Language Learner Autonomy: Theory, Practice and Research 9781783098606

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Language Learner Autonomy

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Series Editors: Professor David Singleton, University of Pannonia, Hungary and Fellow Emeritus, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland and Dr Simone E. Pfenninger, University of Salzburg, Austria This series brings together titles dealing with a variety of aspects of language acquisition and processing in situations where a language or languages other than the native language is involved. Second language is thus interpreted in its broadest possible sense. The volumes included in the series all offer in their different ways, on the one hand, exposition and discussion of empirical findings and, on the other, some degree of theoretical reflection. In this latter connection, no particular theoretical stance is privileged in the series; nor is any relevant perspective – sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, neurolinguistic, etc. – deemed out of place. The intended readership of the series includes final-year undergraduates working on second language acquisition projects, postgraduate students involved in second language acquisition research, and researchers, teachers and policy-makers in general whose interests include a second language acquisition component. Full details of all the books in this series and of all our other publications can be found on http://www.multilingual-matters.com, or by writing to Multilingual Matters, St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK.

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: 117

Language Learner Autonomy Theory, Practice and Research

David Little, Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen

MULTILINGUAL MATTERS Bristol • Blue Ridge Summit

DOI 10.21832/LITTLE8590 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Names: Little, D., author. | Dam, Leni, author. | Legenhausen, Lienhard, author. Title: Language Learner Autonomy: Theory, Practice and Research/David Little, Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen. Description: Bristol, UK; Blue Ridge Summit, PA: Multilingual Matters, [2017] | Series: Second Language Acquisition: 117 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017014938| ISBN 9781783098590 (hardcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9781783098583 (softcover : acid free paper) | ISBN 9781783098606 (pdf) | ISBN 9781783098613 (epub) | ISBN 9781783098620 (kindle) Subjects: LCSH: Language and languages—Study and teaching (Secondary) | Learner autonomy. Classification: LCC P51 .L587 2017 | DDC 418.0071—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014938 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue entry for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-859-0 (hbk) ISBN-13: 978-1-78309-858-3 (pbk) Multilingual Matters UK: St Nicholas House, 31–34 High Street, Bristol BS1 2AW, UK. USA: NBN, Blue Ridge Summit, PA, USA. Website: www.multilingual-matters.com Twitter: Multi_Ling_Mat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/multilingualmatters Blog: www.channelviewpublications.wordpress.com Copyright © 2017 David Little, Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher. The policy of Multilingual Matters/Channel View Publications is to use papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable products, made from wood grown in sustainable forests. In the manufacturing process of our books, and to further support our policy, preference is given to printers that have FSC and PEFC Chain of Custody certification. The FSC and/or PEFC logos will appear on those books where full certification has been granted to the printer concerned. Typeset by Nova Techset Private Limited, Bengaluru and Chennai, India. Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press Ltd. Printed and bound in the US by Edwards Brothers Malloy, Inc.

Contents

Preface

ix

Introduction The Autonomy Classroom: Procedures and Principles Defining Characteristics of the Autonomy Classroom Where Did our Approach Come From? Some Further Theoretical Underpinnings Language Learner Autonomy: A Summary of our View The Structure and Content of the Book

1 1 4 10 15 17

Part 1: The Autonomy Classroom in Practice: An Example from Lower Secondary Education 1

Using the Target Language: Spontaneity, Identity, Authenticity Introduction The Importance of Target Language Use Learning Activities that Support Target Language Use Learner-produced Learning Materials Producing Communicative Written Texts Conclusion Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action Further Reading

21 21 22 27 29 35 41 42 43

2

Interaction and Collaboration: The Dialogic Construction of Knowledge Introduction Learning Through Dialogue Interactive and Collaborative Learning Activities Conclusion Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action Further Reading

44 44 45 53 68 68 69

v

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3

Letting Go and Taking Hold: Giving Control to the Learners Introduction Arguments for Giving the Learners Control Handing over Control to the Learners Conclusion Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action Suggestions for Further Reading

71 71 72 76 92 92 93

4

Evaluation: The Hinge on which Learner Autonomy Turns Introduction What is Distinctive about our View of Evaluation and Assessment? Introducing Learners to Evaluation and Assessment Evaluation and Learners’ Developing Proficiency in English: Some Examples Assessment and Official Grades in the Autonomy Classroom Conclusion Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action Further Reading

95 95 96 101 108 113 115 115 116

Part 2: Language Learner Autonomy: Evidence of Success 5

6

Exploring Learning Outcomes: Some Research Findings Introduction: The LAALE Project (1992–1996) Acquisition of Vocabulary in the Early Stages of Learning English The Acquisition of Target Language Grammar Acquiring Pragmatic Competence The Reliability of Learners’ Self-assessment Conclusion Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action Suggestions for Further Reading

121 121 122 130 138 151 155 155 156

Language Learner Autonomy and Inclusion: Two Case Studies Introduction Case Study 1: Dennis, a Student with Behavioural Problems Case Study 2: Susan, a Severely Dyslexic Student Conclusion Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action Suggestions for Further Reading

158 158 162 171 179 179 180

Content s

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Part 3: Language Learner Autonomy: Meeting Future Challenges 7

The Linguistic, Social and Educational Inclusion of Immigrants: A New Challenge for Language Learner Autonomy 185 Introduction 185 Adult Refugees Learning the Language of the Host Community 186 Linguistic Inclusion and Learner Autonomy in the Primary School 200 Conclusion 213 Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action 214 Further Reading 215

8

Teacher Education for Language Learner Autonomy: Some Reflections and Proposals Introduction Language Learner Autonomy and Classroom Discourse Language Teacher Education for Learner Autonomy Learner Autonomy and the Curriculum Developing Learner Autonomy when Using a Textbook Evaluation and Assessment Conclusion Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action Suggestions for Further Reading

217 217 218 220 223 234 241 241 242 243

Conclusion References Index

245 248 260

Preface

This book grew out of a collaboration that stretches back over more than 25 years. It has its origin in classroom practice that has sought to maximize language learning outcomes in mixed-ability groups (Leni Dam); empirical research designed to throw light on the learning processes that produce those outcomes (Lienhard Legenhausen and Leni Dam); and an effort to derive pedagogical principles from successful practice (David Little) in order to facilitate replication in other contexts. It is important to emphasize that the several books and many articles we have published, individually and jointly, have always taken successful practice as their starting point. We had four aims in writing the book. First, we wanted to give a thoroughly practical account of the autonomy classroom that would nevertheless be firmly anchored in theory. We wanted to explain in detail how to engage learners’ interests and identities in the L2 learning process; how to promote reflection on learning; how to give learners control and involve them in evaluation; and how to do these things as far as possible in the target language. At the same time, we wanted to provide our account with a clearly articulated theoretical underpinning. Those considerations explain the structure and content of the Introduction and the first part of the book. Chapters 1–4 describe Leni Dam’s classroom practice from four intersecting perspectives: target language use, interaction and collaboration, putting the learners in charge, and evaluation. We were aware of the limitations inherent in basing our account on the practice of a single teacher, albeit over several decades, but we judged that this was a price worth paying for the theoretical and practical coherence it offered. In any case, it is fundamental to our theoretical beliefs that the approach we describe can be adapted to the needs of learners in any context. Our second aim was to present research evidence that confirms the effectiveness of the autonomy classroom. We wanted to share the findings of the LAALE (Language Acquisition in an Autonomous Learning Environment) project with a wider public, partly for their intrinsic interest and partly for the interpretative light they cast on the pedagogical practices of the classroom in focus. We believe that the quantitative findings reported in Chapter 5 provide a convincing accompaniment to the evidence of individual and collaborative ‘learning in action’ embodied in the examples of learners’ work ix

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reproduced in Chapters 1–4. Equally important, the two case studies presented in Chapter 6 report learning outcomes that might not have been achieved by more traditional methods, while reminding us that the theoretical underpinning of the autonomy classroom has much in common with pedagogical theories of inclusion. Our third aim was to show that the approach described in the first four chapters is not only transferable to other language learning contexts but also (as the mention of inclusion implies) responds to altogether larger educational concerns. The two examples we present in Chapter 7 are part of Ireland’s response to the challenges of large-scale immigration. Intensive autonomy-oriented English language courses for adult refugees show that inclusion in the host society can be an integral part of learning its language, while one primary school’s approach to the inclusion of pupils from immigrant families fosters autonomous learning and results in highly developed literacy skills and unusual levels of language awareness. Our fourth aim was to offer some reflections on teacher education based on the conviction that teachers must have first-hand experience of learner autonomy if it is to play a central role in their classroom practice. Accordingly, Chapter 8 revisits the interactive dynamic that in our view is fundamental to autonomous learning and explores its implications for the design and delivery of pre- and in-service teacher education. The chapter also gives detailed consideration to the challenges posed by curricula and textbooks, both of which are frequently cited as insuperable obstacles to learner autonomy. The book is designed for use in pre- and in-service language teacher education and as a guide for individual teachers, teacher educators and researchers. Each chapter ends with points for reflection, discussion and possible action and suggestions for further reading. The former invite readers to engage more fully with the issues we have addressed and to explore our arguments and the procedures and activities we describe from the perspective of their own context; the latter are intended to provide signposts to work that in one way or another complements or extends our own. The book does not reprint previously published material, but it inevitably exploits our earlier work: •

