants about their understanding of EFL students’ autonomy, their responses can be grouped into three main concepts related to “ability”, “responsibility”, and “cognition” (see Appendix E) Like the teachers, students’ perceptions of LA were interrelated In other words, each student showed their understanding of two or three dimensions of LA.

First, nearly a quarter of the 60 students thought that they should have the ability to learn language autonomously Specially, for them, LA means “ability” to arrange time to do self-study, control and divide their time to learn each skill of English equally inside and outside the classes, and join other daily activities (6 students); to design a clear study plan to what they wanted to carry out and obtain high results (6 students) For instance, while S46 maintained that EFL students had to know the scientific learning methods, S52 took LA to mean that students needed to have an idea of what they had to learn, and actively look for materials.

Second, it involves their “responsibility” to prepare and autonomously search learning materials/ resources “on the Internet or books” before or after classes for better class-participation and understandings, especially English language skills and culture (15 students) They had to watch English movies or music to develop new words (4 students), and practice English with foreigners in case they come across them (2 students) Besides they had to make groups for self-study (2 students), actively participate in school extra-curriculum activities (3 students), even to consult upper-class students for learning experiences (1 student), and make reflections on what has been done for reinforcements (1 student).

Third, the following opinions were shown about cognition of LA in learning language Two students focused on social supports from teachers and peers for learner autonomy inside and outside the classroom, e.g finding out useful materials introduced by their teachers or their friends, usually practicing English, paying attention to EFL teachers’ explanation carefully in classes, actively consulting higher-level students about effective self-study methods As one put it, “Students must actively go to meet teachers to ask what they haven’t understood and don’t let teachers remind them Second, they actively share and learn from their friends to understand their lessons more deeply and get more information ” Six others strongly showed their idea about a self-conscious spirit in seeking their own appropriate learning methods as well as learning resources, doing exercises to get good learning results instead of being reminded, finding their own solution to problems, planning their study.

Specifically, S7 and S8 shared their ideas that “students must self-analyze when they need to learn this, and when they need to learn that ” Then, S27 maintained that if students had much preparation for new lessons at home and investigated it clearly, they were not afraid of sharing their ideas or their problems when they studied that In addition, S38 went as far as advocating independence from teachers: “lecturers are instructors, so EFL students should not depend on their instructors much”.

Quantitative data in this section provide more information about students’ perceptions of LA Table 4.1 and table 4.2 show in detail.

Table 4.1: Students’ perceptions of ability and cognition

1 I know clearly what I study in the

5 I should not wait for teachers’ instructions on what to do 1.8% 4.9% 8.8% 55.1% 29.5% 4.06 858

English lessons before going to class.

10 I should ask teachers or the others about what I do not understand 0.4% 3.5% 10.2% 61.8% 24.2% 4.06 717

Overall perceptions of ability and cognition

Table 4.1 shows students’ responses to four items and 86.6% of the EFL students had positive perceptions of ability and cognition in autonomous learning. For example, the statement of having a clear idea of learning content has the highest mean score of 4.12 from students’ answers For the statement of preparing lessons before going to school, the mean score is 4.02 for students’ responses which is the lowest Besides, the two others obtain the same mean score of 4.06 The percentage of students who answered negatively in this part was rather low, 5.1 %.

Table 4.2: Students’ perceptions of responsibility

2 I should set up my learning long-term goals independently and clearly 2.1% 3.2% 6.3% 55.4% 33.0% 4.14 832

3 I should set up my learning short- term goals independently and clearly 1.1% 1.8% 9.5% 60.4% 27.4% 4.11 723

4 I should design my learning plan in details and carry out effectively 1.8% 3.2% 12.3% 47.4% 35.4% 4.12 866

6 I need to find out English resources to learn autonomously 1.4% 2.1% 4.2% 51.2% 41.1% 4.28 764

7 I shoud actively practice four skills of

English outside the classroom everyday 1.8% 3.2% 5.6% 44.6% 44.9% 4.28 846

8 I should arrange my learning time and my daily activities reasonably 1.8% 2.5% 6.0% 57.9% 31.9% 4.16 782

In Table 4.2, it is shown that nearly 90% of students had positive perceptions of their responsibility in learning language The mean scores of six items are from 4.11 to 4.28 More specifically, both statements about looking for English materials as well as usually and actively practicing English skills gain the mean score of 4.28.The statement about setting learning short-term goals has the lowest mean score of4.11 The others have their mean scores from 4.12 to 4.16 Meanwhile, only 4.3% of students had negative perceptions of this theme.

In conclusion, most interviewees showed their positive perceptions of the concept of LA in learning English The results from questionnaire were the same as ones from interview In other words, most of the students responded in the survey that they had high understanding of LA Besides, their insights into dimensions,namely ability, cognition, and responsibility of LA, were interrelated.

Students’ perceptions of the role of learner autonomy

When asked about the importance of LA to EFL students at university and after graduating from university, all informants agreed that LA has its following benefits First of all, LA influenced students’ learning results and future work For instance, S16 talked about this term that “LA is prerequisite to determine a student’s learning quality When a student has high learning quality, he/she has high LA ability Through LA students can find more knowledge resources than learning in the classroom” According to S34’s and S59’s opinion, “LA occupies 90% learning results of students as well as makes a chance for them to get a job [ ] If we have

LA ability, we will have benefits at work in the future ” Four others supported that as EFL students, if they did not learn autonomously, not self-research, and not self- find materials on the Internet, they could not gain their learning objectives established at the beginning of the course.

Second, EFL students needed to practice English autonomously every day.According to S23’s opinion, English is a difficult foreign language, so EFL students had to learn it autonomously outside the classroom to enhance their speaking skills and others Three other students mentioned that EFL students had to practiceEnglish every day because they could not be good at it in a short time Nearly a quarter believed that teachers could not convey all knowledge in classes and information of lessons which teachers explained to students in the classroom was a base because of the limited time; therefore, they had to self-study at home to develop their learning results To make this clearer, S24 stated that EFL teachers could not take care of each student well because of the large class and usually instructed the main parts of a lesson, so students had to study more and did exercises at home to understand lessons more.

Third, due to the limited time and limited knowledge conveyed in classes, students had to learn autonomously outside the classes Two other ideas were that learning was never enough Especially for those who were EFL students, knowledge they needed was very much; therefore, they had to be active to explore it to update new things every day Three other interviewees perceived that it was not enough if EFL students only read books or materials given by their teachers, and it was better if they read English articles or other materials to find out something new or to understand more something.

Fourth, LA helped students self-improve their learning Four of them indicated that when they did not have their own LA ability, they could not be excellent at English though they had been taught by good teachers, and used this ability in the future to meet the needs of society S49 believed that if they did not learn autonomously, they were treading water in class, and could not learn more and widen their knowledge S15 shared an interesting idea that students had to reconstruct the old lessons and teachers’ explanation at home to be their own knowledge, and perceived if they could do like that, they would be successful in learning Similarly, three others expressed their interesting view that what other people taught EFL students belonged to those people and students could understand them partially; so, as students found out something through LA activities, they belonged to them.

Fifth, LA was one of the obligatory characteristics of credit-education system. Two of interviewees quoted from that policy that to learn and understand one period in class, students had to learn autonomously two periods at home S38 considered that when they practiced LA they controlled English language.

Next, some students shared their LA experience as well as its advantages they conducted at previous time More specifically, S20 mentioned that teachers understood very little about their students' learning ability and it was students themselves who understood where their learning level is; therefore, LA helped them improve their weaknesses as well as develop their strengths According to S51’s view, EFL students needed to collect a variety of sources of materials from different countries, so when they learned more like that, they could fill their lack of knowledge S17 added one more idea that when they did not understand some problems in classes, they could ask their good friends at home Two others saw that the Internet was a good tool to self-study, and LA trained EFL students themselves to have self-consciousness Approximately one-tenth of students claimed that LA helped them develop their skills of learning English as well as their awareness of other fields, train them to have patience, arrange things logically, especially not depending on other people S32 indicated that when EFL students learned English autonomously, they could memorize knowledge more deeply than teachers or their friends provided for them S31 quoted an interesting saying: “When we are fed something from one’s mouth, it is less nutritious than we eat by ourselves ” to support S32’ idea Additionally, S8 shared the interesting fact that she got more knowledge thanks to her autonomous learning Moreover, she had her belief that

LA would form LA skills for students to enhance other fields Also, S29 believed that LA created her main knowledge When she was a secondary and high school student, she always self-studied English, especially doing grammar exercises in Mai Lan Huong’s English exercise books She showed that learning in class was minor. Then, the others also emphasized the orientation of LA as well as LA habit to their professional development in the future One-tenth of the informants mentioned that if they were teachers, they needed to learn autonomously more to teach their students, because if not, or if their students had their LA ability more than them, perhaps they would be lost to their students In S46’s opinion, a teacher had to possess three or four times as knowledge as their students’ to solve problems when teaching According to three others, they could share their LA experience with their students Furthermore, two others considered that LA was also an essential skill for EFL students after graduating from university as she understood the high school students’ feelings of teachers’ explanation, and emphasized that teachers should learn autonomously to find out many useful teaching methods to help their students understand lessons more clearly Besides, one-fifth confirmed that LA would be developed when they were teachers or officers in the future to update new knowledge as well as promote their jobs S27 was the only one of students to share her views most clearly and deeply:

[ ]After we graduate from DTU, LA stimulates our passion for our job because when we are teachers of English, our students ask us some problems in class which we don’t know, so we must explore them autonomously at home From that, we will formulate many skills or characteristics[ ].

