LEARNER AND TEACHER AUTONOMY concepts, realities, and responses edited by terry lamb, hayo rein2

 Learner and Teacher AutonomyRoles learners believe they have in the development of their language Christine Siqueira Nicolaides Autonomous teachers, autonomous cognition: Developing

Learner and Teacher Autonomy

AILA Applied Linguistics Series (AALS)

Volume 1

Learner and Teacher Autonomy Concepts, realities, and responses

Edited by Terry Lamb and Hayo Reinders

The AILA Applied Linguistics Series (AALS) provides a forum for scholars

in any area of Applied Linguistics The series aims at representing the

field in its diversity It covers different topics in applied linguistics from a multidisciplinary approach and it aims at including different theoretical and methodological perspectives As an official publication of AILA the series will include contributors from different geographical and linguistic backgrounds The volumes in the series should be of high quality, they should break new ground and stimulate further research in Applied Linguistics

National University of Singapore, Singapore

Learner and Teacher Autonomy

Concepts, realities, and responses

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Learner and teacher autonomy : concepts, realities, and responses / edited by Terry

Lamb, Hayo Reinders.

p cm (AILA Applied Linguistics Series, issn 1875-1113 ; v 1)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-90-272-0517-9 (hb : alk paper)

1 Language and languages Study and teaching 2 Learner autonomy 3 Teaching,

Freedom of I Lamb, Terry (Terry E.) II Reinders, Hayo.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of

American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of

Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

8TM

Freedom – a prerequisite for learner autonomy?: Classroom innovation

Teacher-learner autonomy: Programme goals and student-teacher constructs 83

Richard Smith and Sultan Erdoğan

The subjective theories of student teachers: Implications for teacher

Hélène Martinez

Sara Cotterall and David Crabbe

 Learner and Teacher Autonomy

Roles learners believe they have in the development of their language

Christine Siqueira Nicolaides

Autonomous teachers, autonomous cognition: Developing personal theories through

Penny Hacker and Gary Barkhuizen

Part 4 Responses

Teachers working together: What do we talk about when we talk about

Jonathan Shaw

Hayo Reinders and Marilyn Lewis

Teacher education towards teacher (and learner) autonomy: What can be

Flávia Vieira, Isabel Barbosa, Madalena Paiva, Isabel Sandra Fernandes

Multiple voices: Negotiating pathways towards teacher and learner autonomy 237

It is a great pleasure to present the first volume of the new AILA Applied Linguistics

Series (AALS) This new series is an official publication of AILA, the International

Association of Applied Linguistics (www.aila.info) and as such it provides a forum

for scholars in any area of Applied Linguistics The AILA Applied Linguistics Series

aims at representing the field in its diversity and covers different topics in applied linguistics from a multidisciplinary approach As an official publication of AILA,

the AILA Applied Linguistics Series will have contributors from diverse

geographi-cal and linguistic backgrounds AALS includes edited books as well as graphs The volumes will focus on practical problems of language and communi-

mono-cation analysed by using different theoretical and methodological frameworks

The approach adopted in the volumes of this series will often be multidisciplinary combining linguistic, psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic and educational perspec-tives The series aims at being a major contribution to the field of applied linguis-tics by publishing volumes on cutting-edge work on new and perennially impor-tant topics that can advance the knowledge of the field

The first volume in this series is ‘Learner and Teacher Autonomy: Concepts,

realities, and responses’ edited by Terry Lamb and Hayo Reinders The volume

fo-cuses on the issue of autonomy in language learning but goes beyond other cations by combining learner and teacher perspectives in a critical way I would like to thank the editors and contributors of this volume for all their work as well

publi-as the external referees for their critical comments that have improved the quality

of this volume I would also like to thank the editorial board of the series and Kees Vaes of John Benjamins Publishing Company for their creative input throughout the preparation of this series

Jasone Cenoz

Donostia-San Sebastian, October 2007

part 1

Introduction

Henri Holec

Since its inception over three decades ago, the autonomy approach in language learning/teaching has fostered a powerful investigation drive that has led to the questioning and the revision of an ever increasing number of pedagogical tenets, assumptions and evidences at all levels of the learning/teaching process Com-bined with the concomitant challenging of prior theories and practices brought about by the fundamental shifts in pedagogical foci from linguistic to communica-tive competence, from behaviouristic to cognitive descriptions of the acquisition process, from priority to teaching and the teacher to priority to learning and the learner, this on-going investigation drive has progressively allowed the learning/teaching community to conceptualise and in some environments to put into prac-tice an entirely new, incomplete and imperfect though it still may be, pedagogical paradigm What had started as a limited variation in practice empirically put to-gether to loosen the constraints of teacher-directed group learning has now be-come a fully-fledged alternative outlook on language learning and teaching based

on alternative definitions of the relationships between teaching and learning and between learning and acquisition and in which theory and practice are concerned both with the development of learning competence and the provision of self-di-rected learning environments

Over time, numerous issues have been raised, dealt with, and provisionally settled after coherent sets of concepts have been delineated and translated into operational terms: does self-direction simply mean that the learner will here do what the teacher does in traditional other-directed learning environments? What new roles for teachers are defined in the approach? What should materials suitable for self-directed learning look like? How can learners be adequately trained to achieve learning competence? How can teachers be trained to adequately play their roles? What are the defining parameters of self-evaluation? What are the ap-propriate representations on language and language learning that both learners and teachers should base their actions on?

Other issues have not yet gathered sufficient consensual agreement and quently remain open and require further investigation, as is the case with those

conse- Henri Holec

addressed in some of the contributions assembled in this book Still others have not even been clearly spelled out yet, so that attention must first be brought on their clarification, if only to make sure future propositions answer the right questions: this is what other articles included here endeavour to achieve And on the imple-mentation, developmental side of the autonomy approach, new pedagogical proce-dures, new materials and new learning layouts have to be continuously thought out, tested and implemented, as is also reported on in one section of this book

On a more general and programmatic level, what is likely to become the ing force behind future research and development work in the autonomy approach

driv-to language learning/teaching is the fully assuming and the systematic exploration

of the fundamental plurality and variability of all pedagogical endeavours There is

no one single answer to the question of the relationship between learning tence and self-directed learning, no single answer to the status to be ‘officially’ given to self-evaluation, no single set of language learning objectives to be achieved,

compe-no single “best” pedagogical procedure, etc At all levels of investigation into the autonomy approach care will have to be taken to avoid looking for monolithic and stable answers Instead, conditions of plurality and parameters of variability will be sought after, then brought to play in the analyses carried out and finally accom-modated in the theories and/or the practices provisionally set up This will prob-ably mean revising a great proportion of our present certainties, thus contributing,

as this book already does, to the perennial enforcement of Boileau’s (1636–1711) famous injunction: “Vingt fois sur le métier remettez votre ouvrage” (“Twenty times must your work be put back on the loom”)