• •

In explaining how our understanding of language learner autonomy has evolved, the Introduction draws on two articles by David Little, ‘Language learner autonomy: Some fundamental considerations revisited’ (2007) and ‘Learner autonomy in action: Adult immigrants learning English in Ireland’ (2009a). Chapter 3 uses some of the examples of learner logbooks presented and analysed in Leni Dam’s article ‘The use of logbooks – a tool for developing learner autonomy’ (2009). Chapter 4 makes use of data in three articles by Leni Dam and Lienhard Legen hausen: ‘Language acquisition in an autonomous learning

Pref ace

•

•

•

•

xi

environment: Learners’ self-evaluations and external assessments compared’ (1999), ‘Learners reflecting on learning: Testing versus evaluation in autonomous language learning’ (2010), and ‘Explicit reflection, evaluation, and assessment in the autonomous classroom’ (2011). The findings of the LAALE project (Language Acquisition in an Autonomous Learning Environment), presented in Chapter 5, have not been published together before, but parts of the data have been presented and analysed in an article by Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen, ‘The acquisition of vocabulary in an autonomous language learning environment – the first months of beginning English’ (1996), and in four articles by Lienhard Legenhausen: ‘Language acquisition without grammar instruction? The evidence from an autonomous classroom’ (1999a), ‘The emergence and use of grammatical structures in conversational interactions – comparing traditional and autonomous learners’ (1999b), ‘Discourse behaviour in an autonomous learning environment’ (2001), and ‘Classroom procedures and the development of pragmatic competence’ (2008). The two case studies in Chapter 6 draw on ‘Dennis the Menace – and autonomy’ (1999) by Leni Dam, ‘The development of a dyslexic learner in the autonomy classroom – a case study’ (2013) and ‘Learner autonomy as a response to the challenges of educational inclusion’ (2016) by Lienhard Legenhausen, and ‘Learner autonomy – a possible answer to inclusion’ (2013) by Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen. The account of Integrate Ireland Language and Training’s intensive English courses for adult refugees uses examples of learners’ work and some of the arguments from David Little’s article ‘Learner autonomy in action: Adult immigrants learning English in Ireland’ (2009a). The discussion of language awareness and learner autonomy in the second part of the chapter draws on David Little’s article ‘Language awareness and the autonomous language learner’ (1997). Chapter 8 expands on the arguments of two articles by David Little, ‘Learning as dialogue; the dependence of learner autonomy on teacher autonomy’ (1995) and ‘We’re all in it together: Exploring the interdependence of teacher and learner autonomy’ (2001). It also draws on three articles by Leni Dam: ‘Developing learner autonomy: The teacher’s responsibility’ (2003), ‘Teacher education for learner autonomy’ (2011), and ‘Developing learner autonomy while using a textbook’ (2016).

We acknowledge our intellectual debts in the usual way, but it is appropriate here to mention the inspiration we continue to receive from Douglas Barnes’s pioneering work on classroom discourse, especially his 1976 classic, From Communication to Curriculum. What he wrote then has lost none of its relevance, and his enduring importance for us is reflected in the frequency with which we cite him. Without his work this would have been a very

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different book – conceivably there might have been no book at all. We are also grateful to the late John Trim, who encouraged us in many ways as director of the Council of Europe’s modern languages projects, director of Cambridge University’s Language Centre, and director of the Centre for Information on Language Learning and Research (CILT). We are grateful to the many generations of pupils at Karlslunde Folkeskole who have allowed Leni Dam to use their work to describe, explain and illustrate her classroom practice; to Barbara Lazenby Simpson and Davnet Cotter, who collected the examples of work by adult refugees reproduced in Chapter 7; and to Déirdre Kirwan for the examples of work by immigrant pupils attending Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní), Blanchardstown, also reproduced in Chapter 7. Leni Dam acknowledges with gratitude the strong support she received from Gerd Gabrielsen of Danmarks Lærerhøjskole when she took her first steps towards language learner autonomy in the 1970s, and from Johan Lystrup, head teacher of Karslunde Skole, who accepted her experimental approach and welcomed visitors from many countries to the school. She is also grateful to Mike Breen and the late Chris Candlin for the indispensable contribution they made to language teacher development in Denmark in those early years; to Hanne Thomsen for collegial support; and to Jette Lentz and Birte Hjermind Jensen for their help in making the video ‘It’s up to yourself if you want to learn’. Lienhard Legenhausen is grateful to Petra Christophersen, Stephan Gabel and the late Ulrich Neumann for their help in collecting, processing and analysing the LAALE research data. David Little has benefited greatly from repeated viewings of the video that Hanne Thomsen made of her classroom a quarter of a century ago (Thomsen & Gabrielsen, 1991). He is also grateful to Barbara Lazenby Simpson, Breffni O’Rourke, Jennifer Ridley, Klaus Schwienhorst and Ema Ushioda for their collaboration in various learner autonomy-related projects between 1993 and 2010. He acknowledges with thanks the financial support from Atlantic Philanthropies and Allied Irish Bank that made those projects possible. Finally, all three authors are grateful for the intellectual stimulus and friendship they have received from Laila Aase, Rigmor Ericksson, Edith Esch, Rita Gjørven, Irma Huttunen, Svein Johansson, Leena Karlsson, Felicity Kjisik, Viljo Kohonen, June Miliander, Philip Riley, Turid Trebbi, and many other colleagues they have met regularly over the years at Nordic learner autonomy workshops and meetings of various kinds organized by IATEFL’s Learner Autonomy SIG. David Little, Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen Dublin, Karlslunde and Münster February 2017

Introduction The Autonomy Classroom: Procedures and Principles

Defining Characteristics of the Autonomy Classroom Language learning through language use and the exploitation of ‘old’ knowledge Nowadays in second and foreign language (L2) classrooms around the world the teacher’s goal is usually to develop her learners’ communicative proficiency in the target language (TL). In our version of the autonomy classroom the teacher believes that she will achieve this goal by engaging her learners from the first in communicative use of the TL. She also believes that such communication must be authentic in the sense that it arises from and addresses the learners’ here-and-now, their sense of themselves and their interests, so that their learning has immediate relevance for them. Accordingly, she seeks to exploit the knowledge, interests and skills that they bring to the classroom. This may include words and phrases in the TL, especially if that language is English or a language closely related to their L1. Research carried out several decades ago in Germany and Sweden (respectively, Nüßgen, 1994; Palmberg, 1985) showed that young teenagers knew many words of English before they had their first English lesson. Nowadays, with the ubiquity of the internet, the same is likely to be true of even younger learners. The teacher can also exploit the linguistic and communication skills that her learners have developed in their L1: their familiarity with the pragmatics of interpersonal interaction, their intuitions about the way language works, and (if they already have at least basic literacy skills in their L1) the relation between the sounds of language and written forms. She assumes that proficiency in L2 learning and proficiency in L2 use are two sides of the same coin. 1

2

Introduc t ion

Target language use and the role of the learners’ first language From the beginning, the teacher uses the TL to communicate with her learners collectively and individually. Beginners cannot respond in the TL, but she expects them to do so as early as possible, and she does all she can to scaffold their attempts in speech and writing. However, she is not attempting to implement a latter-day version of the direct method, which excludes use of the learners’ L1. She knows that especially in the early stages her learners will need to use their L1 to support their learning – it is, after all, their most significant resource for learning of any kind. Nevertheless, she herself uses the learners’ L1 as little as possible, and all the activities they engage in have outcomes that include communicative TL production of one kind or another.

Requiring the learners to make choices and engage in evaluative reflection Also from the beginning, and working within whatever constraints the curriculum imposes, the teacher requires her learners to set their own targets and choose their own learning activities. Doing nothing in a lesson is not an option, and the autonomy classroom is certainly not a free-for-all. Talk in the TL about language and learning – metalinguistic and metacognitive talk – plays a central role, and reflection typically begins as an interactive, dialogic process.

Three interdependent learner roles in the autonomy classroom Broadly speaking, learners in the autonomy classroom play three interdependent roles. They are (1) communicators, continuously using and gradually developing their communicative skills in the TL; (2) experimenters with language, gradually developing an explicit analytical knowledge of the TL system and an awareness of the cultural conventions and social constraints that shape its use; and (3) intentional learners, gradually developing an explicit awareness of affective and metacognitive aspects of language learning. These roles interact with one another in a multitude of different ways. Beginners, for example, may create simple word games as a way of learning words they need (role 3); by playing the games with their classmates they become fluent in the performance of very basic interactive routines in the TL (role 1); and their interaction with the written forms of words begins to develop their awareness of linguistic form (role 2). At all stages, the choice of learning activities is necessarily constrained by the level of the learners’ developed proficiency, understood in terms of the three roles.

Using logbooks to manage individual learning It is a basic principle of the autonomy classroom that learners take responsibility for what they do. They exercise this responsibility by keeping

The Autonomy Cl assroom : Procedures and Pr inc iples

3

a logbook in which they document their learning: the content of lessons and projects, lists of vocabulary to be memorized, plans for homework, evaluation of their own progress. In the early stages logbooks also contain the various texts that learners write, but when these become more extended (plays, stories, essays) and/or are the product of group as well as individual effort, they are kept in portfolios. As far as possible logbooks are written in the TL, although beginners may use their L1, especially for reflection on learning. The teacher collects the logbooks at regular intervals and reviews them outside class, writing comments in them in the TL. As a rule she does not correct errors but provides general and positive feedback on progress and suggestions for further work.