(2 nd year student interview, group 3, S27) Finally, some of the students mentioned that LA in learning English was a long process For example, S27 thought that LA “forms our patience to find out lifelong knowledge” S52 stated that if EFL learned it autonomously and regularly, their ability of using English language was gradually better and better S1 also said that EFL students had to maintain their learning English, even after graduating from this university because of the countless knowledge of English.

This part of the questionnaire was designed with the aim of examining students’ perceptions of the role of LA at university Table 4.3 shows that 90.9% of them agreed with the importance of LA in their learning language For instance, the highest mean score is 4.36 for the statement of lifelong learning of LA The statement of LA making students promote has the lowest mean score of 4.13 The three others have their mean scores which are rather high from 4.23 to 4.34. However, 3.1% of students responded negatively in this theme.

Table 4.3: Students’ perceptions of role of learner autonomy

11 I believe LA helps develop my potentials, especially my strengths 1.4% 1.1% 4.9% 51.2% 41.4% 4.30 736

12 I believe LA helps me keep up with progress in science and technology.

13 I believe LA helps me be self- confident in learning 1.8% 2.1% 3.9% 45.3% 47.0% 4.34 800

14 I believe LA helps me make good use of learning resources and facilities.

15 I think LA lays the foundation of lifelong learning for me 1.8% 1.1% 5.3% 43.2% 48.8% 4.36 782

Overall perceptions of the role of LA 1.5% 1.6% 6.0% 50.2% 40.7%

In short, the results of this theme from interview data and questionnaire data were same and this showed that the findings did not conflict; in contrast, they supported together to increase the confidence for this study The findings from the interview data showed that the students knew to give typical samples of advantages of LA if they practiced LA correctly and well The majority of the students identified the benefits of LA in their learning at university as well as their work in the future.

Students’ self-report of practices of learner autonomy

The most interesting section in interview process was that each participant took turn to report their real LA activities at university They shared their learning goals, study plan, learning methods of four skills of English, the ways to revise the old lessons, the ways to arrange their time reasonably to learn, the ways to find out learning resources, and advantages as well as disadvantages when they practiced of

LA Most of them had the same ways to learn English outside the classes and look for materials, etc However, some of them possessed their own learning styles in learning language autonomously The following section presents some typical students’ autonomous learning ways These are their summarized stories of how and what they practiced LA.

S11 – doing homework more than the other LA activities

S11 began to say that at that time she had no specific study plan Sometimes she learned English all day, but sometimes she entertained all day She practiced listening to PET, KET, music, and others much, or watching movies and videos inEnglish She rarely practiced writing skills Besides, she did TOEFL reading tests.She just revised grammar because she had no difficulty in learning it For Speaking,she imitated English songs and found some topics to practice Furthermore, she did homework given by her teachers and other exercises found by herself However, the time she spent on doing homework more than the others She liked to learn alone.She just set up general goals such as getting A marks or winning a scholarship Her long-term goals were to graduate from university in time with a good Certificate of

BA and to get a job Additionally, she could balance her time for her daily activities and her study; however, she thought that she arranged her time for learning autonomously and other activities unreasonably because she still stayed up late to learn her lessons She found materials recommended by her teachers such as englishtips.org, Cambridge website, Oxford website Normally, after school, she reviewed her old lessons again and when she took tests, she would see them again. Until that time, she had no plan for the next exam.

S16 showed that he had a study plan at the middle of the first semester He had to practice each skill of learning English and at that time he was the weakest at Speaking, so he concentrated on practice it Next, he used applications to practice Speaking such as ELSA Speaker and English-English dictionaries He listened to them and repeated He learned each type of writing; for example, he wrote introduction and conclusion of a kind of an essay and learned by heart to save time to do body paragraphs Besides, he watched Mr Dan’s videos He also listened to English songs but did not understand them completely He learned vocabulary randomly For instance, when he saw new words, he looked up them in the dictionary as well as their synonyms, antonyms, and usages Therefore, though he did not look up many new words, he owned a lot of their synonyms, and antonyms.

He said that he was finding the most effective way to learn grammar since he saw that learning grammar by heart was not effective Therefore, he had to find some tips to memorize it more deeply Besides, the time he learned autonomously was not fixed because of his timetable in classes, daily activities, university or class activities, so he practiced LA about thirty minutes in the morning, and thirty minutes in the afternoon In general, he spent about near two hours of four days a week on learning autonomously S16 also considered that his balancing time was at accepted level, not reasonable because sometimes he felt it suitable, but sometimes there were some sudden things in his daily activities, so his learning English autonomously was limited Furthermore, he found materials from his friends, and websites such as tienganh123.com, sometimes in textbooks What he had from practicing major ones regularly he used in the exams or tests He only paid attention to revise writing skills; however, he got low result for it He only revised major ones just one day before the exam.

Additionally, S27 shared many interesting things with her friends She often learned English autonomously spontaneously Before she began learning, she wrote down the order and how many minutes of subjects she intended to learn on that day. She did not like to watch English movies or listen to English music because she thought that those forms were to entertain She knew that when she saw phrases on the screen of TV, she could memorize them, but for her, LA was the same real learning as in class Therefore, she did tests in some books such as a series of IELTS tests shared on the Internet She could practice Listening and Reading well but Speaking and Writing were not After writing papers, she needed someone to correct them to help her know where she was wrong, but she had no one Normally, she thought her papers were good but when people read her papers, they, perhaps, disliked them because they were bad For Speaking, she only trained pronunciation and intonation When she listened to any paragraphs, she imitated their voice She learned vocabulary through reading exercise and listening ones Those new words were in practice test books, so they were rather difficult When she listened to them in the first time, her grade was bad Therefore, when she did them again, she checked vocabulary After finishing a reading test, she looked up new words, wrote down in a notebook, and learned When learning new words, she memorized them.But when she wrote essays, she did not remember them to use, so she was angry.When making an outline of an essay, she also thought of many ideas and selected the main ones to use in three body paragraphs; however, when she wrote she only used the words she already knew before After that she opened her notebook and saw that she wrote good words but she could not apply them Then, S27 gave an example as when people learned a new word, they often made an example sentence with it She also did the same but still forgot them when she wrote essays She felt her memory was not bad, and did not know why it was So, she was so angry at herself, and had no solution to that problem She spent the most two hours on some days learning English autonomously about five or six days a week At the beginning of the first semester, her goal was to get 6.5 points for IELTS or C1 certificate and after that she rethought that she had better increase her goal getting 7.5 points for IELTS However, until the fourth semester she was afraid she could not do that. Next, she had her own learning plans for each subject For example, she was good at any subject and only improved it more She was weak at that subject, so she had to find more other materials about it to enhance her knowledge Sometimes, she could not balance her time for her study At first, she thought after dinner, she could learn from seven p.m to ten p.m., but later when she learned, there were many factors affecting her such as doing housework In addition, she followed some pages on Facebook which shared some materials of skills of learning English, and also downloaded updated materials For revision, she said that actually, she accumulated knowledge during her autonomous learning process; therefore, she only revised non- major subjects near the exams She mentioned to LA of materials out of class When she practiced LA, she found what knowledge she lacked and then she self- supported or filled in it When teachers gave her any topics or assignments in class, she supported them in different ways by herself and then saw them again S27 believed that she learned skills of learning English, so if she practiced LA on them regularly, her skills could be increased very fast Specially, near the exam if she were suddenly hard- working to practice listening, reading, doing exercises, etc continuously, when she took the final examinations, she did the tests faster because she was familiar with looking at them before She thought that LA which was practiced regularly was effective.

S29 – having new ways in learning Writing

Also, S29 talked to her group about her LA activities For Listening, she liked to listen to music and watch videos Due to using 3G, she seldom watched them on the Internet For Speaking, when she was walking from the class to her dormitory and vice versa on the campus, she talked alone about her favorite things, and often about her feelings She often learned new words on the books and was afraid of forgetting them, so she often read them again and again and wrote them down in the notebook She often read much in books, and sometimes she read some good articles on the Internet Since scientific articles often had difficult vocabulary, she often looked up it on dictionary For Writing, she selected structures, synonyms, antonyms, and tried to use them She wrote an essay, then replaced words and crossed out the same ideas On normal days, she often spent about two hours on learning autonomously She often learned which subjects she liked first before In that semester she withdrew her own experience that she had to learn the most difficult subject first instead of her favorite ones It was called “eat that frog”; therefore, then she had better results For learning resources, her teachers gave her materials and she found more books in the library where there were some good books In addition, she felt that LA helped her with confidence more in classes. When teachers explained lectures to her, she understood them immediately She could not revise all things near the exams, so if she had LA practice process in advance, she was confident and tried her best Besides, she found that she could not control her LA regularly as her friends invited her to go out Specially, when she returned her hometown, she could not learn anything.