Introduction to this volume

Terry Lamb

University of Sheffield, UK

This book contains a collection of chapters commissioned in 2004 by the AILA Scientific Commission on Learner Autonomy in Language Learning (now an AILA Research Network), with the aim of exploring the concepts of learner au-tonomy and teacher autonomy, and, in particular, the relationships between the two The chapters are the result of an innovative approach to research and publica-tion by the Scientific Commission, and of a desire to explore the issues and de-velop the book in an inclusive way In preparation for the Commission’s symposi-

um at the AILA World Congress in Singapore in 2002, papers were called for and, after a strict peer review process, a selection of them were chosen to be presented Short versions of these papers were then placed on the Commission’s website and discussed by the members of its online mailing list (AUTO-L), moderated by the authors During the symposium itself summaries of the research were presented together with questions both from and for the audience Following the symposi-

um, electronic discussions (again using AUTO-L) were facilitated in 2003 by the authors, focusing on their papers and the discussions in Singapore

This book is the result of this process It consists of chapters based on the posium papers, reworked and refined on the basis of the face-to-face and elec-tronic discussions Additional chapters have been written by people involved ei-ther in the review or the discussion of the papers, or, in some cases, by people unable to attend the conference As such, the book reflects a truly international perspective on the topic, enriched by the input of a broader range of people than could have attended the conference

sym-Aims and scope

The theme of the 2002 symposium, and consequently of this book, was identified

by the Learner Autonomy in Language Learning research community itself at the previous AILA Scientific Commission Business Meeting in Tokyo in 1999 At that

 Terry Lamb

time, it was recognised that the worldwide increase in various types of ent learning, the increased interest in fostering autonomous learning, and new forms of language support in out-of-class settings had serious implications for teachers and others involved in language support, many of whom were constrained

independ-by their own lack of personal experience of these developments or independ-by perceived constraints emanating from policy However, despite the increase in academic ac-tivity around learner autonomy, discussion around its implications for teacher de-velopment and, in particular, for teachers’ own experiences of autonomy (both in terms of their freedom to innovate and the nature of their own language learning histories and their identities as autonomous learners) had not been developed in any sustained and critical way, most collections of chapters focusing primarily on learner autonomy The issues explored in this book were therefore considered to be

of primary concern and in need of in-depth focus, since the only existing work to focus primarily on this area was the publication which was at that time forthcom-ing and which was the result of the Nottingham Colloquium on learner autonomy and teacher autonomy held in 1998 (Sinclair, McGrath and Lamb 2000) This pub-lication had been unique in combining the two perspectives of autonomy in one book; nevertheless, it did so in two discrete sections, and did not have as a goal the exploration of the interplays between the two

The present publication was designed to build on that book by exploring ther the two concepts and, where appropriate, focusing on the relationships be-tween the two The resultant contributions therefore represent a wide-ranging spectrum of perspectives, some learner-focused, some teacher-focused, and some arguing very strongly that it is impossible to consider the one without the other They are located in a wealth of contexts, including classrooms, out-of-school set-tings, self-access centres, and pre-service and in-service teacher education courses

fur-In addition, they are rooted in a range of different paradigms, with the authors proaching their subjects through a variety of theoretical frameworks and research methodologies and methods What shines through the chapters most significantly, however, are the experiences and voices of teachers and learners from around the world The outcome is a rich and illuminating source of empirical data, and sig-nificant analysis of and theorizing on the issues, with a strong focus on practical application

ap-Structure of the book

The book is divided into five parts Following this introduction to the volume and

a foreword by Henri Holec, the second part addresses the themes mainly from a conceptual angle Firstly, Benson draws on the concept of personal autonomy, in

Introduction to this volume 

order to suggest that we need to move beyond situational conceptualisations of autonomy as well as those influenced by teacher perspectives aiming to develop the capacity for autonomy, towards a more complex one which embraces the no-tion of autonomy in life, in which individuals are free to direct the course of their lives Benson argues the need to view autonomy from the learner’s perspective rather than from the more prevalent teacher perspective, in order to understand the conditions which are conducive to its realization In doing so, he draws on his own experience as a learner of Cantonese in Hong Kong

The concept of freedom and its relationship to autonomy is also addressed by Trebbi, who argues that we are never free from constraints Drawing on data from her research in a number of educational settings in Norway, she identifies some of these constraints, including external (in the form of institutional and curricular constraints), internal (such as teacher attitudes and beliefs), and supportive con-straints (such as those which offer new experiences and encourage critical reflec-tion on existing representations of teaching and learning) She ends by outlining the ways in which an innovative teacher education programme nurtured the de-velopment of a new consciousness amongst her student teachers, and enabled them to see the potential of developing their learners’ autonomy

In his chapter, Macaro usefully reminds us that our central business is the

de-velopment of language learners He therefore describes a model of autonomous

language learning which consists of three dimensions: autonomy of language petence; autonomy of language learning competence; and autonomy of learner choice His focus is primarily on the young language learner, though in consider-ing the nature of autonomy in each dimension he also addresses the role of the teacher in promoting such autonomy

com-This section then concludes with La Ganza’s chapter, in which he defines both learner and teacher autonomy as interrelational constructs, and explores them through his theoretical framework of the Dynamic Interrelational Space, devel-oped in his doctoral research in Australia Thus, in the traditional teaching-learn-ing context, learner autonomy can only develop in an atmosphere in which both teachers and learners are sensitive to the mutual influences at play Similarly, the development of teacher autonomy within the institution is also dependent on awareness of the dynamic nature of such mutual influences, in this case, between teachers, course coordinators and directors

In entitling the third part of the book ‘Realities’, there was no intention to gest that these chapters were the only ones in the book to address reality However, together these chapters offer a rich source of data on teachers’ and learners’ per-spectives on teaching and learning, and thus provide us with a series of ‘realities’ which impact on the development of autonomy for both teachers and learners The voices expressed in this section enable us to consider the perspectives of the actors

of repertory-grid and follow-up interviews.

This is then followed by a chapter by Martinez, in which she draws on the language learning histories of two student teachers in Germany in order to iden-tify the ways in which they conceptualise learner autonomy The intention is to explore the potential of using such subjective theories as material in their teacher education course, as a way of offering alternative perspectives and stimulating the reappraisal of existing theories of teaching and learning through tapping into the perspectives of (themselves as) the learners

Cotterall and Crabbe’s chapter is set in the Language Advisory Service at toria University of Wellington, New Zealand It reports research into the problems faced by students as accessed through dialogues between learners and advisors As well as describing the dynamics of the student-advisor dialogue, the chapter also suggests the advantages of developing a data-base of such problems and solutions One of the benefits of this is to offer support to learners in identifying and solving their own language learning problems, thus enabling them to become more inde-pendent in their learning A further benefit is that it can be used by teachers in developing their awareness of the nature of discourse which encourages learners to think for themselves

Vic-In Nicolaides’ chapter, we gain the perspectives of future teachers of English in Brazil on their language learning during the course We see that there is a marked difference between the way in which they construe their role in the learning con-text of the classroom and their role in learning outside the classroom The research indicates that these particular students see a relationship between knowledge and power, with knowledge meaning not only the content of learning but also knowl-edge about the best way of learning As such, they believe that the teacher should take control in the classroom, whereas they should make their own decisions about what happens in out-of-class learning (such as in the self-access centre) The im-plication is that students would benefit from reflecting on the relationships be-tween their learning in these two contexts in order to become more critically aware

of their own ‘knowledge’ and how it might be applied in the classroom It is to be hoped that this enhanced self-awareness will also encourage them to reflect on