Using posters to plan work and capture learning experiences and needs Whereas logbooks record individual learning, posters capture reflective analysis of the learning experience (for example, characteristics of ‘a good talk’ or ‘good group work’) and respond to the needs that arise from learning plans (‘words we need’, ‘useful sentences’, and so on). Posters are written on A3 paper and introduced by the teacher, but their content is mostly provided by the learners. In the early stages learners’ contributions may be in their L1, in which case the teacher translates them into the TL. Posters have two advantages over blackboards and interactive whiteboards: they can be retained for as long as they are useful; and most classroom walls can accommodate posters whose total area, and thus information content, is many times greater than that of the blackboard or interactive whiteboard. In time, learners produce their own posters, for example to plan and keep track of group projects.

The work cycle of the autonomy classroom Together, logbooks and posters make learning visible, reinforce the key role played by the written word, and help the teacher and her learners to manage the ‘work cycle’. Planning, which entails negotiation and decision making, is followed by implementation; each stage of implementation is thoroughly documented, and implementation is followed by evaluation, after which teacher and learners embark on a new phase of planning. Although learners identify individual targets, they often pursue them via collaborative work in pairs or small groups. This procedure gradually becomes more ambitious as the learners become more proficient in the TL and in managing their own learning. Strict management of the work cycle provides structure and gives learners and their teacher a sense of security, direction and control over the learning process. The teacher’s own logbook is an indispensable management instrument.

4

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Two essential features of the autonomy classroom From this brief and necessarily partial description two things should be clear. First, learners in the autonomy classroom increasingly assume responsibility for managing their own learning: setting targets, making choices, taking decisions, monitoring progress, evaluating outcomes. And secondly, as they exercise and further develop their autonomy, they engage in sustained TL interaction with their fellow learners and their teacher, and gradually become proficient in the TL. As we said at the beginning of this Introduction, in the autonomy classroom proficiency in language learning and proficiency in language use are two sides of the same coin.

Where Did our Approach Come From? The contribution of Henri Holec Consequences of learner autonomy for the organization of learning and the kind of knowledge acquired The term ‘learner autonomy’ was first introduced into the language education debate by Henri Holec in his report Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning, published by the Council of Europe in 1979 (cited here as Holec, 1981). Holec’s focus was adult language learning, and his argument for a move from ‘directed teaching’ to ‘self-directed learning’ was motivated by a combination of political and practical principles, captured in the assertion that one of the Council of Europe’s goals was to make the process of language learning more democratic by providing the conceptual tools for the planning, construction and conduct of courses closely geared to the needs, motivations and characteristics of the learner and enabling him so far as possible to steer and control his own progress. (Trim, 1978: 1) For Holec the concept of learner autonomy has consequences for the way in which learning is organized – he defines the autonomous learner as one who has ‘the ability to take charge of [his or her] learning’ (Holec, 1981: 3). But it also has consequences for the kind of knowledge that is acquired. If learners themselves determine the goals and content of learning, ‘objective, universal knowledge is […] replaced by subjective, individual knowledge’: ‘the learner is no longer faced with an “independent” reality […], to which he cannot but give way, but with a reality which he himself constructs and dominates’ (Holec, 1981: 21).

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Learner autonomy and constructivist theories of language learning Holec’s use of the verb ‘construct’ evidently refers to explicit procedures rather than implicit processes, to learner initiative, choice and control rather than the unconscious and involuntary workings of cognition. But elsewhere in his report he notes the understanding of language learning that was beginning to emerge from empirical research at the end of the 1970s: ‘an active, creative operation by means of which the learner converts into acquired knowledge information provided for him in an organized manner (teaching) or in non-organized form (“natural” untreated information)’ (Holec, 1981: 23). Learner autonomy in Holec’s understanding thus appears to sit comfortably with constructivist theories of language learning.

Two objectives for language teaching According to Holec, the ability to take charge of one’s own learning is ‘not inborn but must be acquired either by “natural” means or (as most often happens) by formal learning, i.e. in a systematic, deliberate way’ (Holec, 1981: 3). This leads him to identify two quite distinct objectives for language teaching: to help learners to achieve their linguistic and communicative goals on the one hand, and to become autonomous in their learning on the other. He notes: ‘This raises the problem of how far the methods adopted to achieve the first objective and to achieve the second objective are compatible’ (Holec, 1981: 23). He envisages, for example, that ‘programmed instruction’ might help learners to ‘acquire a knowledge of a language’ but ‘would nevertheless place [them] in a position of dependence and irresponsibility such as would immediately conflict with [their] aim of achieving autonomy’ (Holec, 1981: 23). For Holec, developing proficiency in a foreign language and becoming an autonomous learner are evidently separate processes. The teacher’s task is always to promote learning of the TL; and when learner autonomy is part of the overall learning objective, the teacher acquires a second task, to help learners make the transition from teacher-directed to self-directed learning.

Holec’s continuing influence At the end of the 1970s, Holec’s notion of ‘a learning structure in which control over the learning can be exercised by the learner’ (Holec, 1981: 7) coincided with the need to respond to the challenges and potential of emerging technologies and helped to stimulate a rapid growth of interest in selfaccess and self-instructional language learning. His view of learner autonomy as one organizational option among others lives on in the notion of ‘readiness for autonomy’ (e.g. Chan, 2001; Cotterall, 1995; Ming & Alias, 2007), while attempts to measure learner autonomy independently of TL proficiency (most recently, Benson, 2010; Lamb, 2010) follow him in assuming that language learning and becoming an autonomous learner are separate or at least separable processes.

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The contribution of Douglas Barnes Our own approach, which also took shape in the 1970s, differs from Holec’s in important ways, as will emerge in what follows. At first, its organizing concept was not learner autonomy but ‘differentiation’: at that time the Danish education system was concerned to provide learning environments in which all learners could thrive according to their individual interests and abilities. This was also a central concern in the work of Douglas Barnes, whose 1976 book, From Communication to Curriculum, was published in Danish translation as early as 1977.

Barnes’s two aims Concerned with schooling in general, Barnes’s book has two complementary aims: first, to illustrate ‘some ways in which children use speech in the course of learning, and to indicate how this depends upon the patterns of communication set up by teachers in their classrooms’; and secondly, to argue that ‘since the learner’s understandings are the raison d’être of schooling, an adequate curriculum theory must utilize an interactive model of teaching and learning’ (Barnes, 1976: 9).

The nature of learning Barnes’s book provided us with two ideas that are decisive for our approach. The first has to do with the nature of learning. Barnes bases his discussion of classroom communication on a broadly constructivist view, emphasizing that we can learn new things only on the basis of what we already know. Since each of us possesses a unique stock of knowledge, what we learn in any context will itself be, at least in part, unique: What will the pupils take away with them [from a history lesson]? It will certainly be different from what the teacher believes himself to be teaching. Every pupil in the class will go away with a version of the lesson, which in some respects is different from all the other pupils’ versions, because what each pupil brings to the lesson will be different. Thus we shall not be able to understand what they learn without considering that they make sense of new knowledge by projecting it upon what they know already. (Barnes, 1976: 21–22, emphasis in original)

‘School knowledge’ and ‘action knowledge’ According to Barnes, what is taught at school too often remains external to the learner: ‘We partly grasp it, enough to answer the teacher’s questions, but it remains someone else’s knowledge, not ours. If we never use this knowledge we probably forget it’ (Barnes, 1976: 81). The key challenge facing teachers is to find ways of exploiting the ‘action knowledge’ learners bring with them to the classroom so that ‘school knowledge’ (curriculum content) builds on and modifies what they already know:

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In so far as we use knowledge for our own purposes […] we begin to incorporate it into our view of the world, and to use parts of it to cope with the exigencies of living. Once the knowledge becomes incorporated into that view of the world on which our actions are based I would say that it has become ‘action knowledge’. (Barnes, 1976: 81) One might add that ‘action knowledge’, understood as pupils’ ‘assimilation of knowledge to their own purposes’ (Barnes, 1976: 82), is the basis for their autonomous behaviour outside formal educational settings.

The role of exploratory talk The classroom experiments that Barnes describes sought to promote the incorporation of ‘school knowledge’ into learners’ ‘action knowledge’ via the exploratory talk required to complete problem-solving activities carried out in small groups. Clearly, the success of such activities depends on the degree to which they connect with the learners’ existing ‘action knowledge’ and engage their willing participation. But when (as in Barnes’s case) the activities are designed by the teacher, who can have only the most general notion of what each of her learners brings to the classroom, the extent to which they coincide with learners’ existing and highly individual knowledge is inevitably a matter of chance. For this reason, we not only share Barnes’s belief in the indispensability of exploratory talk but go much further than he does. We insist that our learners design their own versions of the activities that stimulate such talk, and we require them to share responsibility for planning their learning, selecting materials and activities, monitoring progress and evaluating outcomes; for only thus can we be sure of exploiting the knowledge they bring with them to the classroom. These requirements, of course, recall Holec’s (1981: 3) definition of the autonomous learner.