S36 – using many kinds of learning resources

In addition, S36 told his group about his practice regarding LA For Reading, he read BBC news, or books and then took notes He used the information from them to write topics He listened to tapes in textbooks or IELTS books of Cambridge from volume one to volume nine Also, he used Cambly software to practice speaking three times a week That software allowed him to speak directly to foreigners from seven to ten minutes He often spent about thirty or forty minutes on practicing reading He did Writing homework He went to the library to read topics, wrote them, and submitted them on Making Mate web to be corrected He often spent about one hour on learning two skills autonomously He revised old lessons on Monday, and other days for other skills.

S55 – effectively autonomous learning at late night

S55 showed her friends to know that she learned English autonomously on Moon.vn and registered to learn IELTS with Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing there She chatted with foreigners online; she listened to videos of Obama’s speech on YouTube or watched good teachers’ websites such as Kenny She both watched and relaxed through American TV channels She learned English autonomously most effectively from 10 p.m to 3 a.m She corrected her pronunciation through listening to teachers’ pronouncing and practicing it in front of a mirror Sometimes she sat in front of webcam to record what she said to listen to them again to self-correct She often listened to news on VOA and BBC, and then imitated with setting the time and record.

S58 – using mind-mapping in learning autonomously

S58 said that she learned without any plan Whenever she had the highest pressure, she began to have her motivation to learn autonomously more Her learning method was that after a course she used mind-mapping or diagram to summarize what she understood After finishing homework, she often spent the most one hour to learn autonomously through English cartoons or clips about foreign volunteers instructing Vietnamese students to learn English At the beginning of each semester, she felt eager to think about her learning goals, but later it decreased gradually, and she had her motivation again next to the exams She felt she was weak at finding materials skill since she depended on Internet There were many books in the library but for good books, they were not allowed to borrow to bring them to their home and had to read them there Because there was no one controlling her, she easily neglected her learning duty For example, first she thought she learned much was ok Then, she thought she learned little was still ok. And finally, she thought she did not need to learn was ok, too.

On the contrary, S17 was very conscious of her child-like learning style in that she watched English videos and repeated, and listened to English stories to relax.And this is how S22 learned English vocabulary: he wrote one word he did not know, and then omitted vowels; then wrote many words and did the same After ten minutes, he remembered vowels and filled them again This made him impressive and easy to learn vocabulary But S23 shared a different way to learn English vocabulary: she wrote new words on small pieces of paper and stuck them on the wall so that she could see them to memorise.

The findings showed that a number of participants had the same ways to learn English outside the classroom Normally, they did homework and assignments; they listened to English music, watched English movies or videos, and searched learning materials on the Internet A few students designed their learning goals, and study plan at the beginning of the first year at university The typical students above had their proper ways to learn English autonomously These students not only finished what the teachers asked them to do at home, but also found other knowledge of English to enhance their English competence.

4.2.3.2 Students’ achievements of practicing LA activities

When asked about advantages of practicing LA activities outside classroom, all 60 students responded that they achieved a lot First, they got new knowledge, websites, and materials (13 students) because they learned what they liked first, and they understood what they liked faster (6 students) Second, they could memorize lessons more clearly, deeply, and longer, and what they found when they learned autonomously belonged to theirs (9 students) Third, they felt learn autonomously at home more comfortably and effectively than in class (8 students) Next, learning English autonomously made them feel good and inspired (7 students) Besides, they saw that they actively used their time (8 students), and increased their self- consciousness (2 students) They could find which fields they were weak to improve (5 students), ask their friends (3 students), and summarize their lessons (1 student). Also, they gained autonomous learning experience (4 students), more effective learning methods (2 students), and problem-solving skills (4 students).

Clearly, all the participants in the interview indicated that they achieved a large number of benefits when they learned English autonomously outside the class.They talked about these kinds of LA benefits clearly as seen above.

4.2.3.3 Students’ difficulties of practicing LA activities

Relationships between teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices

Relationship between teachers’ perceptions and practices

The results above stated that there was a certain relationship between teachers’ perceptions and practices The current research confirmed that EFL teachers at DTU had insights into the concepts, aspects, and levels of LA and its crucial role in learning a foreign language at tertiary education As presented in 4.1.1, the teachers showed their understanding of the concept of students’ LA For example, autonomous students had to know what they needed and what they did when learning in their major at the university, controlled their learning, found materials actively, created network to learn, prepared new lessons at home, and asked other people for what they did not know Clearly, they emphasized students’ LA ability outside the classroom From the teachers’ perceptions of LA, it could be seen that what all interviewed teachers in the present study did to develop LA was to manage to administer LA activities for students, especially behind classroom, such as assigning homework of grammar, speaking, writing, listening tapes, portfolios, and projects to present in class, and providing some learning materials, websites, etc.

Additionally, some teachers perceived the concept of autonomous students in different ways For instance, T1 considered LA as self-study and self-research; T9 said that students had to know LA method; T11 and T17 thought that students had to have LA plan, learning goals, and follow it; T20 thought that instead of waiting for teachers’ instructions in the classroom, students had to discover new lessons at home However, what the teachers self-reported in the interview indicated that they did not instruct their students how to learn English autonomously, how to set goals, and how to make study plans Besides, when instructing LA activities, many teachers admitted that they did not have sufficient measures to check their students’

LA activities outside classes like T3’s and T6’s thought In class, they only checked whether or not students completed assignments/ homework and then gave general corrections due to limited classroom time Although most teachers gave good comments on their LA-oriented activities and students’ LA ability, they could not provide valid criteria for their assessments of students’ practices of LA.

Furthermore, the findings of this study showed that some teachers’ experience of LA directed their informed and stated beliefs T4 revealed that he always learned autonomously when he was young; therefore, he always asked his students to do autonomous learning in any subjects he taught He affirmed that LA was “like people’s instinct for survival” and if students did not learn English autonomously, they would meet many difficulties in achieving his subject’s objectives Similarly, T10 instructed her students how to learn English major autonomously Both T4 and T10 shared their LA experience with their students T10 said that though most of her students listened to her instructions of how to apply LA in learning process, a few students implemented LA activities in their learning because they were attracted by other social activities.

In short, there was an interaction between teachers’ perceptions and teachers’ practices of LA In other words, what they thought of LA drove what they applied it in teaching and vice versa.

Relationship between students’ perceptions and practices

The data from the present study showed that the relationship between students’ perceptions and their practice of LA was clear Figure 4.1 shows information about this distance clearly because it summarizes 10 tables of students’ perceptions of LA and their reports of conducting LA activities in sections 4.2.1,

4.2.2, 4.2.3 In Figure 4.1, it can be seen that students have positive perceptions of

LA and its role, but their practice of LA is not as high as their perceptions.

Figure 4.1: Integrated students’ perceptions and practices regarding LA

The interview results of this study indicated that all of the students understood the concept of LA as in 4.2.1 In practice of LA, at the higher dimensions (responsibility and cognition), students did set up their own learning objectives, their learning plans (though not all of them functioned well); they actively chose suitable methods, strategies, materials subject to their learning styles and looked for materials and learnt by themselves without waiting for teachers’ instruction or request; they autonomously practiced four skills of English, learnt new words and grammar structures as well, got prepared before class, and asked teachers or others in case of having problems; they took part in college extra-activities, and had self- consciousness in learning.

Yet, the present findings also confirm that there still exists quite a noted mismatch between what students perceived and what they actually obtained from

LA developments Most of them responded in the interview that they did not know how to set up their specific learning goals at the beginning in the first year or they only established general goals Normally, after one or two first semesters, they

20 100 began to set up their specific goals A large number of students did not have their own daily or weekly learning plan Some students designed their study plans but did not make it effective because they did not manage their time for these plans or were attracted by other unplanned activities or lacked sufficient efforts and strong will. They confided that they easily felt bored when learning alone Specially, when they surfed the Internet, they were easily attracted by social websites such as chatting with their friends on Facebook instead of paying attention to their learning practice.

In addition, most of them did not know what websites on the Internet having reliability to study.

A few students underwent experiences of LA when they were secondary and high school students S29 was a typical one She said that she always learned English autonomously outside the classroom, and learning in class was minor This formed her LA habit, and she brought it to learning environment at university Thus, she stated that she had good results when she studied in higher education One more example was S27 Nearly finishing the third semester, she realized that LA was very important for students’ learning, and if students learned English autonomously and self- assessed their practices of LA well, when they went to the classes, they just asked their teachers for the problems they did not understand Learning in this way helped her achieve the best results.

Clearly, some students’ perceptions of LA reflect their actions of LA In contrast, when some students implemented LA in their learning, they believed that

LA was useful and vital in their own learning.

Relationship between teachers’ and students’ perceptions

The results of this study showed that both teachers and students, most of them,had high perceptions of four dimensions of LA as ability, cognition, responsibility,and lifelong learning They indicated clearly that what LA was through detail activities as in 4.1.1 and 4.2.1 Specially, both focused on learners’ LA ability outside the classroom Additionally, most of the teachers and students believed in the important role of LA in learning language in higher education and students’ life after students graduate from university (see 4.1.2 and 4.2.2) These showed that the relationship between teachers’ perceptions and students’ perceptions was very strong.