Introduction to this volume 

their own role as future language teachers, in order that they may eventually build

a sense of responsibility amongst their own learners

Language teachers’ personal theories of language teaching are the focus of the last chapter in this section, by Hacker and Barkhuizen, situated in the postgradu-ate language teacher education programme at the University of Auckland, New Zealand The specific focus here, however, is on teacher autonomy, and in particu-lar its relationship to the development of personal theories Hacker and Barkhui-zen relate the concept of teacher autonomy to the capacity to self-direct one’s own professional development and, in turn, argue that this is firstly dependent on a sense of awareness of and confidence in one’s own personal theories, and, through making them explicit, on the development of reflectivity to enable them to reflect

on and develop them further In their conclusion they also suggest that greater awareness of one’s own autonomy as a teacher can potentially lead to more positive attitudes towards learner autonomy

The fourth part of this book (Responses) consists of four chapters which focus

on practical interventions to develop more autonomous ways of working In the first chapter, Shaw, in Thailand, describes how a group of teachers together found their autonomy by deciding to remove the constraint of the timetable, and develop learning opportunities for their learners on an ongoing basis, according to what they considered to be most suitable for their needs at the time Collaboratively they set out to establish what these needs were, and collaboratively they deter-mined what was fit for purpose In his argument, Shaw suggests that learner au-tonomy as a goal is itself a constraint on teacher autonomy, as it prevents the teach-

er from responding flexibly and professionally to circumstances Instead, he argues that teacher autonomy should take precedence in certain contexts, but that this can only be achieved by teachers working together, since only through dialogue can they be stimulated to operate in new and different ways

Teacher autonomy is also the theme of the chapter by Reinders and Lewis Here, however, it is related to the notions of choice and involvement, whereby a strategy is introduced to enable staff in the self access centre at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, to evaluate the materials available for learning The chap-ter also connects with learner autonomy in two ways: firstly, the evaluation ques-tions being trialled focus on the suitability of the materials as stand-alone resources, i.e how easily they lend themselves to autonomous use; secondly, it is argued that

by becoming more familiar with the potential of the resources for autonomous learning, the more effectively will staff be able to advise students on their use

The authors of the next chapter describe their work on a pre-service teacher education programme in Portugal Vieira, Barbosa, Paiva and Fernandes present three case studies of student teacher development practices (lesson observation, supervisory discourse and student teachers’ journal writing), and analyse them in

 Terry Lamb

terms of their potential contribution to the development of teacher autonomy,

which is “seen as a corollary of critical reflectivity and can be broadly defined as

willingness and ability to manage constraints within a vision of education as tion and empowerment” The chapter is underpinned by the authors’ commitment

libera-to a pedagogy for aulibera-tonomy, in which learner and teacher aulibera-tonomy develop in tandem, and which can only be achieved by unleashing the transformative poten-tial of inquiry and reflection to support teachers in envisioning possibilities Au-tonomy as an ideological construct thus suggests a common project, in which teacher-centredness and learner-centredness are interrelated, forming two sides of the same coin

The final chapter in this section, by Sinclair, considers how the design and delivery of a Masters level programme in ‘Learner Autonomy’ for overseas teach-ers of English at the University of Nottingham in the UK has been informed, through negotiation, by the ‘voices’ of the various participants, namely the course lecturer, the course participants and the participants’ own language learners The chapter once again brings together the themes of learner autonomy, teacher educa-tion, professional development, voice, constraints, control, negotiation, collabora-tion and reflection which have occurred throughout the book, and demonstrate how constraints can be turned to advantage if used as a source of reflection, offer-ing a way of empowering the learner(-teacher) through the creation of new op-

portunities for at least some control It also reminds us again that, as well as

work-ing with learners, teachers are at the same time learners themselves, able to learn from their learners (who, in turn, thus become teachers)

Finally, in the epilogue, Lamb looks back over the chapters of the book and goes in search of the themes of learner autonomy and teacher autonomy, synthe-sising the different foci of the chapters and looking at future research imperatives and pedagogical needs The main purpose of the chapter is to explore where and how, if at all, the concepts of learner autonomy and teacher autonomy relate to each other Given that some focus more on the one than on the other, the chapter

is structured around the concepts of learner autonomy (and the teacher role), teacher autonomy (including ways in which they can be construed as learners themselves), and finally the interrelationships between the two concepts He ends

by presenting arguments which closely relate the notion of autonomy to the bution of power, and, as such, suggests that it involves a struggle between transfor-mation (towards a more just society) and the status quo The development of au-tonomy is an attempt to (re-)establish democratic processes in teaching and learning and, as such, entails a commitment to negotiation and power sharing in this common pursuit

distri-This epilogue also reminds us that language teachers are themselves learners – language-learners and teaching-learners – charged with the task of teaching

Introduction to this volume 

their own learners (and learning from them) The centrality of reflection which is emphasized throughout this volume forms the cement which binds the twin expe-riences of teaching and learning; in other words, if we take a political view of au-tonomy, to be autonomous as a teacher involves reflection both on the opportuni-ties which exist (or which can be created) for developing their learners’ autonomy, and on the processes involved in gaining, maintaining, or extending their own autonomy as a learner Where the focus shifts to the teacher’s teaching role, the notion of teacher autonomy comes into play; if this is construed as freedom from constraints, then there is no necessary connection with learner autonomy; where

it is a political, ideological project with empowerment of the self at its heart, ever, then this must go hand in hand with the empowerment of the learner, which means the development of learner autonomy

how-It will be seen then that the interrelationships between teacher and learner tonomy depend very much on the way in which these concepts are construed and the contexts in which they are situated The chapters in this book therefore do not lead to the emergence of a grand theory of teacher and learner autonomy What they do, however, is illustrate a wide range of representations and manifestations of both teacher and learner autonomy in different contexts, providing us with a stimu-lus for critical reflection on our own contexts and, with that, the opportunity to deconstruct and reconstruct our own teaching and learning environments

au-References

Sinclair, B., McGrath, I & Lamb, T.E (eds) 2000 Learner Autonomy, Teacher Autonomy: Future Directions Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman.

part 2

Concepts

Teachers’ and learners’

perspectives on autonomy

Phil Benson

Hong Kong Institute of Education

In the literature on language teaching and learning, there are many variations upon the basic idea of autonomy The problem is to explain how these different ways of representing autonomy and putting it into practice may be linked to broader political, ideological or philosophical outlooks In previous work, for example, I have suggested that we might speak of ‘technical’, ‘psychological’ and ‘political’ versions of autonomy linked to ‘positivistic’, ‘constructivist’ and