Language and knowledge, communication and learning The second key idea we derived from Douglas Barnes concerns the relation between language and knowledge, communication and learning. For him exploratory talk was at once communication and thought, the medium but also the substance of learning: ‘what [pupils] learn can hardly be distinguished from the ability to communicate it’ (Barnes, 1976: 20). Almost every page of Barnes’s theoretical chapters expands on this idea in one way or another. For example, control of metalinguistic and metacognitive resources allows the learner to manage (‘take responsibility for’) the reflective and evaluative processes of exploratory talk: The more a learner controls his own language strategies, and the more he is enabled to think aloud, the more he can take responsibility for formulating explanatory hypotheses and evaluating them. (Barnes, 1976: 29)

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Language is not only a medium of communication but a means of managing learning: If we consider language solely as a communication system this could be taken to relegate the learner to a passive role as the recipient of socialization; if we consider language as a means of learning we regard the learner as an active participant in the making of meaning. (Barnes, 1976: 31) And if language is a means of managing learning, that is because it is the tool we use to give reflective shape to our experience: Teachers have become so habituated to thinking of language in terms of communication that many have ceased to consider that it also performs important subjective functions, since it is the major means by which we consciously organize experience and reflect upon it. (Barnes, 1976: 84) Language, in other words, is the means by which we control and shape all aspects of our learning: Speech, while not identical with thought, provides a means of reflecting upon thought processes, and controlling them. Language allows one to consider not only what one knows but how one knows it, to consider, that is, the strategies by which one is manipulating the knowledge, and therefore to match the strategies more closely to the problem. (Barnes, 1976: 98)

‘Transmission’ teaching styles contrasted with autonomous learning Barnes describes teaching styles in terms of a continuum between Transmission at one end and Interpretation at the other: The Transmission teacher sees it as his task to transmit knowledge and to test whether the pupils have received it. […] For the Interpretation teacher, however, the pupil’s ability to reinterpret knowledge for himself is crucial to learning, and he sees this as depending on a productive dialogue between the pupil and himself. (Barnes, 1976: 142) In research reported by Barnes, teachers arranged themselves on a continuum from Transmission to Interpretation in this order: Science, Languages, Domestic Science, Geography and History, Religious Education, English. Language teachers evidently perceived their subjects as ‘coherent and public bodies of knowledge which their pupils’ everyday experience [did] not give them access to’ (Barnes, 1976: 143). This view of language teaching perhaps reflects the grammar/translation method, still widespread in England in the 1970s, which is difficult to align with Barnes’s view of the relation between

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language and knowledge. The same view continues to underlie mainstream language teaching methods in many countries, despite the best efforts of teacher educators. Things look very different, however, if we insist that spontaneous use of the TL plays an indispensable role in communicative language learning. What learners can communicate in the TL is then an accurate reflection of what they know, explicitly and implicitly; classroom discourse in the TL that is organized along the lines we have described clearly embodies the two functions of language – as medium of communication but also as instrument of thought. This is another reason why in our view autonomy in language use and autonomy in language learning are two sides of the same coin.

Communicative language teaching Barnes was concerned with learning across the curriculum, the medium of which was the language of schooling, assumed to be the learners’ first language. But his understanding of the role of communication in learning had much in common with ‘strong’ versions of communicative language teaching that began to emerge towards the end of the 1970s, especially in the work of Mike Breen and Chris Candlin (e.g. Breen, 1983, 1985; Breen & Candlin, 1980), and our own pedagogical practice was also strongly influenced by this latter work. ‘Strong’ versions of the communicative approach are concerned with teaching language through (and not simply for) communication. To the question ‘What is communicated about in a communicative classroom?’ Breen (1983) provided this answer: The two major issues of continual concern are the nature of communication in the TL and the socially shared problem of how best to undertake the learning of this new language. Whilst both of these are likely to be the concern of most language classrooms, the communicative classroom is characterized by raising the second issue to be of equal or more significance than that which is usually the conventional subject matter of a language class. The public sharing of the working process towards mastery of the TL is the primary subject matter of the communicative classroom. (Breen, 1983: 136) Breen went on to describe the role of the learner as follows: In the communicative classroom, the learner is seen to be a communicator first and foremost – regardless of his or her relative competence in the target language. The learner is involved in communicating in three ways which mutually influence one another. First, in communicating about the learning process itself – in terms of the more public classroom procedures and activities and in terms of his or her own approaches,

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problems, and achievements. Second, in communicating about target language and communication – when dealing with subject matter in a metalinguistic or metacommunicative way. And, thirdly, when communicating in and through the target language during activities and tasks within both written and spoken media. (Breen, 1983: 138) It is unnecessary to labour the close relation between Breen’s position and the description of the autonomy classroom with which we began this Introduction.

The work of Barnes and Breen only a starting point The work of Douglas Barnes and Mike Breen provided us with a starting point to which we have regularly returned. But over the years our theoretical understanding of language learner autonomy has been informed by various strands of educational, psychological and applied linguistic research. A summary of that understanding, with preliminary reference to some of our principal sources, should help to clarify further what we believe is distinctive about our approach and may begin to explain its success.

Some Further Theoretical Underpinnings Autonomy as a universal human capacity, behavioural drive and emotional need For us, language learner autonomy is a special case of learner autonomy, and learner autonomy exploits a universal human capacity and drive. According to this view, pedagogical approaches that seek to develop learner autonomy succeed not because they answer ‘technical’ or ‘political’ imperatives (cf. Benson, 1997) but because they respond to how human beings are constituted. That constitution is captured by the psychologist Phillida Salmon in the following description of the realities of family life: To parents, even babies seem to have a will of their own; they are hardly passive creatures to be easily moulded by the actions of others. From their earliest years, boys and girls make their active presence, their wilful agency, their demands and protests, very vividly felt. In every household that has children, negotiations must be made with young family members: their personal agendas have somehow to be accommodated. (Salmon, 1998: 24) Babies and small children make their ‘active presence’, their ‘wilful agency’ and their ‘demands and protests’ felt because they are cognitively and emotionally autonomous. Their perception of and response to the world around

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them is theirs alone, and their thoughts and emotions can never be directly accessible to parents, siblings and caregivers. None of us can escape being autonomous in this fundamental, biologically determined sense, which may help to explain why autonomy also seems to be a basic behavioural drive and emotional need. According to the American social psychologist Edward Deci, in order to have a sense of self-fulfilment we must feel autonomous, or ‘volitional in our actions’ (Deci, 1996: 66). But our sense of self-fulfilment also depends on the fulfilment of two other needs. We must feel competent, able to confront and overcome ‘optimal challenges’ (Deci, 1996: 66), and we must feel ‘connected with others in the midst of being effective and autonomous’ (Deci, 1996: 88). According to this view of human motivation, the freedom that autonomy entails is confirmed by our competence and constrained by our relatedness. When we behave autonomously our actions are authentic because they emanate from our sense of self (Deci, 1996: 2). Pedagogies that seek to exploit this universal capacity for autonomous behaviour also offer to develop the individual’s personal autonomy.

The uniquely individual nature of all learning: The psychology of personal constructs The autonomy conferred on us by our biological constitution also has implications for the way we learn. Put at its simplest, because our cognitive processes are uniquely individual, viewed from a cognitive perspective learning is also uniquely individual. This consideration is one of the foundations of constructivism, which argues that we construct our knowledge by bringing new information, ideas and experiences into interaction with what we already know. As the American psychologist David Ausubel wrote at the end of the 1960s, ‘If I had to reduce all of educational psychology to just one principle, I would say this: The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows’ (Ausubel, 1968: vi). According to this view, knowledge is not a set of universal truths but a complex network of working hypotheses. In his Psychology of Personal Constructs, George Kelly (1991) states the matter thus: The constructions one places upon events are working hypotheses, which are about to be put to the test of experience. As one’s anticipations or hypotheses are successively revised in the light of the unfolding sequence of events, the construction system undergoes a progressive evolution. The person reconstrues. (Kelly, 1991, I: 51) As our brief discussion of the work of Douglas Barnes has suggested, in formal educational contexts pedagogical approaches that are shaped by constructivist principles insist that effective learning entails a great deal more than memorizing what one has been told. Such approaches seek to assist the

12 Introduc t ion

involuntary, unconscious construction of knowledge by adopting procedures that are participatory, exploratory and interpretative; they employ modes of interaction that are calculated to stimulate learners’ ‘active presence’, harness their ‘wilful agency’, accommodate their ‘demands and protests’, engage them in ‘negotiation’, and integrate their ‘personal agendas’ into the evolving learning agenda of the classroom (cf. Salmon, 1998: 24, quoted p. 10 above). In terms of Deci’s three basic needs, constructivist pedagogies exploit various modes of relatedness in order to harness and extend learners’ autonomy and develop new competence. This is another way of saying that learning is individual and cognitive, but also social and interactive. Two strands of psychological theory in particular have helped us to understand this reality more fully.

