learner autonomy and language awareness
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Learner Autonomy &
Language Awareness
By: Melissa Riddle and Sarah Adelman
Promoting Learner Autonomy
“Learners must no longer sit there and expect to be taught; teachers must no longer stand up there teaching all the time. Teachers have to learn to let go and learners have to learn to take hold”Brian Page, 1992, p.84
Psychological Stand Point
Cognitive Psychology
Humanistic Psychology
Educational Psychology
Learner Autonomy in L2
Self-Instruction
Self-Direction
Self-Access
Individualized Instruction
DiscussionFocusing on a class you have taught or taken,
consider the degree of autonomy exercised by the learners
Think about factors that might have contributed to total, partial, or no learner control.
Narrow View vs. Broad View
Narrow View – chief goal of learner autonomy is to learn to learn
Broad View- chief goal should be to learn to liberate
Narrow View
Enabling learners to learn how to learnToolsTraining
Primary Focus- learner’s academic achievement through strategic engagement“ability to take charge of
one’s own learning”
Learner Autonomy
What it is..
Develop a capacity for critical thinking
Discover learning potential
Take responsibility for learning
Face weakness and failure
Develop Self Control & Self Discipline
Give up total dependence on teacher
Understand autonomy is complex
What it is not…
Autonomy is not indepence
Autonomy is not context-free
Autonomy is not a steady state
Four Processes – Anna Chamot
Enable learners to exercises control over learningPlanningMonitoringProblem SolvingEvaluating
Page 134
Learning StrategiesTaxonomy by Rebecca Oxford
6 categories3 direct3 indirect
Direct- directly involve target language
Indirect- support and manage language learning without indirectly involving the target language
Learner-centered
DiscussionIn what ways can teachers
contribute to the development of learner autonomy?
Learner Training
Teachers
Negotiate with learners
Share with learners Encourage discussion Increase awareness
of alternative strategies
Allow learners to form own view
Counseling and guidance
Learners
Identify learning strategies and styles
Stretch strategies and styles
Evaluate language performance
Reach out for opportunities
Seek teacher intervention
Collaborate with other learners
Opportunities to communicate
Broad View
Learn a language as a means to an end, the end being learning to liberate
Empowers learners to be critical thinkers in order to realize their potential
Paulo Freire- liberate learning from the constraints of schooling
Take into account the sociopolitical factors that shape the culture of the L2 classroom.
Meaningful Liberatory Autonomy
Encourage learners to assume the role of mini-ethnographers
Write diaries and journal entries
Help with the formation of learning communities
Enable them to think critically
Provide opportunities to explore unfolding frontiers
Degrees of Autonomy
Initial Stage- emphasis on raising the learner’s awareness
Intermediary Stage- emphasis on allowing the learner to choose from a range of options
Advanced Stage- emphasis is on learner determination of own goals, task, materials
Closing
Academic Autonomy vs. Liberatory Autonomy
Autonomy is COMPLEX
Teachers let go
Learners take hold
Fostering Language Awareness
Language awareness: “A person’s sensitivity to and conscious awareness of the nature of language and its role in human life” (Kuma 157)
Discussion
What role did a teacher (or anybody else) play in
promoting your sensitivity to language and its role in life?
Purpose of Language Awareness
British educators sought to bridge the gap between primary and secondary level school language expectations, and between first and second language teaching and activities
It was an attempt to eliminate prejudice and antagonism that are caused by ignorance
Whole Language Approach
America’s answer to Language Awareness
It integrated reading, writing, speaking, and listening to provide a richer language experience
It sought to acknowledge linguistic and dialectic variations within languages as well as between them as valid
Discussion
How can we as educators validate and utilize our students’ standard and nonstandard linguistic
backgrounds in the classroom?
Teachers and Language Awareness
Teachers with a limited knowledge of language functions and characteristics may result in failure to accommodate students’ learning needsAbout Language: Tasks for
Teachers of English was published to address this concern
LATE
Language Awareness in Teacher Education (LATE) is an alternative program designed to deal with teachers’ inadequacies in language awareness
A successful LATE class should:Take an experimental
approach to LAReject language as a productStudy language critically
Critical Language Awareness
Since LA focuses on details of languages rather than their overall role in life, CLA was developed to focus on that
English teachers should view themselves as “Language teachers” with no specific tie to the English language, but a devotion to all languages
Discussion
How do you feel about the notion that English teachers should consider themselves
“Language teachers?” How would this definition change your classroom?
Incorporating CLA into a Second Language Classroom
Select textbooks not only for their content, but their ability to challenge students’ intellectual abilities as well
Utilize open-ended questions and discussions in the classroom
Encourage discussion of social and cultural topics
(Kuma 166)
Microstrategies for Fostering Language Awareness
Examine register and formality and its effect in language
Examine doublespeak and its rhetorical effect
Examine language choice in politics and its effect on speakers and listeners
(More detail available in Kuma 168-175)
Conclusion
Language awareness is not a unit that can be incorporated into a classroom, instead it is a philosophy that must be lived every day. By ensuring that we are aware of the importance of language and its effects on us as listeners, we can help our students learn to harness and understand the power of language.
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