‘critical’ outlooks (Benson, 1997) In this chapter, I want to explore this issue from a somewhat different point of view, by asking how the idea of autonomy may appear differently when viewed from a teacher’s or learner’s perspective and how this basic difference of perspective may be related to the three versions

of autonomy mentioned above The basic idea that I want to develop here is that of ‘perspective’, a term I use to refer to a way of viewing a phenomenon that is conditioned both by an individual’s position in a power-inflected role relationship (in this case the teacher-student relationship) and by the experience that the individual acquires within this relationship The underlying assumption

is that teachers and students view the processes in which they are mutually engaged from very different perspectives and that this is likely to influence the ways in which they make sense of a notion such as autonomy My argument

is that, from the teachers’ perspective, autonomy is primarily concerned with institutional and classroom learning arrangements within established curricula In other words, from the teachers’ perspective, autonomy tends to imply the learner taking control of arrangements whose underlying legitimacy

is unquestioned From the learners’ perspective (which I view as tangential

to, rather than opposed to, the teachers’ perspective) autonomy is primarily concerned with learning, in a much broader sense, and its relationship to their lives beyond the classroom I will illustrate this argument with a theoretical model and empirical data In conclusion, I will also discuss its relevance to important issues in our field, such as learner resistance to autonomy and the concept of teacher autonomy

 Phil Benson

Introduction

The idea of autonomy in language learning is often represented as a radically er-centred idea It has evolved over the past thirty years or so, however, within a lit-erature largely written by and for teachers The aim of this chapter is to explore the sense in which our understanding of this idea represents, in consequence of this his-tory, a ‘teacher’s perspective’ on the relevance of autonomy to second language learn-ing I also want to inquire into the possibility of understanding the idea of autonomy

learn-in language learnlearn-ing, somewhat differently, from a ‘learner’s perspective’

The basic premise of my argument is that the idea of ‘autonomy in learning’, which takes a subject specific form in the idea of ‘autonomy in language learning’,

is essentially a construal of the relevance of broader ideas of ‘autonomy in life’ to issues of teaching and learning The concept of autonomy is currently at issue in a number of fields of inquiry – perhaps more so today than ever before.1 In this chapter, I will focus on the liberal concept of ‘personal autonomy’ as it is currently understood in the field of moral and political philosophy This concept has been critiqued from a number of angles, and I have argued elsewhere that we should take these critiques more seriously than we do at present.2 For the purposes of the present discussion, however, I want to take the liberal view of personal autonomy

at its face value and assume that most individuals share a capacity and desire for personal autonomy as liberal philosophers have described it I also want to assume that this shared interest in personal autonomy gives both teachers and learners an interest in autonomy in language learning These assumptions may, of course, be invalid, but they are necessary in order to create a space for the argument I want to develop And one of the outcomes of this argument will be a suggestion that we need to investigate the empirical validity of these assumptions by exploring teach-ers’ and learners’ interests in autonomy in greater depth

1. Apart from the second language education literature, there are substantial bodies of ture on autonomy in several fields, including moral and political philosophy, the philosophy of education, legal philosophy, feminist studies, moral psychology, the psychology of learning and bioethics.

litera-2. See Benson (1996, 1997, 2001) For critical discussions of the liberal-humanist conception

of personal autonomy from communitarian and feminist perspectives, see Clarke (1999), Heller,

et al (1986) and Mackenzie and Stoljar (2000) For critical discussions of the liberal-humanist

grounding of the concept of autonomy in language learning, see also Pennycook (1997) and Schmenk (2005).

Teachers’ and learners’ perspectives on autonomy  Personal autonomy

The concept of personal autonomy has a long history within the field of western political philosophy, where it has characteristically served as a focal point for the critique of deterministic accounts of human action According to liberal philoso-phers, because we are capable of acting for reasons, and because we are capable of reflecting upon the reasons for our actions, we attach a particular value to “the free choice of goals and relations as an essential ingredient of individual well-being” (Raz 1986: 369) As such, the concept of autonomy defines the senses in which a liberal society should value and protect individual freedom According to Wall (2003: 307–308), for example, a meaningful conception of freedom must be based

on the idea of autonomy as a characteristic of individual lives:

An autonomous life is one in which a person charts his own course through life, fashioning his character by self-consciously choosing projects and assuming com-mitments from a wide range of eligible alternatives, and making something out of his life according to his own understanding of what is valuable and worth doing

So described, autonomy is a distinctive ideal It applies to a person’s whole life or

Autonomy does not, therefore, imply freedom of action on any given occasion, but rather a more general idea that the individual should “freely direct the course of his

or her own life” (Young 1986: 19) There is also an assumption that autonomy must

be achieved and maintained over the course of the individual’s life But what exactly

is required for an individual to lead an autonomous life? For Wall (2003: 308):

To realize autonomy, one needs several things One needs at least (1) the capacity

to form complex intentions and to sustain commitments, (2) the independence necessary to chart one’s own course through life and to develop one’s own under-standing of what is valuable and worth doing, (3) the self-consciousness and vigor necessary to take control of one’s affairs, and (4) access to an environment that provides one with a wide range of valuable options Elements (1) and (3) refer to mental capacities and virtues Element (2) refers to one’s relations with other per-sons who could exercise power over one Element (4) refers to the environment in which one lives

This description is one of many variations on the theme that autonomy requires some degree of freedom from two basic kinds of constraints: internal and exter-nal In regard to internal constraints, individuals must acquire certain psychological

3. Although Wall’s (2003) description of autonomy is not necessarily authoritative, it is dly representative of the liberal position in the philosophical literature (e.g., Lindley 1986: 6–7; Raz 1986: 372; Young 1986: 1) and the philosophy of education (e.g., Boud 1981; Dearden 1972; Gibbs 1979).

broa- Phil Benson

capacities (Elements 1 and 3) In regard to external constraints, there must be some degree of freedom from other-direction (Element 2) and an environment in which meaningful options are made available (Element 4) Personal autonomy is,

in this sense, an attribute of the socially-constituted individual Individuals must strive to lead autonomous lives and society must strive to respect the freedoms that such lives require From a liberal perspective, a good society is one in which individuals strive both for their own autonomy and the autonomy of others In Kantian terms, it is a society in which individuals treat themselves and others as ends, and never as means towards their own ends or those of society as a whole (however ‘good’ those ends may be) (Guyer 2003)

This conception of personal autonomy constitutes, I believe, the fundamental ground for the idea of ‘autonomy in learning’ The liberal-humanist view strongly

implies that we must learn to be autonomous, but it does not specify the kind of

learning required Wall (2003: 308), for example, argues that, because the state “is generally not an effective instrument for cultivating mental capacities and virtues”,

an autonomy-supportive state should primarily be concerned with the protection

of its subjects’ independence But to this he adds a somewhat ambiguous footnote

There are a few things that the state can effectively do in this regard For example,

it can do its best to ensure that all children receive an adequate education But even here there are serious limits to what the state can do Whether a child re-ceives the kind of education that he needs to live an autonomous life depends more on what his parents do than what his state does

Presumably, an “adequate education” is one that leaves individuals with the ties they need in order to lead autonomous lives But if the state is not an effective instrument for their cultivation, under what educational conditions are they best developed? Can they, in fact, be developed within state-sponsored educational in-stitutions, or are they better developed naturally, as Rousseau suggested, through processes of self-directed investigation and discovery? 4Assuming educational in-stitutions do have a role to play, what is the appropriate balance between training (developing appropriate capacities) and situational freedom (absence of other-di-rection in the learning process)? And assuming that ‘learners’ lack competence in regard to the content of their learning, almost by definition, to what extent can other direction be justified in the interests of their autonomy in the longer term?Elsewhere, I have suggested that the liberal conception of autonomy provides rather weak support for the protection of freedom within the learning process, because the principle of respect for autonomy is often hedged by considerations of paternalism (Benson 2000) Lindley (1986: 117–139), however, has presented an

capaci-4. The reference here is to Rousseau’s Émile (Boyd 1956), discussed in Benson (2001: 23–25).