The influence of Vygotsky The first strand derives from the work of the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who argued that our higher mental functions are internalized from social interaction (Vygotsky, 1987). By this he meant, for example, that small children learn to focus their attention selectively, not as a result of spontaneous development, but from the experience of doing so in interaction with their parents, siblings and other caregivers. For Vygotsky, language is the cognitive tool that we use to shape and direct our higher mental functions: inner speech is internalized from social speech via egocentric (or private) speech. Thus, social speech in interaction with an older sister guides a five-year-old boy through the process of building a simple Lego model. As he practises the task on his own, he may guide himself using private speech, perhaps remembering and reproducing phrases from his interaction with his sister. And in due course private speech is replaced by inner speech – discursive thinking expressed in (typically fragmentary) language. The idea that learning is a matter of gradually more competent task performance in which speech plays an essential mediating role is captured in Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), which he defined as ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined by problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers’ (Vygotsky, 1978: 86). In a general way, Vygotsky’s ideas confirmed for us the importance of pair and group work shaped by exploratory talk; they also helped us to understand how learning in the autonomy classroom actually takes place. It is worth noting here that, whereas Vygotsky’s definition of the ZPD implies that progress in learning depends on input from an adult (teacher) or ‘more competent peer’, research in cooperative learning has shown that groups of equally inexperienced learners are capable of performing tasks that no group member could

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perform alone (see, for example, Zuckerman, 2003: 194). That is also our experience in the autonomy classroom.

Situated learning and communities of practice The second strand of psychological research that has shaped our understanding of the social dimension of learning is the one associated with ‘situated learning’ and ‘communities of practice’ (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991). Work in this area is founded on the insight that learning is an inescapable feature of all human activity. In the world outside formal educational contexts, learning tends to be a matter of increasingly central participation in the activities of whatever community of practice the individual is involved in. This is how various forms of apprenticeship work in many different kinds of society (see Lave & Wenger, 1991). The theory of situated learning poses two challenges to educational systems. First, we are used to distinguishing between pupils who do and pupils who do not learn. By contrast, situated learning theory argues that in every classroom learning of some kind is inevitably taking place, although too often it is not the learning that the teacher intends. Whereas we traditionally describe some pupils as failing to learn, situated learning theory implies that in fact they are learning to fail. Secondly, the idea that learning takes place within a ‘community of practice’ challenges us to define the language classroom as a community and to explain what exactly its practices consist of. We can do that only in terms of language and communication.

The language of education Language is the tool with which knowledge and skills are mediated and the learning process is shaped. Shaping the learning process is a matter of communication – describing and analysing the task in hand, evaluating the merits of different approaches, giving instructions, proposing alternatives, and so on. But it is also a matter of building internal representations of the task and its performance that the learner can draw on linguistically as a prompt and guide in future acts of independent task performance. Furthermore, classroom procedures that are participatory, communal and collaborative are also of necessity reflective: every question the learner asks and every judgement she makes entail an act of self-distancing from the object and sometimes also the process of learning. That is what Jerome Bruner seems to be getting at when he writes of the language of education: It must express stance and must invite counter-stance and in the process leave place for reflection, for metacognition. It is this that permits one to reach higher ground, this process of objectifying in language or image what one has thought and then turning around on it and reconsidering it. (Bruner, 1986a: 129)

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Two general pedagogical principles: Learner involvement and reflection From this necessarily very compressed argument we can derive two general pedagogical principles. The first is the principle of learner involvement, which entails that teachers help learners to take charge of their learning by making them full participants in the processes of planning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating learning. The second is the principle of learner reflection, which entails that teachers help learners to engage reflectively with the process and content of their learning, developing their capacity for what Bruner (1986a: 132) calls ‘reflective intervention’ in the knowledge they encounter and in the learning process itself. Clearly, the principles of learner involvement and learner reflection are mutually dependent: it is impossible to take charge of one’s learning without reflecting on what that entails, and it is impossible to reflect on one’s learning without in some sense taking charge.

A third principle: Target language use The principles of learner involvement and learner reflection underpin the development and exercise of learner autonomy in general; they apply equally to all subjects in the curriculum. But the development and exercise of language learner autonomy require a third principle, the principle of TL use. Whether nativist, connectionist or emergentist, all theories of L2 acquisition assume that communicative language use plays an indispensable role in the development of communicative proficiency (see, for example, Atkinson, 2011; Ellis, 2003; Gass, 2003). Language acquisition is an inescapably dialogic process. Input is useless without interaction, and output – producing the TL in speech or in writing – is especially important because it requires deeper language processing and greater mental effort than input. As Merrill Swain has put it: ‘Output may stimulate learners to move from the semantic, open-ended strategic processing prevalent in comprehension to the complete grammatical processing needed for accurate production’ (Swain, 2000: 99; see also Swain, 2005). In short, if you want to learn a language for communicative purposes, you will do best if you use it as the main channel of your learning.

Language as the medium of communication and reflection According to constructivist theory, knowledge is constructed through the learner’s involvement in linguistically mediated interactions, encoded in language, and reproduced via communicative activity (speaking or writing). But besides being the tool with which we construct knowledge, language is the tool we use for the metacognitive/metalinguistic processes of ‘reflective intervention’. Thus, when the goal of learning is the development of communicative proficiency in a second language, we must help

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learners to use the TL as the medium not only of task performance but also of metacognition and metalinguistic reflection. If we fail to do this, we run the risk that their proficiency will remain superficial and will never become fully internalized.

Language Learner Autonomy: A Summary of our View We shall return in the chapters that follow to the various perspectives that have shaped our view of language learner autonomy, but for our present purpose the essentials of that view should be clear enough. For us language learner autonomy is not an organizational option but a pedagogical imperative. Whereas Holec (1981) admits the possibility of (teacher-led) programmes of learning in which learner autonomy plays no role, for us all successful learning draws on the learner’s capacity for autonomous behaviour. Whereas for Holec learner autonomy is something that is ‘added’ to learners, for us learners have experience of autonomy in their lives outside the classroom, and it is the teacher’s job to harness their pre-existing capacity for autonomous behaviour to the business of language learning. Whereas for Holec the development of proficiency in the TL and the development of learner autonomy are separate processes, for us language learner autonomy is inseparable from the learner’s gradually developing TL proficiency. Whereas for Holec learner autonomy is a capacity of the individual learner, for us it is a collective as well as an individual capacity, and its development is stimulated by the social-interactive processes on which effective cooperation between teachers and their learners depends. We began this Introduction by describing the beliefs and activities that constitute the autonomy classroom. We conclude by summarizing the recursive cycle of taking stock, planning, implementation and evaluation that shapes the autonomous language learning process (Figure 0.1). The cycle begins with a review of the learning just completed, which provides a basis for planning the next phase; then the plans are implemented; after which evaluation of outcomes leads into a new phase of planning. Note the central role that evaluation plays in this process. Besides having its own place in the learning cycle, it also comes into play when learners are engaged in making and carrying out their plans. In principle, each phase in the reflective cycle could be controlled and managed by the teacher, as represented by the downward arrow on the left of the figure. But in the autonomy classroom the goal is for learners to manage their own learning. Echoing Holec’s definition, this entails that they: specify the aims and purposes of their work; choose appropriate methods, tasks and materials; organize and carry out the learning tasks; determine the criteria by which the learning process and its outcomes should be judged; and apply those criteria in effective evaluation. Learners’ involvement in these processes is represented by the downward arrow on the

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Figure 0.1 The teaching–learning cycle in the autonomy classroom

right of the figure. But learners cannot be expected to manage all aspects of their learning from the beginning. They must gradually acquire skills of selfmanagement as a fully integrated part of their developing TL proficiency. In any classroom the teacher is responsible for ensuring that learning takes place and curriculum goals are achieved. In the autonomy classroom, however, the teacher is always looking for opportunities to hand over control to her learners.

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The Structure and Content of the Book In the first part of the book (Chapters 1–4) we explore the implementation of this recursive learning cycle with teenage Danish learners of English, focusing in turn on TL use, interaction and collaboration, handing over control to the learners, and evaluation. For us, these are obligatory features of any L2 pedagogy that seeks to operationalize language learner autonomy as we have defined it. In the second part, we report the findings of a longitudinal research project that explored the learning achievement of one class in the same Danish school over four years (Chapter 5) and present two case studies from the same cohort to show that the autonomy classroom benefits learners who might well struggle in a more traditional learning environment (Chapter 6). In the third part, we present two further case studies to illustrate the power of autonomous learning to support the linguistic and social inclusion of adult refugees and the educational inclusion of primary pupils from immigrant families (Chapter 7), and conclude by offering some reflections on how pre- and in-service teacher education can prepare language teachers to promote autonomous learning in their classrooms (Chapter 8). Each chapter ends with points for reflection, discussion and possible action and suggestions for further reading. These are intended to help readers to make connections between the contexts of teaching and learning we describe and their own situation.

