Helping Students Cultivate and Develop Autonomous Learning

Littlewood (1996) sees autonomy mainly as “learners’ ability and willingness to make choices independently” and explains that the “ability depends on possessing both knowledge about the alternatives from which choices have to be made and necessary skills for carrying out whatever choices seem most appropriate. Willingness depends on having both the motivation and confidence to take responsibility for the choices required.” He emphasizes: “Students’ willingness to act  independently depends on the level of their motivation and confidence; students’ ability to act independently depends on the level of knowledge and skills. ”

Benson (1997) identifies three basic areas of autonomy in language learning:

1) autonomy as the act of learning on one’s own and the technical ability to do so;

2) autonomy as the internal psychological capacity to self-direct one’s own learning;

3) autonomy as control over the content and processes of one’s own learning.

According to Wenden, the key components of autonomy are:

1) attitudes, i.e. learners are willing to adopt a positive attitude towards learning by accepting the responsibility for their own learning and taking initiatives in learning.

2) capacity, i.e. learners develop the ability or knowledge and strategies necessary to carry out self-directed learning tasks independently of the teacher.

Without external supports, such as the teacher, the facilities and the learning materials, especially at the early stage of the development of autonomy, it is almost impossible to initiate the first two components and bring out internal changes, i.e. attitudes ability, to learners.

In order to know the students’ attitude toward learner autonomy, a survey was made through a questionnaire among my students. The results are satisfactory enough because learner autonomy is attractive to learners. The majority chose partial autonomy. First of all, as teachers, we should first cultivate learners’ self- confidence. A person without confidence cannot succeed. So I always encourage my students to ask me, or each other questions. During my teaching I often do such steps as the following:

New words: don’t always tell the class what they mean, and have the students try to work out the meaning of the new words for themselves, using context clues.

Co-operative learning: whenever possible, ask students to find answers themselves, in groups and pairs as well as individually. Then ask them for their conclusions. Direct students to share their knowledge; play down competition among students; get my class to think of themselves as a team.

上一页  [1] [2] [3] [4]  下一页