Teachers’ and learners’ perspectives on autonomy 

argument that accommodates the paternalistic standpoint, in the context of a cussion of autonomy as it applies to children Lindley argues that compulsory schooling and the various compulsions imposed upon children within schools clearly violate their autonomy He also points to a received view that this is accept-able, because “restrictions on children are necessary for their own good in general, and specifically to enable them to develop their potential as adults” (p.119) Lind-ley argues, however, that it is difficult to maintain a difference of principle in this regard between adults and children above the age of 10 (the age at which individu-als are held to be responsible for their actions in United Kingdom criminal law) Both must be regarded as “persons” whose autonomy deserves respect Lindley thus argues that the violations of autonomy involved in compulsory schooling can only be justified through the paternalistic principle, which holds that an individu-al’s freedom of action is justifiably constrained only if there is good reason to be-lieve that the individual would agree at a later date that this constraint was in the interests of his longer term autonomy (for an exposition of this principle, see Young 1986: 76) If this principle holds, Lindley argues, “compulsory schooling should be judged according to whether or not it promotes the overall autonomy interests of children through time” (p.135) He then goes on to suggest that,

dis-an educational system which was geared to promote widespread autonomy amongst its pupils would provide an environment which stimulated critical self-awareness, a desire to question received wisdom, and self-directedness; and most schools are unable to provide this (p.136)

If Lindley’s view of modern educational systems is a reasonable one, we must clude that many individuals do not receive an adequate education in respect to the development of a capacity for autonomy Moreover, to the extent that their educa-tions are inadequate in this respect, the constraints imposed upon them by educa-tional institutions may even violate their autonomy From this point of view, we have good reason to enquire into the kinds of educational arrangements that are most supportive of personal autonomy in respect both to the development of ap-propriate capacities and the necessity for freedom in learning

con-Autonomy in learning: teachers’ and learners’ perspectives

The concept of personal autonomy allows us to establish a context and a broader purpose for the theory of autonomy in learning The processes by which we come

to lead autonomous lives involve processes of learning A society that values tonomy should therefore strive to facilitate the kinds of learning that lead to autonomy Assuming that the theory of autonomy in language learning draws its

au- Phil Benson

meaning for the term ‘autonomy’ from the concept of personal autonomy, the jor question that this theory needs to address can be put as follows:

(A) What kinds of learning best lead towards the goal of personal autonomy?

This question does not presuppose that the kinds of learning in question should take place in educational institutions It seems to me, however, that the theory of autonomy in learning often addresses a much narrower question:

(A1) What can teachers do to help learners move towards the goal of personal

au-tonomy?

Although it is reasonable to suppose that educational institutions will be somehow involved in learning for autonomy, this question virtually excludes the possibility that in some circumstances they will not Question A1 is, in effect, a reformulation

of Question A from the teacher’s perspective, one that presupposes a central role for educational institutions teachers in learning for autonomy This becomes clear-

er, perhaps, if Question A is reformulated in a different way:

(A2) What can learners do to help themselves move towards the goal of personal

au-tonomy?

In the context of second language learning, it is entirely possible, in my view, to address Question A2 as one that has nothing to do with teachers or educational institutions (as we might, for example, in a study of adults who opt for self-instruc-tion) It can also be addressed as a question concerned with both institutional and non-institutional settings for learning (as it might be, for example, in a retrospec-tive study of a person’s language learning career) In both cases, we would be ad-dressing Question A from the learner’s perspective But in practice we rarely do address Question A in these ways The bulk of the literature on autonomy in lan-guage learning is concerned with institutional settings and pays very little atten-tion to non-institutional learning This literature is written from the teacher’s per-spective in the specific sense that it largely addresses teachers’ concerns with the content and organization of teaching and learning, rather than learners’ concerns with the organization of learning in the contexts of their lives

The teacher’s perspective

The teacher’s perspective is manifested in a number of ways in the literature on autonomy in learning Here I want to focus on the ways in which we conceptualize autonomy in learning in terms of dimensions of capacity and situational freedom

In saying that people are autonomous, we imply that they are both capable of

lead-Teachers’ and learners’ perspectives on autonomy 

ing autonomous lives and free to do so.5 We often find, however, that the term

‘autonomy’ is used to refer either to a person’s capacity to lead such a life or to some condition of situational freedom that facilitates the exercise of this capacity

If we say that one person is ‘more autonomous’ than another, for example, it is likely that we refer to their relative capacities for autonomy If we say that a person’s autonomy has been ‘violated’, on the other hand, it is likely that we refer to some constraint upon their freedom in a situation that has bearing upon their autono-

my This terminological point becomes important, when we come to consider the meaning of autonomy from the teacher’s perspective

In an early paper that has had a considerable influence on recent thinking on autonomy in the field of second language education,6 Boud (1981: 30) asks about the nature of autonomy as a goal of education: “Is it to produce an autonomous person – a product-oriented approach – or is it to introduce activities which re-quire students to act autonomously – a process-oriented approach?” Using the word ‘autonomous’ in the two different senses I have referred to, Boud introduces what has become the classic dilemma of autonomy in learning from the teacher’s point of view Do we work on the learners’ capacity for autonomy and sacrifice their situational freedom? Or do we give them situational freedom and leave the

5. This is an uncontroversial view in the field of educational philosophy, where ideas of nomy in learning are closely allied to the liberal idea of personal autonomy See, for example, Gibbs (1979: 119):

auto-… an autonomous individual must have both independence from external authority and mastery of himself and his powers He must be free from the dictates and interference of other people, and free also from disabling conflicts or lack of coordination between the elements of his own personality He must have the freedom to act and work as he chooses, and he must be capable of formulating and following a rule, pattern or policy of acting and working.

Arguably, in saying that a person is autonomous, we also imply that the person is actually

lea-ding an autonomous life:

A person is autonomous to the degree, and it is very much a matter of degree, that what he thinks and does, at least in important areas of his life, are determined by himself (Dearden 1972: 22)

From this point of view, persons who have a capacity for autonomy, but lack the freedom to exercise it (because, for example, they have been arbitrarily imprisoned for the remainder of their lives) do not count as autonomous persons.

6. To the best of my knowledge, it is from Boud (1981) that we have taken terms and ideas such as ‘fostering autonomy’, ‘autonomy as interdependence’ and ‘teacher autonomy’ The signi- ficance of Boud’s paper here is that, whereas previous influential studies had been carried out in the field of informal adult education, Boud was one of the first to systematically address issues

of autonomy from the perspective of teachers working in more formal institutionalized contexts

of higher education.