Part 1 The Autonomy Classroom in Practice: An Example from Lower Secondary Education

1

Using the Target Language: Spontaneity, Identity, Authenticity

Introduction We have already emphasized that use of the target language (TL) plays a central role in our version of the autonomy classroom. We have also explained that in our view autonomy is not a new capacity we must develop in our learners. They may not be used to acting autonomously in the classroom; indeed, their previous experience of schooling may well have been wholly teacher-directed (cf. Figure 0.1, p. 16). But if they are novices in relation to the learning they are expected to accomplish at school, they already know a great deal about life outside school, in which they have been by no means passive participants. Phillida Salmon puts the matter thus: By the time they start school, all children possess rich resources of human understanding. […] [They] have learned much about the way people live, the way people relate to each other, the way matters are organized. What kinds of thing happen in buses, shops, post office, clinic – what transactions are done, how people behave, what is possible and not possible – all this is familiar territory. […] Many children have, by this age, acquired a specialized knowledge of their own. The experiences of play school, nursery groups or being ‘minded’, bring their own insider’s understandings […]. [C]hildren of five have not acquired all these kinds of understanding by being merely spectators on life; in one way or another, they are already active participants in living. (Salmon, 1985: 24–25) Salmon is describing the acquisition of what Barnes (1976) calls ‘action knowledge’. Pupils’ capacity for autonomous behaviour based on action knowledge can be observed in the playground, where even very young learners participate in the organization of a society to which most adults have no 21

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access (see, for example, Opie, 1993). If learners’ sense of identity derives from their ‘action knowledge’, our task as teachers is to engage that ‘action knowledge’ in the business of language learning, to ensure that what goes on in our classrooms is as much ‘real life’ as what goes on outside. This means that TL communication in the classroom must be authentic in the sense that it arises from and speaks to the learners’ identities, and spontaneous in its response to the constantly evolving needs of classroom activity. In Chapter 2 we shall discuss the role of collaborative oral interaction in language learning; here we are concerned with TL use from the perspective of the individual learner. We focus especially on the early stages of learning because they appear to present teachers with their greatest challenge: ‘If I speak the TL will my learners understand?’ But before we do that we must say a little more about why we think TL use is so important and, in doing so, explain more fully what we mean by the term.

The Importance of Target Language Use We learn to speak only by speaking There are three reasons for insisting on TL use in the L2 classroom. First, fluent linguistic communication – listening, speaking, reading and writing – depends on a complex of procedural skills that we mostly deploy automatically. There are many things we can do to support the development of those skills without actually using them. For example, we can learn the words that we need in order to talk or write about topics of particular interest to us; we can practise pronouncing those words, and the phrases in which they are likely to occur, and thus increase our chances of being understood by other speakers of our TL; and we can pay attention to the formal features of the TL, gradually developing our sense of grammatical correctness. But in themselves none of these activities will make us more fluent communicators. To achieve that goal we must internalize our knowledge of the TL, not as a collection of separate building blocks but as a gradually expanding, fully integrated repertoire that we can deploy automatically, and the growth of automaticity depends on using the TL for purposes of communication and constantly pushing against the limits of what we can already do with it (cf. Swain’s ‘output hypothesis’; Swain, 1985, 2005).

Target language use promotes incidental learning The second reason for insisting on TL use in the L2 classroom is related to the first and has to do with the distinction between incidental and intentional learning. Incidental learning takes place as a by-product of our involvement in activity of one kind or another; it is usually involuntary and

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may entail the development of knowledge to which we do not have introspective access. Much ‘situated learning’ (cf. Introduction, p. 13) falls into this category. Intentional learning, on the other hand, follows an explicit plan or agenda and involves conscious effort. One way of describing L1 development is to say that in the early years the spoken language is acquired for the most part incidentally, as a result of the child’s involvement in many different kinds of interaction, whereas learning to read and write is the result of intentional learning. L2 learning at school is inevitably an intentional process: it is guided by a curriculum that specifies particular outcomes. Yet it is impossible to teach explicitly and learn consciously everything we need to know in order to become fluent in our TL. Intentional learning must be supplemented by incidental learning. That is why, for example, reading widely in the TL has always been recognized as an essential means of increasing our vocabulary. To begin with, we may find it necessary to reach for the dictionary more often than we would like, but the more we read, the more we are likely to develop strategies for coping with new words. In due course we deploy those strategies automatically and unconsciously and our vocabulary grows incidentally, without our really noticing it. Spontaneous and authentic TL use – listening, speaking, reading and writing – is essential because it promotes incidental learning within a framework that is always intentional.

Doubts about the efficacy of explicit grammar teaching The third reason for insisting on TL use in the L2 classroom emerges from the findings of research into the efficacy of explicit grammar instruction. Most mainstream language teaching methods assume that learners will develop the capacity to produce accurate TL utterances only if they are taught grammar and practise grammatical structures. This view is often justified by pointing to some of the obvious differences between L1 and L2 acquisition. For example, the time available for L2 learning in formal educational contexts is only a tiny fraction of the time that small children spend acquiring their L1, and grammar instruction helps to bridge the gap. And because L2 learners at school are at a more advanced stage of cognitive development than small children, it seems reasonable to suppose that they can benefit from teaching approaches informed by grammatical analysis. Against this view, however, proponents of ‘direct’ or ‘natural’ teaching methods have always argued that the underlying learning processes are essentially the same for L2 as for L1, and that the learning of grammatical rules does not speed up the process of L2 acquisition. If instead of teaching grammar we engage our learners in spontaneous TL use, in due course TL grammar will emerge. This is especially the case when learners collaborate in the production of written texts because this process encourages a focus on formal aspects of the TL and leads to awareness raising.

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‘Interface’ and ‘non-interface’ positions and the argument against teachability The essential question for research to answer is this: Can explicit (declarative) knowledge of grammatical rules be converted into the implicit (internalized, unconsciously deployed) knowledge on which spontaneous communication depends? Those who believe that it can are said to occupy an ‘interface’ position; that is, they believe there is an interface between these two kinds of knowledge. Those who believe that declarative knowledge cannot be converted into procedural knowledge (e.g. Krashen, 1981; more recently, Sharwood Smith & Truscott, 2014; Truscott, 2014) occupy a ‘non-interface’ position. This latter belief is supported by the teachability hypothesis advanced by Pienemann (1984, 1987, 1989, 1998, 2006), who showed in a series of experimental studies that teaching and practising grammatical structures has no significant effect on learners’ ability to use the structures accurately in spontaneous communication. Building on Roger Brown’s (1973) pioneering study of L1 acquisition, research in the 1980s had yielded evidence that L2 grammatical features are acquired in a ‘natural order’; Pienemann showed that teaching cannot change this ‘natural order’, and that it can accelerate the learning process only when it focuses on forms that learners are ‘ready’ to acquire. Our knowledge of ‘natural orders’ of acquisition remains quite limited, however, and at any given moment each learner in a class is likely to be at a slightly different developmental stage from all the others. Thus, no textbook can possibly present the grammar of the TL in a way that matches the linguistic needs of all learners simultaneously.

What does empirical research tell us about the usefulness of grammar teaching? Empirical studies that have set out to explore these issues have focused either on the relation between explicit rule knowledge and the performance of formal tasks (e.g. Green & Hecht, 1992; Legenhausen, 1995; Seliger, 1979) or on the correlation between being taught and practising grammatical structures on the one hand and being able to use them accurately in spontaneous communication on the other (e.g. Ellis, 1984; Terrell, 1991). Although the correlations in both cases vary between ‘none’, ‘low’ and (more rarely) ‘positive’, the overall tendency is to confirm a rather weak or non-existent relation between formal grammar instruction and correct use of grammatical forms in communicative situations. Much of this research might seem to imply that we should dispense with grammar teaching and controlled formal practice, yet this is not what most researchers suggest. Some argue that the effects of formal instruction may be indirect and delayed rather than immediate, in which case grammar teaching will raise the learners’ level of linguistic awareness and enable them to ‘notice’ structural aspects that do not yet form part of their interlanguage competence. This noticing is seen as a

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prerequisite for learning (Schmidt, 1990, 1994; see, however, Truscott’s [2014] critique of the noticing hypothesis from a non-interface perspective). Others propose that traditional grammar instruction should be replaced by forms of discovery learning that lead to ‘awareness-raising’ (Sharwood Smith, 1981): form-focused practice is inefficient, whereas meaning-focused tasks may facilitate and promote acquisition. In both cases it is clear that something must replace grammatical instruction at the centre of L2 pedagogy, and as the research we have briefly referred to indicates, that something should be TL use.

Target language use in mainstream approaches to second language teaching Despite these considerations, authentic and spontaneous TL use plays only a limited role in most L2 pedagogical traditions. And although many curricula recommend use of the TL in L2 teaching, the European Commission’s (2012) First European Survey on Language Competences confirms that this happens less often than learners would like it to. As its name suggests, the grammar/translation method focuses on the explicit teaching and learning of TL grammar (and vocabulary), using translation to explore equivalences and contrasts between the TL and the learner’s L1. This leaves no room for TL use of the kind we are concerned with here. The audio-lingual method was devised as a way of excluding the learners’ L1 from the classroom altogether: everything is presented and practised in the TL. But drill and practice likewise leave no room for TL use that is authentic and spontaneous. Concerned with language learning for rather than through communication, most communicative approaches are little better. Typically, they recommend that learners should engage in part-task practice before they attempt wholetask performance, and they certainly do not encourage learners to outperform their competence by constructing their own social realities in the classroom. In our version of language learner autonomy, by contrast, everything is embedded in TL communication, and distinctions between language practice and language use are difficult to maintain; so too are distinctions between the ‘four skills’.

The nature of target language use in the autonomy classroom Here we must return to a point we made in the Introduction and emphasize that we are not recommending a version of the direct method, which is based on the belief that L2 learning should imitate the processes of early L1 acquisition. In other words, we are not proposing that if the teacher addresses her learners in the TL, using gesture, mime and other forms of visual support to help them understand, they will sooner or later begin to speak the language themselves. We recognize the importance of incidental learning, but

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we do not believe that it can be left to do all the work. In our version of the autonomy classroom the teacher always has a clear working agenda that takes account of the three interacting roles in which her learners are cast – as communicators, experimenters with language, and intentional learners. Because everything that happens is framed by the teacher’s use of the TL, incidental learning of the language can take place from the beginning. But everything that happens is intentional, shaped by the obligatory goal of L2 classrooms (to learn the TL as specified in the curriculum) and by a learning agenda that grows out of an interaction between the curriculum and the interests the learners bring with them, their ongoing experience of learning, regular evaluation of the learning process and its outcomes, and emerging needs. Some of the activities learners engage in are designed to support the learning of parts of the TL – words and phrases, for example, while other activities involve the creation of TL texts that are themselves acts of communication. But in the performance of both kinds of activity the analytical procedures of intentional learning and the spontaneous processes of authentic communication tend to merge. This is something we shall return to in Chapter 2 in our discussion of the collaborative production of written texts.