However, what teachers thought about students’ LA ability was higher than students’ thought For example, T1 said that students had to self-research their problems by themselves; T2 thought that students had to know what they wanted and did at university; T7 believed that autonomous students had to have far view of the future in learning Meanwhile, students did not have these thoughts This showed that teachers emphasized on students’ metacognition in learning while students only gained cognition of LA Besides, 5.1% of students did not have full understanding of ability and cognition of LA; 4.3% of them did not know their responsibility for autonomous learning; and 3.1% of them did not admit the vital role of LA in learning in university environment.

In short, most of the teachers and students had insights into the concept of LA as well as the role of LA in learning and in students’ life after they graduate from university Although a few students did not believe in LA and its role, the relationship between teachers’ perceptions and students’ perceptions of LA was clear and powerful.

Relationship between teachers’ and students’ practices

The findings from interviews and questionnaire showed that the relationship between teachers’ practices and students’ practices of LA was clear The data mentioned in 4.1.3 and 4.2.3 indicated that all teachers held many LA activities for their students, and students joined these though some students were lazy and passive, did not do homework, or did not submit their assignments on time In addition, the data from questionnaire showed that the percentage of students who never or rarely set learning goals was 19.1% Besides, 23.4% of students never or rarely planned their study; 27.2% of them did not participate in LA activities; 22.1% of them could not manage their time in learning and their life; 18.8% of them could not find learning resources; 18.2% of them never or rarely took part in metacognition activities in learning language; and 16.1% of them did not self-assess their LA activities This showed that some students’ LA activities were weak, and the relationship between teachers’ practices and students’ practices of LA was not strong enough.

Discussion

Teachers’ perceptions and practices of learner autonomy

4.4.1.1 Teachers’ perceptions of learner autonomy

The results of this theme confirmed that the teachers interviewed had positive conceptualizations of LA as ability, responsibility, self-consciousness and activeness (cognition), and lifelong learning in EFL learning According to the teachers, autonomous students had ability to set up their own learning objectives, and their learning plans Besides, the students had to take responsibility for actively looking for materials, preparing new lessons at home, learning by themselves without waiting for teachers’ instructions or requests, knowing what they had to do at university, asking other people for what they did not understand, autonomously practicing the four skills of English, learning new words and grammar structures,and creating a network to learn in a close collaboration with each other.Additionally, the teachers thought that autonomous learners had to have cognition and self-consciousness of their own learning It suggests that teachers expect their students to have metacognitive EFL learning All of the teachers agreed with the key role of LA for students at higher education and after graduating from the university (i.e life-long learning) These results echo those in the previous researches (i.e Borg & Al-Busaidi, 2012b; Dogan & Mirici, 2017; Keuk & Heng,

2016; Nguyễn Văn Lợi, 2016; Tapinta, 2016) Yet, the results of this research seem to conflict with prior studies (i.e Nguyễn Thanh Nga, 2014; Wang & Wang, 2016) because those researchers found that the EFL teachers had their weak perceptions of the concept of LA As mentioned before in section 2.4.4 in Chapter Two, Nguyễn Thanh Nga (2014) found that EFL teachers did not have a clear perception of LA and nor were students fostered perceptions of LA Wang and Wang’s results (2016) echo Nguyễn Thanh Nga (2014).

However, most of the teachers did not mention the influence of the socio- cultural factor on LA in this university in Mekong Delta context Of twenty teachers, only T5 said that autonomous learners needed to create a learning network and collaborate in learning outside the classroom T8 and T10 only claimed that the EFL students had weak background of English rather than ones attending other universities, and they did not indicate the factors affecting the students’ weakness in learning English In other words, the teachers did not pay attention to the relation between local culture and students’ LA ability Additionally, teachers seem not to recognize their roles in students’ autonomous learning Most of them did not indicate their position in students’ LA environment Instead, they just presented what students had to do to be autonomous learners as mentioned above Only T10 realized that she needed to instruct her students in the ways to learn English autonomously Besides, the teachers did not talk about AaL as well as the students’ role in LA learning process The teachers did not show their duties in students’ assessment in LA learning as Earl and Katz’s model (2006) or Berry’s (2008) (see 2.5.2).

Clearly, the teachers showed their understanding of LA as ability, responsibility, cognition, and lifelong learning It seemed that their perception of one dimension of LA was dependent on perceptions of the others This showed that these four dimensions were interrelated However, they did not talk about their roles in students’ LA learning as well as in students’ assessment of LA activities.

4.4.1.2 Teachers’ practices of learner autonomy

According to what the teachers reported in the interview, there were some active signs in their teaching practices of LA For example, they organized some LA activities for their students to do (see 4.1.3) In particular, as seen above, groupwork/ pairwork or collaborative learning was optimized by most teachers interviewed This is the classroom feature commonly found in Vietnam setting and particularly in DTU Groupwork involves the students in taking responsibilities, making plans and choosing means/tools to fulfill shared assignments/goals Thus, a series of relevant groupwork if properly administered is definitely leading students to the LA target (Harmer, 2007) Therefore, in the case of commonly large-size classes and limited classroom duration, it is a good idea for teachers to frequently manipulate groupwork of various formats, especially outside the classroom and through the Internet.

However, the teachers just gave homework, assignments, and introduced some websites to the students to learn English outside the classes, but the teachers did not listen to the students’ needs so that they could consult each student about how to learn English autonomously at home as every of the students could possess his or her own learning style Besides, the teachers did not make a learning community for their students Only T5 said that the autonomous students had to make a network to support their study together He did not mention the teachers’ role in helping the students to hold learning net Importantly, they did not play their roles as facilitators, helpers, coordinators, counsellors, consultants, managers, and advisors well More specifically, they did not foster some LA activities to develop students’ LA ability such as cognition of learning strategies and self-management, metacognition of language learning, and learner attitudes (Wenden, 1991) These activities are keys elements for promoting learners’ LA It is understandable when the teachers did not have any cognition of their role in EFL teaching in the new era and were not trained about LA as mentioned above.

For assessment of LA activities, the teachers just checked their students’ finishing assignments or homework in the classroom The fact that nine teachers assessed their students having from average to low LA ability, and three teachers could not assess their students’ LA ability because those students depended on their teachers (see 4.1.3.4) while of twenty teachers, thirteen self-assessed that they organized LA activities for their students from well level to very well showed that there was a conflict between the way they assessed their students and their instruction of LA What the teachers shared in the interview revealed that they did not discuss a set of clear criteria of good performance with their students to assess the students’ LA activities and self-assess both the teachers’ and the students’ LA activities; did not observe, and manage their students’ LA activities Teachers did not instruct and model “the skills of self-assessment”, “guide students in setting goals, and monitoring their progress”, “provide exemplars and models of good practice and quality work that reflect curriculum outcomes”, “guide students in developing internal feedback or self-monitoring mechanisms to validate and question their own thinking, and to become comfortable with the ambiguity and uncertainty that is inevitable in learning anything new”, “provide regular and challenging opportunities to practice, so that students can become confident, competent self-assessors”, “monitor students’ metacognitive processes as well as their learning”, “provide descriptive feedback”, and “ create an environment where it is safe for students to take chances and where support is readily available” (Earl & Katz, 2006, p.43) In general, the teachers did not develop their roles well in holding their students’ LA activities because they did not have a complete understanding of their new roles in teaching and learning.

To apply LA successfully in teaching, teachers themselves must be self- educated as Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) saying “If you want to enjoy art, you must be artistically educated man” If the teachers do not understand the concept of LA and how to apply it in their professional development process, they can hardly instruct their students how to learn autonomously Furthermore, Little (1995) pointed:

Genuinely successful teachers have always been autonomous in the sense of having a strong sense of personal responsibility for their teaching, exercising via continuous reflection and analysis the highest degree of affective and cognitive control of the teaching process, and exploring the freedom of this confers (Little, 1995, p 179)

And then, other authors, namely Smith (2000), Sinclair, McGrath and Lamb (2000) discuss that the teachers have their ability to improve their own teaching through their own efforts, self-direction, self-development, self-making decisions about their own professional learning needs According to Holec’s view (1981), LA ability is not inborn, but it can be got by formal learning This means that students have to be fostered perceptions, and LA skills to promote their LA capacity Thus, in LA learning, students tend to need the teachers’ support and fostering LA ability in order to help students promote their LA ability Similarly, Alhaysony (2016) states that there are not only students in learning but also the interaction between teachers and students So, the teacher should be an autonomous learner first, and then he or she shares his or her LA experience with his or her students.

Additionally, the number of the interviewed teachers helped the researcher gain more rich data to analyze Among previous studies of LA conducted in Vietnamese context, only Nguyễn Thanh Nga (2014) explored teachers’ perceptions of LA and she interviewed four teachers while there were 20 EFL teachers with over one to over 25- year teaching experience asked in this study Information of organizing LA activities from these teachers provided diverse data for the researcher to answer research questions 1 and 3 This is also a resource for further research.