 Phil Benson

development of the capacity for autonomy to chance? This is in many ways a false dilemma, if we view learning as a part of life I will return to this question at the end of this section, but first I want to consider how the theory of autonomy in language learning has responded to Boud’s dilemma

In early discussions of autonomy in language learning, there was often a clear emphasis on situational freedom within the learning process In this sense, Holec’s (1981: 3) widely quoted definition of autonomy as the “ability” to take charge of one’s own learning ran somewhat against the grain of the times Describing work

at the CRAPEL (University of Nancy, France), for example, Stanchina (1975, cited

in Dickinson 1977: 15) wrote:

Autonomy is an experiment in how learning can be freed from the bounds of any institution, and in how the individual can reclaim control of and responsibility for his or her own education, while investigating the opportunities to learn from a variety of authentic sources

In a similar vein, Dickinson (1977) described autonomy as the upper limit of directed learning and later defined it as follows:

self-This term describes the situation in which the learner is totally responsible for all

of the decisions concerned with his learning and the implementation of those decisions In full autonomy there is no involvement of a ‘teacher’ or an institution And the learner is also independent of specially prepared materials Dickinson (1987: 11)

Was Dickinson right or wrong to define autonomy in learning in situational terms?

As I have described it, personal autonomy involves a clear situational dimension and the same may be true of autonomy in learning If learning is viewed as a part

of life, and not as a preparation for it, it seems reasonable to suggest that autonomy should be understood similarly in both contexts Autonomous learners should, in other words, be seen as persons who possess both the capacity and the freedom to steer their own learning in the direction of personal autonomy Although it does not form part of his definition of autonomy, Dickinson was aware of a need to train learners for “full autonomy” – he simply assumed that learners would not take total responsibility for their learning if they were not capable of doing so Where Dickinson’s distinction clearly does fall down, however, is in its implication that autonomous learning must necessarily be independent of teachers and institu-tions The fact that we have no strong reason to suppose that autonomous learning requires teachers and institutions, does not mean that it must proceed independ-ently of them

If Dickinson’s (1987) definition of autonomy in learning overemphasized ational freedom, the pendulum has now swung in the direction of the capacity for

situ-Teachers’ and learners’ perspectives on autonomy 

autonomy Smith (2003b) has succinctly described the changing character of cussions on autonomy in language learning in recent years:

dis-‘The teacher’ seems to be making more and more of an appearance in such sions, partly as a corrective to earlier misconceptions that ‘learner autonomy’ re-

discus-fers to a situation: that of learning without a teacher (at home, with a computer, in

a self-access centre, etc.), and/or that it does away with the need for a teacher stead, it has been emphasised (e.g by Little 1991) that learner autonomy needs to

In-be seen as a capacity (for taking control of learning) which can In-be developed and

deployed in a number of ways and situations, including in the classroom days, more and more reports are appearing of classroom-based approaches to the development of learner autonomy, partly as a result of the incorporation of au-tonomy as a goal in national curricula in European countries and elsewhere

Nowa-As I have noted above, however, Holec (1981) and others had already recognized that the learners’ capacity for autonomy could not be taken for granted The con-ceptual change that Smith refers to can perhaps best be understood, therefore, as one in which the emphasis on situational freedom has diminished within a con-struct that was previously, if somewhat incoherently, understood to require both

an internal capacity and situational freedom Little (1990: 7), for example, began his widely quoted account of ‘what autonomy is not’ by stating that “autonomy is not a synonym for self-instruction”, “it is not limited to learning without a teacher”,

“it does not entail an abdication of responsibility on the part of the teacher” and “it

is not a matter of letting the learners get on with things as best they can” The lem that these statements addressed was, I think, a practical one for many teachers How can a theory of autonomy in learning that views classroom teaching as a con-straint upon the situational freedom required for autonomy be relevant to class-room teachers? What we have witnessed in recent years, then, is the development

prob-of more ‘usable’ accounts prob-of autonomy from the teacher’s perspective – accounts

that are based on the assumption that autonomy is a capacity that can be

devel-oped in the classroom, without any strong implication of a need for situational freedom in the learning process

One of the more interesting developments in this context is the idea that there are perhaps different kinds of learner autonomy In Benson (1997), for example, I discussed three different “versions” of autonomy in learning (technical, psycho-logical and political) and, in Benson (2001), these were related to a focus on one of three “levels of control” over learning (concerned with learning management, cog-nitive processing and the content of learning) Littlewood (1999: 75) has proposed

a distinction between “proactive” and “reactive” autonomy based on two levels of self-regulation, the first of which “regulates the direction of activity as well as the activity itself”, while the second “regulates the activity once the direction has been set” Smith (2003a: 130–132), meanwhile, has made a corresponding distinction

 Phil Benson

between “strong” and “weak” pedagogies for autonomy Strong pedagogies, he gues, are based on the assumption that students are already autonomous, while weak versions are based on the assumption that they lack autonomy While strong pedagogies focus on “co-creating with students optimal conditions for the exercise

ar-of their autonomy”, in weak pedagogies “autonomy is seen as a deferred goal and

as a product of instruction rather than as something which students are currently ready to exercise directly”

Littlewood (1999: 75) also comments that, although proactive autonomy is for many writers the only kind that counts, the concept of reactive autonomy is useful

in educational contexts to mark off a capacity that “once a direction has been ated, enables learners to organize their resources autonomously in order to reach their goal” Elsewhere, I have suggested that proactive autonomy might be under-stood as control over the methods and content of learning, while reactive autono-

initi-my involves control over methods alone (Benson 2001: 99) Setting the direction for one’s learning is, in other words, very much a matter of determining one’s own learning objectives and the content of learning Learner control over learning ob-jectives and content can be particularly problematic for classroom teachers, how-ever, as they are often far more accountable to others in this regard than they are

in regard to methods of learning In this sense, Littlewood’s “reactive autonomy” encodes the form in which the concept of autonomy in learning has proved to be most usable from the perspective of the teacher in the classroom Smith’s “weak pedagogies” for autonomy can be understood, in similar terms, as aiming towards reactive autonomy The assumption within these pedagogies that the learners lack autonomy perhaps serves the purpose of deferring the issue of proactive autono-

my, and the problematic question of who should determine objectives and content

of learning, to a later date

The point I wish to make here, however, is not that these “weak pedagogies” for autonomy are necessarily invalid It is rather that, as a consequence of system-atic thinking on the question of what can be achieved from the teacher’s perspec-

tive, we are in danger of losing sight of the major question at issue: What kinds of

learning best lead towards the goal of personal autonomy? In order to illustrate this

point, I want to refer to the opening lines of a recent resource book of activities to promote autonomy in classroom contexts:

Most language teachers have experienced the frustration of investing endless amounts of energy in their students and getting very little response We have all had groups who never did their homework, who were reluctant to use the target language in pair or group work, who did not learn from their mistakes, who did not listen to each other, who did not use opportunities to learn outside the class-room, and so on Such behaviour often stems from one common cause: the learn-ers’ over-reliance on the teacher Even otherwise motivated learners may assume

Teachers’ and learners’ perspectives on autonomy 

a passive role if they feel the teacher should be in charge of everything that pens in the classroom (Scharle and Szabó 2000: 1)

hap-This passage attracted my attention for two reasons: first, for its focus on teacher dependence and second for its assumption that teacher dependence is the root cause of a host of undesirable student behaviours in and around the classroom The issue that concerns me here is that we seem to have come to a point where autonomy in learning is associated with desirable classroom behaviours, such as doing one’s homework, actively using the target language in pair or group work, learning from one’s mistakes, listening to each other, and using opportunities to learn outside the classroom While I would accept that autonomous learners will probably possess a capacity to act responsibly and independently of the teacher’s direction in the classroom, I am less convinced of the relationship between this capacity and the development of personal autonomy