The role of writing in the autonomy classroom When communicative approaches to L2 teaching first became popular, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, ‘communication’ was widely assumed to mean ‘talking’. This is not surprising. After all, these new approaches were designed to ensure that language learning resulted in the ability to use the TL for purposes of authentic communication in the world outside the classroom, and that meant above all developing learners’ oral proficiency. But listening, reading and writing are also modes of communication, and in contexts of formal learning it seems misguided not to include writing from the very beginning, because writing has always provided crucial support for intentional learning. We use it, for example, to keep a record of the things we want to remember, organize information and sort out our thoughts. In our version of the autonomy classroom, writing is as important as speaking, and reading is as important as listening. Our learners use writing to express themselves, but also to support speaking, and they speak partly in order to generate written texts. The traditional distinction between the four skills is not very useful in describing and understanding the communicative dynamic we are concerned with here. Halliday’s (1993) notion of ‘meaning making’ is more helpful because it simultaneously involves understanding and doing, reception and production.

Some key functions of writing in the autonomy classroom There is, however, more to the use of writing than this. As we noted in the Introduction, it encourages deep processing and facilitates a focus on

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linguistic form. Olson (1991) has argued that writing is necessarily a metalinguistic activity, and the fact that learners in the autonomy classroom are constantly writing in the TL means that they cannot avoid engaging, whether consciously or unconsciously, with the challenge of grammatical accuracy. Writing things down, moreover, is a necessary precondition for the reflection that lies at the heart of autonomous learning. Ackermann (1996) has pointed out that reflective learning depends on a continuous alternation between ‘diving in’ and ‘stepping out’; and Clark (1998) argues that in many circumstances we don’t know what we think until we try to express our thoughts in writing. The use of writing in the autonomy classroom serves both these purposes. Writing also allows individual learners to express their autonomy in and through the TL, and it is the means by which the learning community is made visible, the learning process is documented, and relatedness – the collaborative interdependence of all members of the class – is given its due. The remainder of this chapter provides practical illustration of these points.

Learning Activities that Support Target Language Use Logbooks In their first lesson learners are given a plain notebook. This will be their logbook, the repository of their learning. For each lesson they are expected to note the date and write simple entries under four headings: ‘Things I do’, ‘Things I learn’, ‘Homework’ and ‘Evaluation’ (they derive the content of their entries from posters – see below). In the early stages the logbook is also the place where learners write the texts they produce, whether individually or in collaboration with others. Because it is primarily a record of individual learning, the logbook provides the teacher with evidence of progress (or lack of progress) and gives her an opportunity to provide written feedback in the form of a letter to the learner (for examples, see Figures 4.1 and 4.2, pp. 110 and 111).

Posters Whereas logbooks provide a record of individual learning, the teacher uses posters to record and support the learning of the class as a whole. Although it is usually the teacher who decides to introduce a poster, especially in the early stages, what she writes on it comes from the needs and experience of her learners. For example, in the autonomy classroom learners choose their own homework from a poster that lists some of the possibilities: make a story, read a book, make a book, make word cards, make my own dictionary, find something English. Other posters are more elaborate, like those reproduced in Figure 1.1, which are beginners’ answers to the questions: Why do you

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Figure 1.1 Posters – ‘Why and how do I learn English?’

learn English? and: How do you learn English? They gave their answers in Danish and the teacher translated them into English. This is a good example of the way in which learners’ first language can contribute to the learning process without undermining the principle of TL use. In general, posters provide essential TL input while serving an indispensable awareness-raising function.

Tools for managing the work cycle Logbooks and posters are key tools for managing the work cycle; between them they make learning visible, both as process and as product. Posters are used instead of the blackboard or interactive whiteboard because they can be retained for as long as they are needed and, as we pointed out in the Introduction, most classroom walls can accommodate posters whose total area, and thus information content, greatly exceeds the area of the blackboard or whiteboard. What is more, when they are copied in reduced format, posters can be used by the teacher and her learners as a ‘process syllabus’ (cf. Breen, 1984).

‘About myself’ When learners have been given their first logbook, they are asked to write a text ‘About myself’ (this applies to intermediate learners as well as beginners). For beginners, the teacher models the task by presenting herself on a poster: My name is …, I am … years old, I live in …, etc. Then the learners call out in their L1 the words and phrases they need in order to describe themselves and their interests. The teacher writes English translations on

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posters under the heading ‘Words and expressions needed’ so that they are available to all members of the class, not just the learners who asked for them. One class came up with the following: bird, dog, Boys’ Brigade, Girls’ Brigade, rabbit, fishing, swimming, dancing, I am, you are, he/she/it is, playing football, I like, I have, my telephone number is …, mother/father, animal, a, comes, sailing, my birthday is on …, every day. It is characteristic of the autonomy classroom that in their very first lesson learners produce an authentic text in which they write as themselves, and which is thus rooted in their sense of identity and their ‘action knowledge’. Because their texts are written in their logbooks, they are not forgotten. On the contrary, as Figures 1.2 and 1.3 show (p. 30), they are sometimes ‘validated’ by the addition of photographs. These examples also show the wide range of ability and (not necessarily conscious) previous knowledge of the TL to be found in any class of beginners. The autonomy classroom fulfils the principle of differentiation by engaging all learners in authentic language use from the outset. Here are four more examples of learners’ (uncorrected) texts ‘About myself’: My name is Emrah. I like playing football. I have a brother and sister. I have two birds. I have two parents. I have a bike. I have been in Germany, Nederland, Schweizerland, Belgium in my summer holiday and my father drove the car. it was very fun. My name is Max. I like playing Football. I have a Brother who is called Martin. In the summer holidays I was in Jylland and at Naestved. About Myself my name is Anne Mette and i live in tofteholmen number three 2690 Karlslunde My birthday is on the fourteen may My hobbies are boys’ brigade/girls’ brigade and I like to dance. my telephone number is 42150205. I have two brother’s they are three years old. I have one rabbit and one dog, theyre names are Elvis and Sheila. My name is Nanna valløe. My birthday is on the seventh of august. I hav a sister. Her name is Maja. My hobbies is a piano and boys brigade/girls brigade. I Love and sewing. Slut [‘end’]

Learner-produced Learning Materials Already in their second English lesson learners start to produce and use their own learning materials, which necessarily reflect their interests and their ideas about what they want to learn. The teacher introduces different kinds of materials – word cards, dominoes, picture lotto – but as soon as she has done so, passes them over to the learners (cf. Chapter 3, where we discuss

Figure 1.2 Thomas’s text ‘About myself’

Figure 1.3 Birgitte’s text ‘About myself’

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learners’ taking charge of their learning). Clearly, at least as much learning takes place when producing the materials as when using them individually or with other learners.

Word cards The first learning materials the teacher suggests her learners should make are word cards – small pieces of card or paper, with a TL word on one side and a drawing, photograph or L1 equivalent on the other. To get her learners started, she provides paper or cardboard, and magazines that can be plundered for pictures. But in future the learners themselves will be expected to source the materials they need for their chosen activities and bring them to the classroom. Making word cards tends to tap into learners’ particular interests, their individual ‘action knowledge’: one learner made a set of word cards that had to do with angling; another, the daughter of a greengrocer, concentrated on different fruits. In the examples in Figure 1.4, ship and dog may well occur in a textbook for beginners; scissors and axe seem less likely; and rosette can only be explained in terms of the individual learner’s interests (perhaps she won a prize in a pony show).

Figure 1.4 Examples of word cards

Playing with word cards The word cards made by individual learners are placed in an envelope bearing the learner’s name and kept in a box labelled ‘Our word cards’. In this way they become a resource for the whole class. Learners can ‘play’ with another learner’s word cards as a solo activity; alternatively, two or more learners can choose an envelope from the box. One of them holds up each card in turn so that the other learner(s) can see the picture or L1 word.

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Calling out the correct TL word wins the card. The phrases that learners need to play in this way are added to the posters that were created in the first lesson to support the production of texts ‘About myself’. If the learners playing with a set of cards are unsure how to pronounce a word, they consult the owner of the cards rather than the teacher. Learners themselves often find other ways of playing with word cards. Perhaps inevitably, strong learners typically choose to play with cards made by other strong learners, whereas weak learners tend to choose those made by other weak learners. This is one way in which the autonomy classroom responds to the need for differentiation and inclusion. At the same time, some weak learners challenge themselves by choosing word cards made by strong learners (they know who the strong learners are because they have been in the same class with them before starting to learn English). After playing with a set of word cards, learners are encouraged to write words that are new to them in their logbooks – something they are also asked to do in connection with other activities.