In conclusion, what the teachers did in teaching practices of LA was guided by their thinking of LA, and for some teachers, their thought of LA was influenced by their experience of LA What they responded in the interview reflected the current situation of teaching English in Vietnam, where the teaching is still likely to be more teacher-centered The teachers did not acknowledge the importance of socio- cultural influence on forming LA ability for the students.

Students’ perceptions and practices of learner autonomy

4.4.2.1 Students’ perceptions of learner autonomy

The findings above confirmed that all the students had the insights of LA as ability, responsibility, and cognition in language learning (at the baseline and higher dimensions of LA) This meant they knew what they had to do at university as well as the characteristics the autonomous learners possessed as presented in 4.2.3.

Furthermore, all of them were aware of the vital role of LA for students in higher education and after they graduated from university (i.e life-long learning) Their perceptions of these four dimensions of LA were interrelated like their teachers’ case These findings echo those in the previous studies (i.e Azizi, 2014; Balcikanli, 2010; Chan et al, 2002; Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012; Joshi, 2011; Lê Xuân Quỳnh, 2013).

However, the findings showed that the students did not gain metacognition much What they shared indicated that they did not obtain knowledge of language learning, learner attitudes, and learning strategies According to Wenden (1991), these factors are the needs to formulate autonomous learners They did not show the characteristics of metacognition in learning as Hennessey (1993) mentioned ( see 2.2.3 in chapter Two).

Additionally, all the students did not show their perspective of LA in culture and why they learned English unwell Most of them came from the rural regions in Mekong Delta and they did not share how the socio-cultural aspect in their hometown affected their autonomous learning They did not mention the reasons they had weak background of learning English The findings also showed that they did not have the foundation of LA in previous schools.

Furthermore, the students did not share their understanding of assessment as well as its role in LA learning They did not know their roles in assessment as learning in autonomous learning, and how to become active assessors They did not know how to self-assess their LA learning They did not indicate that they are connectors, critical assessors between teaching and learning This is quite understandable because these things were not taught to the students before.

Clearly, the students just had their cognition of LA, what they had to do in learning English major at DTU, and the importance of LA in their English lifelong learning after graduating from the university However, the results of this study showed that most of them did not own metacognition of LA.

4.4.2.2 Students’ practices of learner autonomy

The analyzed data showed that the students did acknowledge achievements of different degrees thanks to LA practices at the university setting, which was unknown to them in the previous stage of education The findings from interview indicated that they were all moving on the right tracks of LA development, despite not at the same pace and level This is quite understandable because LA ability is made up of multiple dimensions and no two students are exactly the same in terms of personal traits, learning styles and characteristics They tend to learn what they like first in learning English.

Additionally, in the case of the students at DTU, what LA activities they reported in the interview and the results from survey showed they still possessed reactive autonomy like ones somewhere in East Asia (Littlewood, 1999) This echoes Lê Xuân Quỳnh’s study’s findings (2013) As mentioned in 2.2.1.5 in Chapter Two, most of the students came from the rural areas in Mekong Delta, the South of Vietnam; therefore, they brought their culture to the university In other words, their awareness of learning is rather low because of Mekong Delta people’s characteristics and culture According to Đỗ Nam et al (2017), local people’s limited cognition about developing education for themselves and their children makes this region considered as a “depression” in the quality of education These authors indicate that many of the parents only let their children learn to how to read and write, and then those children leave school when they have not graduated from high school, even secondary school yet, in order to work as the employees with their parents in other provinces Many of the students at schools have not been interested in study According to the Vietnamese MOET’s official statistics, the rate of the leaving-school students in Mekong Delta is higher than other regions in Vietnam This explains why the students in this study only gain reactive autonomy. Hence, it is important to foster the students’ cognition about autonomous learning to change from reactive autonomous learners to proactive autonomous ones This change will take learners a long time to improve Specially, they have to be patient in process of autonomous EFL learning.

Based on Scharle and Szabó’s a three-stage model (2000, p.1) of the growth of autonomy as “raising awareness”, “changing attitudes”, and “transferring roles”, it cannot be denied that EFL students’ LA activities at DTU just got levels of awareness and involvement of LA In other words, most students were aware of what they should do to become autonomous learners and involved in some LA activities which were most given by teachers, namely assignments, and homework.

A few students got level “transferring roles” like modifying and adapting the goals and content of the learning program From the results of this theme, although students had their positive perceptions of LA, its vital role in higher education, as well as advantages of LA in learning English, they did not gain the highest level of

LA, transferring roles They just recognized what they had to do to become autonomous learners, but they did not try their best to change their mind, practice

LA, and change their roles in LA process In other words, they did not change their roles to become active autonomous learners.

In addition, based on qualitative data and four aspects of LA (technical, political, psychological, and sociocultural discussed in Chapter Two), no one can deny that the students have their mismatch First, the students did not make their own decision on their learning They could not choose what they should learn to serve their study They just learnt or found out information according to their teachers’ instruction In the case some students searched learning resources related to the subjects they studied in the class, they did not know whether those were reliable They did not really control their autonomous learning as Benson (1997) mentioned Second, the students developed their role in autonomous learning unwell Many of them did not or rarely go to the library to seek information They explained that they neither have their free time nor know the ways to find out books in the library Besides, the students were attracted by other daily activities such as going out with their friends, and surfing the Internet or Facebook Finally, most of the students wanted to learn independently, and did not organize learning group or learning community outside the class They only did groupwork because of their teachers’ requirements Discussing this problem, they said that working in group was not effective as their friends were often late, did not take their responsibility for the whole group’s work, and they hardly had the same free time to learn together.Additionally, the students could not develop their metacognition in learning language In other words, they could not plan their study, set learning goals, self- manage, monitor, evaluate their language learning (Harris, 2003) This can quite be understandable because they were not enhanced deep cognition and metacognition in learning language.

Furthermore, the students did not show their ability to be active assessors in

LA learning They could not analyze, self-assess, and critically consider their own autonomous learning; thus, they could not adjust, adapt, or change their current learning objectives, as well as plan their new studying goals They did not know how to self-assess their LA learning They just made their comments on their autonomous learning that they gained weak LA ability All these are because they have never been trained about them before.

In comparison with the findings of the previous studies of LA in Vietnamese setting, this study has obtained its own values in this field For example, the number of interviewed students in this study is 60, more than the others and they were from freshmen to seniors while both Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ (2009) and Đặng Tấn Tín(2012) interviewed 11 ones; and Lê Xuân Quỳnh (2013) interviewed 18 ones in three focus groups Interviewing 60 students helped the current researcher get huge,various data to explore and then to give reliable results for this study Additionally,students could learn from their friends’ LA methods when they were interviewed in groups of five Next, the researching purposes of using interview tool in those studies were different Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ (2009, p.121) used interview for three purposes: (1) the students’ strengths and weaknesses in learning English and their understanding of “student and teacher responsibilities in learning process”, (2) the students’ “writing behaviors”, (3) the students’ activities to enhance English inside and outside the classroom while Đặng Tấn Tín (2012) reported his interview data to discuss effect of preference, motivation, and attitude on LA Furthermore, Lê XuânQuỳnh (2013) asked his interviewed students about their assessment of the effectiveness in implementing the learning contract and writing the learning diary.Meanwhile, group interview in this study was used with the aim of creating many opportunities for students to talk about their LA activities, their benefits, their difficulties, their needs, as well as their self-assessment of their LA activities more clearly, concretely and emotionally which the researcher maybe did not found in questionnaire The results of this study showed that students reported their LA process in different ways depending on their learning styles and their kinds of multiple intelligences they possess In addition, although they had a common in practicing four skills of learning English, vocabulary, and grammar, they conducted

LA activities according to their hobbies, their needs, their strengths, and their weaknesses, and had their own autonomous learning method as shown above This helped their groupmates be able to learn LA experience each other It was also real lessons that they hardly gained in other situations.

Due to group interview, the researcher could find out learners’ experiences at real school contexts because it gave an insight of complicated problems or situations (Creswell, 2012) The students met their clear benefits and drawbacks during a process of autonomous learning as mentioned in 4.2.3 2 and 4.2.3.3 All this, on the one hand, says that the present students appeared to be proceeding to dimension 4 (lifelong learning) of LA ability, where they self-assessed and reflected on the outcomes realizing relevant constraints.

Relationships between teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices

Perceptions and practices have rarely been combined in an exploration about

LA (Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012) Normally, researchers have investigated EFL teachers’ or EFL students’ perceptions or beliefs about LA In fact, some previous studies (i.e Azizi, 2014; Balcikanli, 2010; Borg, 2006; Joshi, 2011; Lamb, 2009; Nguyễn Thanh Nga, 2014; Talley, 2014; Tapinta, 2016) concentrated on investigating the perception or belief of LA Meanwhile, other research (i.e Hart, 2002; Lê Xuân Quỳnh, 2013; Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ, 2009; Trịnh Quốc Lập, 2005) explored practice of LA in some experiments To fill this gap, recently, perceptions or beliefs and practices of LA have been integrated into some investigations (i.e Alhaysony, 2016; Borg & Al-Busaidi, 2012b; Chan et al, 2002; Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012; Dogan & Mirici, 2017; Dương Mỹ Thẩm & Seepho, 2014; Keuk & Heng, 2016; Nguyễn Văn Lợi, 2016; Ranosa-Madrunio et al, 2016; Wang & Wang, 2016) for EFL teachers or EFL students However, up to now, there have rarely been LA studies in Vietnam which explore both perception and practice for both EFL teachers and EFL students into an investigation Therefore, this study seems to be the one in Vietnamese context designed to fill this gap and to understand relationship between teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices of LA without conducting experiment. Basing on the findings of relationship between teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices of LA mentioned in 4.3, the following sections discuss these relationships according to literature review in Chapter Two.