The theory of autonomy in language learning has seemingly resolved Boud’s (1981) dilemma by focusing on the learner’s capacity for autonomy at the expense of

a focus on freedom in learning I have described this as a false dilemma, however, because both may be required for the achievement of personal autonomy Certainly,

if we view learning as an integral part of life, it is difficult to see how people can lead autonomous lives without being autonomous in respect to their learning in more or less the same ways that they are autonomous in respect to their lives I also suspect that the separation of the two makes little sense from the learner’s perspective What

I find problematic, then, is the sense in which the weaker, classroom-oriented ceptions of autonomy are connected to the idea of personal autonomy Returning to Littlewood’s (1999) distinction, for example, the link is clear in the case of proactive autonomy By setting their own directions for learning – determining its objectives and content – proactively autonomous learners are already ‘charting their own course through life’ (Wall, 2003) But in the case of reactive autonomy, it seems that,

con-in as much as others determcon-ine the direction of learncon-ing, they also determcon-ine the direction of the learners’ lives This is not to say that the abilities associated with reactive autonomy lack value It is simply that they are disconnected from the broad-

er contexts of the learners’ lives This disconnection is justifiable, moreover, only from the perspective of teachers, who seek to foster the learners’ autonomy within the limits of the possibilities that they see within the classroom

The learner’s perspective

I have suggested that the learner’s perspective on autonomy in learning is related to

the question: What can learners do to help themselves move towards the goal of

per- Phil Benson

sonal autonomy? This question can also be addressed from the teacher’s

perspec-tive, but here I want to consider it as a question that learners might reasonably ask

of themselves My assumption is that learners, as people, generally wish to lead their lives autonomously and that they have an interest in the contribution that their learning makes to their personal autonomy I also assume that, in order to view the question as one that learners may ask of themselves, we need to rephrase

it as follows: What can I do in my learning to help myself towards the goal of

per-sonal autonomy? Put in this way the question may seem strange, because perper-sonal

autonomy is often a condition for the achievement of life goals, rather than an plicit goal in its own right We might say that learners are typically more concerned with learning what they need to learn for the achievement of these life goals, than they are with learning to be autonomous This simply implies however, that learn-ers’ perspectives on autonomy are always contextualized within particular experi-ences of learning and life In order to explore this issue further, I want to examine a language learning experience of my own This experience took place several years ago and the notes below were written at that time

ex-For the past year, I have been attending classes in Cantonese twice weekly at

my university This experience allows me to view myself as a learner and, although

I would readily acknowledge that I am by no means a ‘typical’ learner, I believe that

it also allows me to make some comments on the way in which issues of autonomy have been relevant to my learning Viewing myself as a learner, I am able to see, for example, that the behaviours Scharle and Szabó (2000) associate with autonomy are desirable if I want to get the most out of the class I have elected to attend I also see them as desirable in a more general sense When I or others fail to act respon-sibly, I feel that the value of our collective learning experience is diminished I would therefore view them as desirable even in a class that I was obliged to attend

I find it difficult to see, however, how these behaviours are related to my own tonomy or to the autonomy of my classmates Several of us regularly fail to com-plete our homework tasks, for example, and most of us fail to take advantage of opportunities to practice out of class In the first case, the explanation probably lies

au-in the fact that we are busy people, who lack time management skills and cipline Occasionally, I skip homework, because I feel that it is not a good use of the time I have available, and spend my time working on some other aspect of the language In the second case, the reasons are more complex and, for me, associated with a certain anxiety in speaking Cantonese to native speakers Whatever the real reasons for these behaviours, teacher dependence does not seem to be among them Although I may be teacher-dependent in the sense that I do not learn much Cantonese beyond what our teacher presents, neither/nor my classmates are, in

self-dis-my view, teacher-dependent in the sense that Scharle and Szabó intend

Teachers’ and learners’ perspectives on autonomy 

It could be objected to this that we are adult learners attending a voluntary fee-paying class As adults, we are perhaps already autonomous to a considerable degree and our classroom behaviours should not, therefore, be interpreted in the same way as those of younger or less-experienced learners However, I also want to suggest that my own classroom behaviours are related to my autonomy in quite a different way Having lived in Hong Kong for 14 years, I have tried to learn Can-tonese in the past and on each occasion I have given up without getting very far This is a familiar experience for long-term foreign residents in Hong Kong and at least two of my current classmates have similar experiences, having lived in Hong Kong for more than 20 years My motivation for attempting to learn Cantonese again at this point in time is complex and connected in a rather diffuse way to my sense of identity as a Hong Kong resident and as a language professional who, in principle, should to be able to learn Cantonese In brief, I would at least like to be able to say that I have made a serious effort to learn the language and made some progress with it This goal is, I believe, very much related to my personal autono-

my If I achieve it, I feel that I will be more of a ‘person’, that more options will be open to me, and that I would, in a general sense, be more in control of my life in the setting in which I live and work

In the context of this broad purpose, my decision to register for a based course was also related to my autonomy When I first came to Hong Kong, I attended the same Cantonese class, but by the end of the year I felt that I was still somewhere around ‘beginner’ level In the following year, I gave up the class and soon found that I had forgotten most of what I had learned In other language learning situations, I have tended to avoid classroom instruction in preference for self-instruction, and over the past few years I have made several attempts to revive

classroom-my Cantonese through self-instruction These have been largely unsuccessful, however, and by the time I re-registered for the class, I had reached a point where

I had begun to feel that if I was to get anywhere with my learning, I would have to make some kind of long-term commitment to it My decision to attend classes for

a year was, in this sense, a symbol of commitment My previous experience led me

to expect very little from the class, which I viewed as the focal point for a gramme of renewed self-instruction I hoped, in other words, that the class would act as a constant reminder that I was, in fact, learning Cantonese

pro-The class has, in fact, worked well in this respect I have found, for example, that I tend to feel lost when I return to the class after missing one or two sessions, which acts as a stimulus for me to catch up on my own I have also found that the class is making more of a contribution to my learning than I expected I appreciate the teacher, my classmates and the general atmosphere in the lessons Although I did not plan to do so, I am also using the course textbook to organize my learning The learning I do outside the classroom is largely focused on the language in the

 Phil Benson

unit we are covering and, as the teacher is the author of the textbook, I am clearly dependent on her in regard to the content of my learning – far more dependent than I expected to be at the beginning of the course This is, however, largely a mat-ter of the trust that I have developed in her abilities over time At the same time, I retain a strong sense that I am in charge of the overall process of my learning As the class is voluntary, I feel that I choose to attend each lesson and I am also aware that I need to do more than make this choice if I am to keep up I also need to focus

my attention in the classroom and to study regularly in between classes

Autonomy is thus at issue in my learning of Cantonese in two major ways First, I see the process and potential outcomes of my learning as supportive of my personal autonomy Making an effort to learn Cantonese and becoming a person who knows Cantonese to some degree, are things that I value because they im-pinge upon my sense of self as a fully competent person in the context of the life that I am currently leading This is, I think, fairly typical of adult learning projects,

in which the learners do not simply learn something for the sake of learning it, but because they feel that the abilities they acquire will help them to lead more au-tonomous lives Second, I feel that I am autonomous in respect to the overall direc-tion of my learning – that most of what I do in the learning process is a conse-quence of choices and decisions that I make myself These two aspects of autonomy also appear to correspond to the dimensions of capacity and situational freedom discussed in this chapter I have come to understand that knowledge of Cantonese would enhance my capacity to lead an autonomous life in my current circum-stances But because I have chosen to learn Cantonese in order to enhance my personal autonomy, it is also important to me that the choices and decisions that I make within the learning process are made freely In other words, because I view

my learning as an integral part of my life, it is important to me that I am able to conduct my learning in much the same way as I wish to conduct my life