4.4.3.1 Relationship between teachers’ perceptions and practices

The analyzed data from teacher interview shows that there is the clear alignment between their perceptions and their teaching practices The findings of the present study indicated that the teachers had insights of the concept of LA They stated necessary characteristics for an EFL autonomous learner who should own(see 4.1.1) However, compared which definitions and characteristics of LA the teachers perceiving with their teaching practice on LA in the interview, it can be seen clearly that there is a missing link between their positive perceptions of students’ LA ability and their organizing LA activities in teaching English In other words, the relationship between teachers’ perceptions and teaching practices towards LA is weak and has a mismatch The analyzed data above showed that they expected their students to own full characteristics of EFL autonomous learners (see 4.1.1); however, the teachers did not teach their students how to learn English autonomously Put it simply, the teachers did not instruct their students the skills of

LA learning, the ways to design learning objectives, learning plan, and discuss the criteria of assessment as learning in detail with them Besides, LA activities the teachers held for the students seem to be unsuitable In other words, the teachers did not design effective LA activities to foster their students to become EFL autonomous learners In the interview, they did not deem their roles as helper, consultor, and adviser in their students’ autonomous learning process in promoting students’ LA ability in new autonomous learning contexts in the 21 st century (Riley,

1997, as cited in Benson & Huang, 2008, p.426) because they did not understand their role in teaching practices of LA fully In this case, Bodenhausen and Hugenberg (2009) is right when they state that one’s perception guides his/her actions Since the teachers did not identify their roles in instructing their students to study autonomously, they did not play their roles well in teaching practice of LA. This showed that the teachers did a partial LA in teaching practice in compared with what they thought about LA.

Besides, a few teachers gained LA ability when they were young, and then their LA experience deviated their announced cognition as mentioned in 4.3.1 They shared their LA experience with their students, and instructed them to learn English major autonomously as T4 and T10 Especially T4, he always asked his students to practice LA activities, and peer-assess their assignments Clearly, he based on LA experience he obtained before to teach the students to learn autonomously. However, he just checked how the students finished the assignments he gave What he shared in the interview showed that he did not guide the students how to create their learning goals, study plan, and explore the subjects independently at home. Similarly, T10 just said that she instructed her students to learn her subjects autonomously in general, but she did not talk about the concrete skills in LA learning which she presented to them It can be seen that these teachers’ performances of LA reflect their thought when they engaged their students in LA learning This is quite right with Bodenhausen and Hugenberg’s view (2009) in the opposite direction that one’s actions will affect again his or her perceptions (see figure 2.1).

In summary, teachers’ perceptions and practices of LA has interaction with each other This means that their perceptions impact their practices and vice versa. The mismatch between their cognition and their performance of LA is quite understandable because they have never been trained in any formal course of LA as well as they have not attended any workshop about LA yet Thus, this relationship is not very strong.

4.4.3.2 Relationship between students’ perceptions and practices

Generally, there is a certain alignment between students’ perceptions and practices toward LA They had full understanding of LA as well as knew what they should do to learn English well at university The findings showed that not all of EFL students were able to understand what LA was as well as how important it was at university, and there was a distance between EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA happening According to Bodenhausen and Hugenberg (2009),one’s perception guides his/her actions However, for EFL students, although they understood what they had to do at university to become autonomous learners, they implemented LA activities ineffectively It seems that relationship between their perceptions and practices is not strong Some students were not consciousness and hard- working in learning as some teachers complained The results showed that the students learned English spontaneously Besides, it seemed that they did not know how to learn autonomously and had no skills of LA It is understandable because as analyzed above they were not trained LA skills at the previous stages of education and not fostered metacognition skills in learning language.

However, there were a few students who had their own LA experience as S27 and S29 These students had their LA ability when they were at high school; therefore, they knew what to do at university environment Furthermore, they were excellent students in this faculty T3 said “In my opinion and observation, there are not many EFL students who have LA ability Only excellent or good students have this They have their self-consciousness of LA learning more than the others ” So, it is quite true in the case of S27 and S29 This shows that students’ practices of LA will affect their perceptions and make them believe in the effect of LA in learning more and more Besides, these students gained metacognition in learning language. What they reported showed that they knew the ways to organize their learning. Their effective learning showed that when students had metacognition skills, they were able to gain the good results in their learning language (Rolheiser et al, 2000).

In short, all of the students had insights into LA, but their practices of LA were not good due to some reasons mentioned above Besides, there was the interaction between their cognition and their actions in LA learning If they both understood the concept of LA clearly and implement it effectively, they would gain success in their own learning and vice versa Like the teachers’ situation, the relationship between their perceptions and practices of LA is not strong Statistics and analyzed data from student interview and questionnaire of this study indicated that the probability of utilizing students’ perception to diagnose their level of practice of LA activities was little.

4.4.3.3 Relationship between teachers’ and students’ perceptions

As mentioned in 4.3.3, there was a certain, strong relationship between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of LA when both of them showed their full understanding of four dimensions of LA This seems to be good and important because people’s perceptions determine their performances Therefore, that teachers understood the concept of LA helped them much with instructing and organizing

LA activities for their students Similarly, when students understood their autonomous learning clearly, they could promote their strengths and enhance their weaknesses (Van Lier,1996, as cited in Jacobs and Farrel, 2001, p.5) Additionally, when students explored and realized the characters of autonomous learning and their role in learning process, they could obtain the ability to carry out LA (White,1995) In this study, due to understanding what LA was, both teachers and students held some LA activities as in 4.1.3 and 4.2.3 Yet, teachers seemed to expect more for their students because what they mentioned LA required autonomous students to have to possess metacognition and high self-consciousness in their own learning Meanwhile, students thought about LA more simply It is quite understandable because teachers always want their students to become better and better while those students come from the rural region and did not learn autonomously in previous education (as mentioned in Chapter One).

4.4.3.4 Relationship between teachers’ and students’ practices

The data of this study showed that the relationship between teachers’ and students’ practices of LA was not strong Some LA activities which teachers held for students were not suitable for students as well as did not attract students since teachers did not understand students’ needs (T2) Besides, some activities which students wanted were that teachers instructed them in the autonomous learning methods such as how to set up effective learning goals, the ways to plan effective study, the ways to manage time, the effective ways to find materials, etc This mismatch happened because as mentioned above teachers did not understand their role in students’ autonomous learning, and they believe in students’ metacognition in learning language while students were not equipped LA skills as well as LA knowledge.

4.4.3.5 The influential factors in the relationships between teachers’ and students’ perceptions and practices of learner autonomy

Effects of psychology and cognition

Although most of the informants showed their positive perceptions of LA according to the findings of this study, it seemed that they just understood what LA was, and did not apply LA activities effectively As a matter of fact, what the EFL students thinking about LA has not become their own intrinsic motivation in learning English Of twenty teachers, fifteen said that many of the students were lazy, passive, and unconscious of LA The students were not ready and willing to really carry out LA activities Students were unprepared for LA development They mainly went to class for listening, taking notes and waiting for exams They seemed not to volunteer and be flexible in their own learning This also revealed that despite teachers’ significant efforts there was a gap between what teachers expected/desired from students and what teachers actually observed in their students This problem was reported in previous studies (i.e Dogan & Mirici, 2017; Nguyễn Văn Lợi, 2016; Tapinta, 2016) Understandably, there is much for teachers to do for LA development, basically because LA is multi-dimensional and cannot be present in all students after limited time According to Dương Thị Hoàng Oanh’s statistics (2011), Vietnamese students faced many difficulties such as lack of instructions and effective methods, being occupied with other activities, having insufficient time, laziness, insufficient materials, and lack of time And, the results of the study suggested that EFL students at DTU had the same these characteristics as Dương Thị Hoàng Oanh’s study (ibid.) Recently, many English major students in Vietnam have not known how to study autonomously Trần Thị Tuyết (2013) claims that many students in higher education system in Vietnam possess their passive learning style She also indicates this is not appropriate or even dangerous for student’s development in our society today, especially at work and in life after they graduate from the institutions.

The results suggest that those students should be at positivism, and they be not on the shift from positivism to constructivism Furthermore, learners were not taught how to restructure what they learnt because it depended on each person’s capacity and cognition Thus, the students did not practice LA well The teachers’ performance of organizing LA activities for their students was the same as the students’ situation In other words, their teaching practices of LA were not successful because they did not have enough cognition of LA as well as their roles in students’ LA learning Therefore, psychology and cognition, especially metacognition, should be concerned more in autonomous learning Accordingly,Blidi (2017) reviews the importance of psychology aspect of LA in teaching and learning setting in which learners must be conscious to become a constructor to develop in constructivism In accordance with this theory, learners themselves have to reorganize and reconstruct the knowledge transmitted by teachers It implies that learners take part in their own learning to promote Hence, learning by doing or experiential learning has become a trend and has been believed as a promotion of psychology and cognition of LA field One of the vital components of experiential learning is to enhance students’ cognition on learning by their experience and to instruct them the ways to reflect their learning based on Kelly’s Theory of Personal Constructs The students in this theory are “active and responsible participants who make choices based on reality as they perceive it, not just lazy consumers and passive responders” to move in the direction of proactive autonomy instead of reactive autonomy (Kelly, 1955, as cited in Blidi, 2017 , p.8).

The results from this theme of the study imply that EFL students at DTU face a large number of obstacles such as lack of LA skills, learning conditions, and living conditions More specifically, they were not fostered LA ability through self- access learning centres, computer-assisted language learning, and distance learning, etc (Gardner & Miller, 1999, 2011; Benson, 2006; Morrison, 2008) because DTU did not equip self-access learning centres, computer-assisted language learning, or digital library for students to learn autonomously EFL students were just instructed some out-of-class activities as mentioned above Besides, the majority of the students came from the poor, rural areas in Mekong Delta; thus, they were poor students, and did not have a computer or a laptop to serve their learning At their boarding houses or at dormitory, there was weak Wifi, and this made them meet some difficulties in accessing the Internet to search learning resources Furthermore, at these places, there was no LA space for the students; so, they were easy to feel bored when they learned alone or they were attracted by other daily activities as they complained in the interview Additionally, students have not developed their choices in learning and explored learning resources effectively yet Thereby,teachers should foster students with necessary skills to be able to make decisions about what related to their own learning Furthermore, finding learning materials skills on the Internet and in the library should be trained to learners Vietnamese Institutions, including DTU, should build a system of online libraries to serve learners’ learning needs This helps students search learning documents easily when they have free time, especially at night because a number of universities in Vietnam do not open their library in the evening, including DTU.

Summary

The current study provided evidence about the EFL teachers’ perceptions of

LA principles in the Mekong Delta context It strongly emphasized the teachers’ positive views towards the LA role for the students’ college success and later life.Thus, in their ken, the teachers were making significant attempts for its development in their teaching classes through regular course assignments,especially groupwork outside the classroom Due to large-size classes of dissimilar learning styles, class-time limitation, students’ passiveness, lack of motivation and involvement, they mostly failed to reap what they expected from their students.

In addition, the present study provided evidence about EFL students’ perceptions of LA role and their practice of LA in the Mekong Delta context.Although placed in a rural area and never trained exclusively on it before, they all had positive perceptions of the LA role for college success and later life, and full awareness of their learning responsibility Furthermore, they were trying various ways to reach the set learning goals Since LA is multidimensional and developed throughout one’s college time and later life, what the interviewed students gained was rather limited and it also uncovered spaces where they faced problems and needed supports and feedback Thus, the present study maintains the instructor’s clear, specific and helpful guidance, not only right at the beginning at but also during the training program whenever students, especially less strong ones, are in need because most students trust their teachers and think that they can learn something new from them (Wang, 2010), and because while students are still in short of self-discipline in learning, teachers might interfere to guarantee that learning happens (Yao & Li, 2017).

Chapter Five CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

This chapter summarizes the main points of this study, and discusses the contributions of the present study to conclude the thesis Then, the limitations,implications, and further research are presented.

Summary

The research reported in this thesis explored LA as a vital ability in EFL learners’ own learning The study was motivated by a concern that students in Mekong Delta gained weak background of learning English In addition, they lacked LA skills because they were not trained about LA ability in previous stages.

An exploratory mixed methods study was conducted to investigate both EFL teachers’ and EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA at a university in Mekong Delta Participants in this research consisted of 20 EFL teachers and 285 EFL students at DTU Data were collected from questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, and group interview.

A set of actions was developed and fulfilled to analyze the research data. Concerning the survey data and interview data from EFL teachers’ and EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA, four dimensions of LA appeared as ability, responsibility, cognition, and lifelong learning These dimensions represented LA as a multidimensional construct in Mekong Delta context, in the South of Vietnam However, it is necessary to be noted that there was one dimension – cultural challenge – which participants did not mention in the interviews.

Further analyses indicated that teachers and students had insights of LA, but their practices of LA were lower than their perceptions In other words, there was a distance between their understanding of the concept of LA and their practices of LA activities outside the classroom They identified the importance of LA in teaching and learning English However, the ways they applied LA were ineffective because both teachers and students were never trained or attended any LA courses or LA workshop before Furthermore, other analyses showed that local cultural factors impacted their perceptions and practices of LA.

The findings of this study suggested that there be an interrelated relationship between the EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices of LA, and the EFL students’ as well If teachers perceived the importance of LA, they tended to apply it in teaching Similarly, if students believed that LA was a crucial factor, they implemented it in their own learning This can quite be understandable because human beings’ actions are considered likely to be influenced by their thought Yet,this relationship is not strong because the students were affected by other daily activities and community What is more, there was the impact of some teachers’ and some students’ LA activities back to their thinking It meant their experience of LA earlier drove their thought about LA.

Contributions of the study

Theoretical contributions

Learner autonomy is not a new topic in the scientific educational field these days because it has been explored widely for over three decades However, this study was conducted to develop previous LA studies’ theory with some new points as mentioned in detail below.

The present researcher developed two more dimensions of LA, namely lifelong learning and cultural challenge in this study The present study revealed that one of the major perceptions of LA was lifelong learning It deemed a solid base for development of learners’ LA ability In other studies, the researchers focused on the main dimensions of LA such as ability, responsibility, attitude, readiness, and willingness (e.g Trịnh Quốc Lập, 2005; Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ, 2009; Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012; Lê Xuân Quỳnh, 2013; Nguyễn Thanh Nga, 2014; Dương Mỹ Thẩm, 2015; and Phan Thị Thanh Thảo, 2015) The present study based on this working LA framework of five major dimensions (ability, responsibility, cognition, lifelong learning, and cultural challenge), which was tentative to investigate EFL teachers’ and EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA at DTU Both the EFL teachers and the EFL students participating in this study admitted the importance of

LA ability in the students’ work in the future like lifelong learning It helps the students promote in their career However, the purpose of training the EFL students becoming more patient and having LA habits is not easy to obtain because of the cultural characteristics in Mekong Delta People as well as learners in this region have not been keen on learning yet, especially English It takes a long time to conduct it, and the students should be fostered metacognitive knowledge in EFL autonomous learning.

Additionally, this study mentioned assessment as learning, teachers’ role, as well as students’ role in LA learning In Đặng Tấn Tín’s study (2012), one of the four dimensions used to explore the students’ perceptions and practices of LA is setting goals and evaluating learning He designed a few items about evaluation in questionnaire, but in the interview, the students’ self-assessment of their performance of LA did not appear Nguyễn Thanh Nga (2014) investigated the EFL teachers’ beliefs about LA; however, she did not introduce the teachers’ self- assessment in Literature Review Only Lê Xuân Quỳnh (2013) mentioned the students’ self-assessment in literature and investigated this theme Moreover, it is hard to find the teachers’ self-assessment of their teaching practice on LA activities in previous studies Therefore, the findings from the teachers’ self-assessment about their organizing and instructing LA activities for their students deem source of information for further research in this field.

Methodological contributions

Although the data collection instruments in this study were usual questionnaire and interview like the previous studies, some differences in a set of statements in questionnaire and in-depth interview were used The benefits of these two tools analyzed in chapter Three A comparison between these two tools in this study and in the others in Vietnam is presented below.

This study is to use in-depth interview in an exploratory study in a LA research in Vietnam Most previous studies in LA fields (i.e Balcikanli, 2010; Borg

& Al-Busaidi, 2012b; Chan et al., 2002; Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012; Lê Xuân Quỳnh,2013; Joshi, 2011; Keuk & Heng, 2016; Nguyễn Thanh Nga, 2014; Talley, 2014;Wang & Wang, 2016) used interview to collect data More specifically, Nguyễn ThịCẩm Lệ (2009) used interview to ask students about their strengths and weaknesses in learning English, their perceptions of students’ and teachers’ responsibilities in learning, their writing performances, and their practices to enhance English inside and outside the classroom; Đặng Tấn Tín (2012) used semi-structured interview to investigate students’ ability of initiating EFL learning, monitoring EFL learning process, setting learning goals and evaluating learning, and using Information and Communication Technologies for EFL learning purpose Lê Xuân Quỳnh (2013) also used semi-structured interview for focus group students Nguyễn Thanh Nga (2014) applied individual interviews and initial interviews to teachers In this present study, in-depth interview was used for the teachers, and group interview for the students For students, they told their stories about LA in groups of five It aimed for them to share their autonomous learning stories with their friends and the interviewer, and they and their friends could learn LA experience from each other. For teachers, they reported their stories individually The findings which were presented in Chapter Four showed benefits of this tool because all participants shared their stories honestly, clearly, deeply, and open-mindedly Furthermore, the number of participants joining interviews was much more than the previous studies in Vietnamese contexts as discussed in Chapter Four.