More problematic from my perspective as a learner is the sense of autonomy

in learning that is typically in focus from the teacher’s perspective In particular, I appear to lack autonomy in regard to my dependence on my teacher for the con-tent of my learning It seems important to me, however, that I have more or less willingly accepted this dependence for a particular reason Learning Cantonese is

by no means the only, or most important, activity in my life In fact, creating the time to attend classes and study out of class is one the most difficult aspects of the learning process from my point of view In these circumstances, I am happy to ac-cept a degree of other direction if it helps me learn the language In this respect, it

is clear that I am failing to use my capacity for autonomy to the full and that I am giving up some of my situational freedom In brief, I am learning what my teacher thinks I should learn, and giving up my prerogative to determine the content of my learning But in doing so, I do not believe that my autonomy is impaired This

Teachers’ and learners’ perspectives on autonomy 

contradicts my earlier arguments about the importance of control over the content

of Learning But my perspective as a learner in this particular case, I feel that the overall sense that I am in control of my learning overrides the lack of control that

I have over its content

In this context, I want to revive an argument discussed in some detail by inson (1977: 17), in which he proposed that autonomy could be understood as the upper limit of self-directed learning As part of this argument, he wrote:

Dick-If I wish to become a competent carpenter, I may choose to read books and tise on my own, or I may choose to join a class in carpentry In my view, both are examples of self-directed learning The vital factors are the individual specifica-tion of functional aims, and the free choice of means of achieving those aims The process of achieving learning objectives is not one of making an initial decision – self-direction or other direction and then progressing linearly; it is rather a pro-gression along a path which has frequent forks – some many pronged The defin-ing characteristic of self-directed learning in my view, is that the learner makes a free choice at each of these forks This free choice may in fact be to relinquish his/her autonomy over a particular stretch for a particular purpose

prac-In my view, Dickinson makes an important point here, although I find his use of the term ‘autonomy’ in the final sentence somewhat misleading What exactly does

a person relinquish by choosing to take a class on carpentry, rather than study carpentry through self-instruction? Is it autonomy or situational freedom? I would argue that it must be the latter, unless the choice is the product of an undeveloped

or impaired capacity for autonomy, or unless it prevents the would-be carpenter from leading an otherwise autonomous life

This point of view, I would argue, allows us to see the importance of viewing autonomy in learning from the learner’s perspective As Dickinson (1977: 18) goes

on to argue:

Thus, even though a student – a school child for example – may be externally rected to learn English, or French (hereafter X), there is still scope for self-direc-tion within the learning programme Alternatively, though another student may make a self-directed decision to study X he may, for example, choose to relinquish his autonomy in particular areas, in varying degrees

di-Again I would argue that this student relinquishes his situational freedom rather than his autonomy The important point that Dickinson makes here is, however, that learning situations and behaviours have no intrinsic relationship to personal autonomy They are neither supportive of, nor inimical to, autonomy in any direct

or predictable sense My own experience suggests that it is their relationship to the overall development of the individual’s autonomy that counts, and this is some-

 Phil Benson

thing that can only be grasped through an attempt to understand specific processes

of learning in context and from the perspective of those who are engaged in them

Conclusion

In this chapter, I have argued that, because the concept of ‘autonomy in learning’ draws its meaning from the concept of ‘personal autonomy’, it is centrally con-cerned with the kinds of learning that best help people to lead autonomous lives The theory of autonomy in language learning, however, is increasingly informed

by the perspective of the teacher in the classroom, leading to a focus on the opment of the internal capacity for autonomy at the expense of external freedom

devel-in the learndevel-ing process This does not necessarily imply that we should revert to earlier models of autonomy in learning, which prioritized situational autonomy Instead, we should work towards a more complex view of the requirements for autonomy and of the relationship between autonomy in learning and autonomy in life

I have suggested that we might approach this more complex view of autonomy

by paying greater attention to learners’ perspectives In this chapter, I have focused

on my own recent experiences as a second language learner, because I have a ticular kind of access to them Reflecting upon these experiences has given me some insight into the complexity of learners’ perspectives on autonomy, although

par-I would not wish to claim that this insight goes much beyond an understanding that these perspectives are complex! Recent research into the ways in which learn-ers direct longer-term learning processes across settings and contexts also indi-cates a possible way forward for research on autonomy in language learning (see, for example, Benson et al 2003; Benson and Nunan 2002, 2005)

I also see an important role in this respect for research in the area of teacher autonomy Breen and Mann (1997: 140), for example, ask whether it might be pos-sible that “the current interest by teachers in the autonomy of learners is an expres-sion of a growing personal uncertainty and a feeling of powerlessness” in many modern educational settings The suggestion here is that the teacher’s perspective

on autonomy may involve a degree of self-deception, in which concerns for our own autonomy may find expression in concerns for the autonomy of our learners Clarifying the nature of our own interests, as teachers, in autonomy in learning may thus be an important component of the research agenda I have in mind.Lastly, I feel that it is important to reiterate that my argument is based on an assumption that the idea of autonomy in learning is grounded in the liberal-hu-manist conception of personal autonomy I believe, however, that this argument is likely to hold independently of any particular conception of autonomy, as it de-

Teachers’ and learners’ perspectives on autonomy 

pends only upon an acceptance of the idea that a meaningful concept of ‘autonomy

in learning’ must make reference to some broader concept of ‘autonomy in life’ I

am, in fact, inclined to look beyond liberal-humanist philosophy for such a cept The theory of autonomy in language learning has tended to be rather inward-looking in this respect, and I therefore want to conclude this chapter with the suggestion that we should perhaps pay more attention to the literature on autono-

con-my beyond our field in order to refine and make explicit the underlying tions of autonomy with which we work

concep-References

Benson, P 1996 Concepts of autonomy in language learning In Taking Control: Autonomy in Language Learning, R Pemberton, E.S.L Li, W.F Or & H.D Pierson (eds), 27–34 Hong

Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Benson, P 1997 The philosophy and politics of learner autonomy In Autonomy and ence in Language Learning, P Benson & P Voller (eds), 18–34 London: Longman.

Independ-Benson, P 2000 Autonomy as a learners’ and teachers’ right In Learner Autonomy, Teacher Autonomy: Future Directions, B Sinclair, I McGrath & T.E Lamb (eds), 111–117 London:

Longman.

Benson, P 2001 Teaching and Researching Autonomy in Language Learning London:

Long-man.

Benson, P., Chik, A & Lim, H-Y 2003 Becoming autonomous in an Asian context: Autonomy

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