Generally, scholars (Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ, 2009; Đặng Tấn Tín, 2012; Lê Xuân Quỳnh, 2013; Nguyễn Thanh Nga, 2014) designed their questionnaires for EFL students or EFL teachers in different ways More specifically, Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ (2009) designed self-initiation questionnaire about elements of LA, aspects of LA, out of class learning English activities, out of class using English activities, overt in class language learning activities, and covert in class language learning activities based on Spratt, Humphreys, and Chan (2002), and Gao, Zhao, Cheng, and Zhou (2004, 2007) In Đặng Tấn Tín’s study (2012), questionnaires of students’ perceptions and performance about initiating, monitoring, and evaluating LA were adapted from the Learner Autonomy Inventory developed by Yang (2007) Lê Xuân Quỳnh’s questionnaires (2013) about students’ attitudes, practices of LA, and teachers’ and students’ view about their responsibility for LA activities were based on previous studies by Cotterall (1995, 1999), Broady (1996), Spratt et al (2002),

Hsu (2005), and Thang and Alias (2007) It is interesting that Nguyễn Thị Cẩm Lệ (2009), Lê Xuân Quỳnh (2013) also used LA activities on Spratt et al (2002) in their studies However, the current study had some clusters differing from previous studies, especially perception of the role of LA at higher education, time and life management, and metacognition in learning language Furthermore, clusters such as setting goals, planning study, self-assessment in the present study were designed more deeply than in the others For example, in Đặng Tấn Tín’s questionnaire version (2012), there were three items (5, 18, and 23) in phase one and phase two mentioning using time, learning plan, and making their timetable Nguyễn Thị Cẩm

Lệ (2009) and Lê Xuân Quỳnh (2013) did not put these themes in their questionnaires.

Pedagogical contributions and implications for the future of

The present study also makes pedagogical contributions to enhancing EFL students’ LA ability in the future It supplies information for administrators or teachers to design syllabuses Furthermore, it provides scientific evidence that LA training course should be designed and integrated into EFL training learning program in Vietnamese tertiary educational setting This course should be set up to include LA skills and autonomous learning methods so that students can conduct

LA activities outside class The topic “the development of autonomous learning skills in learning English at higher education” should be reported to the first-year students at the beginning of the academic year A handbook of learning English major autonomously should be published and delivered to all students from freshmen to seniors so that they can follow its instructions in their learning process. Besides, it should have another course for EFL teachers who lack LA knowledge or do not know how to promote their students’ LA ability The findings of this study showed that most students lacked LA skills because they had not been trained it before Similarly, teachers have the same situation as their students They have not attended any workshops and LA training course before.

Learner autonomy in local context

The previous LA studies in Vietnam focused on promoting LA at universities in main big cities such as Can Tho city, Ho Chi Minh city, and Ha Noi capital. Besides, they only investigated one side of LA: students’ perceptions and practices of LA or teachers’ beliefs and practices of LA This situation is the same as others in the world Therefore, this study was conducted at DTU – a rural university in Mekong Delta where most of EFL students (as mentioned in Chapter One and Chapter Three) were not as strong as their peers in other urban universities in terms of English proficiency, learning facilities and English language exposure.Moreover, as mentioned in chapter One and chapter Two, education of English subject in Mekong Delta gained low rate Exploring both EFL teachers’ and EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA in this region helps the researchers, policy makers, and administrators have more information in this field in local context so that they will have suitable measures to develop Mekong Delta students’ LA ability.

Limitations

Limitations of this study are quite clear Data were collected from in-depth interview involving a small number of the teacher participants (20 EFL teachers) and group interview for 60 EFL students, and one survey for 285 students from one university No matter how deep the interviews were conducted, the validity of what teachers and students actually did in and out the classroom of LA activities had yet to be realized Besides, observation method was not used in this study to provide more evidence of EFL students’ practices on LA because both the teachers and researcher were very busy and these teachers did not permit the researcher to visit their classes due to their personal reasons Additionally, this study was not experimented to foster LA ability for EFL students.

Further research

The current study is taken by its researcher as the first step to explore the LA theme at this university The next moves should be (1) one conference for teachers to share ideas of what should be done to develop LA effectively, possibly paving the path for a shared framework of LA ability (as mentioned above), based on rigorous classroom observations, analysis and backchecking; and then (2) having

LA training course for EFL students in this university and trace its effects (if any) in them by a certain means of measurement such as some new testing criteria EFL students should be instructed this course at the beginning in the first year In the following years, they will be supported and observed by their teachers to assess their development of LA ability Besides, it is crucial for researchers to explore the realm of these perspectives, especially cognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies,motivation, attitudes towards LA more and more to help learners develop their LA capacity for themselves Additionally, there have been any LA studies in lower educational levels in Vietnam Thus, it is necessary for researchers to carry out LA research to foster LA ability for primary students, secondary students, and high school students to establish their solid LA base in EFL autonomous learning and to help them learn English better in higher education.

Conclusion

The study was conducted to seek the EFL teachers’ and the EFL students’ perceptions and practices of LA at a university in Mekong Delta The results of this research showed that although the teachers and students gained their positive understanding of LA and LA role, both had their limit in implementation in LA activities because of their mismatch between their perceptions and practices, and cultural characteristics in Mekong Delta The following suggests some solutions in order to fill this gap at DTU.

As educators, teachers have to understand learners’ perceptions of LA to be able to promote LA in many aspects It is implied that the EFL students at DTU lacked LA skills because they were not trained those ones at schools before To solve these problems, consequently, it is advisable that at the very first semester of the training course, EFL students should be made fully aware of LA by instructors in charge, specifically they should be guided (1) how to set up feasible learning goals, based on a thorough analysis of their individual needs, strengths and weaknesses, (2) make compatible plans down to monthly, weekly and daily ones if possible, and appropriately choose learning methods, strategies, activities and materials for the set goals, (3) consciously and closely monitor learning processes to constantly ensure things go right, (4) patiently work hard and build effective ways to combat stress, boredom and other unexpected problems or out-of-plan inducements, (5) frequently make reflections, self-assessments and draw experiences from what have been done Secondly, these guidances should be regularly repeated throughout the training course to reinforce LA ability Third,instructors should always get prepared to willingly provide further guidelines,assistances and encouragements in case students get astray, feel demotivated and search for help or feedback on their ways because LA is a long-term process, even throughout an entire life.

PUBLICATIONS INTEGRATED IN THE THESIS

Lê Thanh Nguyệt Anh (2018) EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding learner autonomy at Dong Thap University, Vietnam Hue University Journal of Social Science and Humanities, 127(6B), 5-13.

Lê Thanh Nguyệt Anh (2018) EFL students’ voices on learner autonomy at a university in the Mekong Delta VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 34(2), 26- 38.

Lê Thanh Nguyệt Anh (2018) An overview of EFL autonomous learning in the 21 st century in Vietnam: International integration and challenge Proceedings of the sixth international OpenTESOL conference on language learning and teaching transformation in the post-method era.

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APPENDICES Appendix A Interviewing questions (for teachers)

I Teachers’ perceptions of definition, role, and demonstration of learner autonomy

1 How do you understand the term “learner autonomy” in case of EFL students?

2 What do you think about the role of learner autonomy to English majored students at Dong Thap University in the integrated time today and when they are employed to be teachers of English or officers in the future?

II Teachers’ teaching practices of learner autonomy

3 How long have you taught English? Which majors subjects do you often teach? Have you ever implemented autonomously learning activities for your EFL students? If yes, what LA activities have you ever organized in each English subject in details? Inside or outside classroom? How often?

4 How can you check or evaluate whether your students have carried out those or not?

5 Which advantages and disadvantages do you meet when organizing autonomously learning activities for your EFL students?

III Teachers’ assessment of their LA activities

6 You evaluate which level of LA ability EFL students at Dong Thap University get: poor, average, good, or excellent? Why?

7 How do you self-assess your instruction of LA activities for EFL students?

Appendix B Interviewing questions (for students)

I Students’ perceptions of definition, role, and demonstration of learner autonomy

1 How do you understand the term “learner autonomy” in case of EFL students?

2 What do you think about the role of learner autonomy to English majored students at Dong Thap University in the integrated time today and when you are employed to be English teachers or officers in the future?

II Students’ practices of leaner autonomy

3 Could you share what and how you have learned English autonomously in details? How much time do you spend on learning English every day out of class? How often?

4 Have you set your goals in learning English? How? When?

5 Have you planned your English study? How? When?

6 Can you arrange reasonable time for your English study and your life? How?

7 How can you search English materials for your study?

8 How do you revise your old English lessons before every test/exam? And when?

9 Which advantages do you meet when learning English autonomously? Give reasons.

10 Which disadvantages do you meet when learning English autonomously? Give reasons.

III Students’ self-assessment of their LA

11 You self-assess your LA in which level: poor, average, good, or excellent.

Appendix CQuestionnaire(For EFL students)

This questionnaire is designed to investigate EFL students’ perceptions and practices regarding LA at DTU Please answer the following questions honestly and to the best of your ability We value your opinions all of which will be treated with the utmost of confidentiality The responses to this questionnaire will only be used for the purposes of this research and for no other purposes Thank you very much for your time and consideration Please fill in the blanks or tick (  ) the idea which you choose

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