More examples of word cards Here are some more examples of the sets of words (uncorrected) that beginners made word cards for. They reflect the wide variety of learners’ interests and preoccupations, which have little to do with the classroom and frequently transcend the thematic limitation typical of textbooks for beginners (see Chapter 5 for research-based discussion of this point): Morten (TL/L1) brown, white, yellow, red, black, grey, blue, bull, sheep, pig, frog, mouse, lamb, dog, cow, bee, seal, banana, coconut, car, football, motor boat, letter-box Karina (TL/drawing) elephant, giraffe, teddy, pine apple, apple, flower, candel, hammer, scissors, ship, rug, ruler, frying-pan, motor-boat, hand grenade, television, snow, doll, duck, sun, snowman, jeep, cat, window, man, car Emrah (TL/drawing) whale, watch, shorts, glasses, tankard, shark, T-shirt, corkscrew, hat, sun, cake, palm, cloud, dolphin, envelope, umbrella, axe, revolver, kite, dog Cecilie (TL/drawing) scarf, bag, soap, hair brush, homework, a school, game-boy, crab, ball, scissors Julie (TL/drawing or cut-out picture) snail, sun, cat, cherry, duckling, paintbrushes, shoe, horse, rubber (drawings), socks, sweets, red-wine, lipstick

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Learning words is not, of course, the exclusive concern of beginners. It is always an item on the communal learning agenda, and from time to time the teacher discusses ways of learning vocabulary with the class as a whole. As always, the essentials of the discussion are captured on a poster, in this case entitled ‘Things I can do in order to learn words’; for example: read a book; look in the dictionary; translate; write the opposite word; write a story; find 10 words you want to learn; write sentences with the words; translate a Danish story; talk/hold a conversation; talking cards/games; words with the same meaning; dictation – spell the words; pronounce the words.

Dominoes The next activities the teacher proposes are ‘Make dominoes’ and ‘Play with dominoes’. The dominoes made in the early stages of learning typically combine a drawing or picture with a TL phrase or sentence, whereas those made by learners who are no longer beginners tend to include more text. Jannie made her dominoes in her first year of English (Figure 1.5); in Chapter 6 (p. 170) we reproduce the dominoes that Dennis made in his third year. Other possible combinations include TL word/L1 word and TL word/ definition. At a later stage, dominoes can make use of anything that can be paired: synonyms, questions and answers, irregular verb forms, and so on. As with word cards, the sets of dominoes are placed in envelopes bearing their owner’s name and made available to the whole class. Learners can play

Figure 1.5 Jannie’s picture dominoes

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with dominoes individually, in pairs or in small groups. They can also be taken home and played with for homework.

Picture lotto After dominoes, the teacher introduces ‘Make picture lotto’ and ‘Play picture lotto’. To make a game of picture lotto for four players you need four pieces of A4 card and 24 small pictures cut from magazines, catalogues, etc. A ruler and pencil are used to divide each card into 12 squares as shown in Figure 1.6. Six pictures are stuck in the squares in the upper half of each card and a description of each picture (a word, a phrase, a short text) is written in the corresponding square in the lower half of the card. The cards are then cut in half and the four lotto boards with pictures are put on one side. The half-cards with texts are cut up to make a pack of 24 lotto cards.

Figure 1.6 How to make picture lotto

Figure 1.7 shows an example of picture lotto produced in the second year of English. The other cards in the game from which this example is taken include the following sentences (uncorrected): • This is a woman she is wearing a necklace with white pearls. • This is 2 sandwiches with salad, ham and some other things. It is for people who are very hungry. • This is the queen and her family. It is the queen’s 50 years birthday. • This is an embroidered teddybear. It is made on a red background. Bears are very popular in Denmark.

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Figure 1.7 Example of picture lotto

• This is a woman. She is very happy because she is on holiday in Spain. Now she is sitting in the bar, drinking wine. • This is a woman. She has blond hair and she is wearing a nurse’s white coat. • This is a cartoon, he is called Melvis. Many people think that he is very funny. • This is a piece of soap. It is very popular in Denmark, and there is a lot of advertising for this soap and other soaps. • This is a cat, it is very hungry. It is sitting next to a table, eating. • This is a pink flower. Many people love flowers. They are having them inside and in there gardens. As with word cards and dominoes, the finished games are placed in envelopes bearing the name of their producer(s). To play picture lotto, each player is given a board; the pack is shuffled and placed face down in the middle of the table; the players take turns to lift a card and read the text; each card is claimed by the player whose board contains the corresponding picture; and the winner is the first player to cover all six pictures with a card. Picture lotto gives learners practice in reading aloud, listening and interacting, and it often creates opportunities for peer-tutoring. The expressions they ask for in order to play lotto – for example, It’s mine, Who has got …? – are written on the poster ‘Words and expressions needed’.

Producing Communicative Written Texts By making their own materials the autonomy class gradually develops a resource that is rooted in the interests and identities (the ‘action knowledge’) of individual learners yet is in harmony with the curriculum guidelines. Using generic learning activities, the class gradually evolves a culture of TL learning and use that is unique to itself. Word cards, dominoes and picture lotto provide a focus for explicit learning of the TL. The teacher does not attempt to prevent her learners from using their L1 where necessary, but from the beginning

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they use (play with) these materials in the TL. At the same time the teacher begins to build on the early production of authentic, communicative written texts (‘About myself’). Here we focus on two activities, ‘Picture + text’ and ‘Small books’. It is important to emphasize that when learners embark on these activities they know that the texts they produce will have real readers: their texts are used as learning materials by their peers. This gives communicative text production an important added purpose.

Picture + text For homework the learners are asked to find a photo of a person they would like to write a story about. They are free to give their chosen photo a fictitious identity. The example in Figure 1.8 was produced in the first weeks of learning English and builds on the structure of ‘About myself’ texts like those shown in Figures 1.2 and 1.3. ‘Picture + text’ can be used in increasingly sophisticated ways. For example, in Grade 9 (fifth year of learning English, age 16) one group of learners chose to create a brochure, which entailed making or finding illustrations and describing them. The power of this activity as a language learning tool may be connected with the fact that ‘the part of the brain we use to see images with our mind’s eye is the same part that we use to see them with our real eyes’ (Zull, 2002: 165). Also, recalling and creating stories is central to learning: ‘We remember by connecting our stories together in unique and memorable ways’ (Zull, 2002: 228).

Figure 1.8 Example of picture + text

Small books A similar activity to ‘Picture + text’ is the production of small books, which learners illustrate themselves. These too are shared with the rest of

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the class, so individual learning again feeds into communal learning. Learners enjoy creating small books at different levels of proficiency. The first of our two examples, Helene’s ‘My little book’ (Figure 1.9), rehearses the construction X’s name is …; whereas Julie wrote ‘The little rabbit family’ (Figure 1.10, p. 38) in her second year of English, after about 148 lessons.

Figure 1.9 Helene’s ‘My little book’

Stories and poems The activities that we have described in this chapter are undertaken by individual learners, although their production is sometimes part of a larger collaborative process. For example, Emrah and Helene, two learners in Grade 7 (third year of English, age 14; after approximately 330 lessons), decided to make a book of poems and stories. They worked individually on the texts that they contributed to the book, but always in consultation with each other, and their collaboration was embedded in TL talk. The collaborative process is reflected in three extracts from Emrah’s logbook. The first records the formation of new working groups and notes four characteristics of ‘good group work’, the result of brainstorming by the whole class: ‘Talk English’; ‘To be good friends’; ‘Everybody must do something, and do it together’; ‘That we learn much English of the thing we are doing’. The same extract also indicates the nature of the project Emrah is undertaking jointly

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Figure 1.10 Julie’s ‘The little rabbit family’

with Helene (‘make poetries and stories together’) and records his decision to devote part of his homework time to ‘ideas for our work’. The second extract shows work in progress (the poem ‘My brother’s cold death’) and, in ‘plans for tomorrow’, continuing commitment to the project: ‘Begin to write a new story for our book’. The third extract shows the project reaching its conclusion – ‘We have finished our book’ – and notes Emrah’s role in the presentation of the project to the rest of the class: ‘I am talking about what was good and what was bad.’ Helene’s role was to present one of the texts she had written, ‘Love at first sight’ (Figure 1.11). After the presentation their book was placed on a shelf in the classroom for others to read. Exploiting learners’ work in this way is a fundamental feature of the autonomy classroom and an important dimension of the collaborative construction of knowledge.

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Figure 1.11 Helene’s poem ‘Love at first sight’

Making a magazine This is a very popular activity that is closely related to the one we have just described. Once again it allows learners to exploit knowledge and experience they have acquired outside the classroom, in this case that of teen magazines and their likely thematic content. The magazine No Name was created by Anne Mette, Helene, Nanna and Michelle at the beginning of their fourth year of English (Grade 8, age 15). Each member of the group was individually responsible for a different article, but drafts were shared with the other members of the group. The teacher was involved in the process when the learners asked her to correct their drafts, and her feedback prompted Anne Mette to

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make a fair copy on her computer. The process of putting the magazine together can be followed in a series of entries in Anne Mette’s logbook, which provides a good example of a learning cycle: Monday, 21st August ’95. 1. Who to work with, and why? I’m going to work with Nanna, Michelle and Helene. We’re going to make a newspaper. 2. What to do? What? Why? Product. 3. Homework: Read in my book, and find ideas for articles for our newspaper. Tuesday, 22nd August. 1. Share homework with Nanna. She has read a story called The three bears. 2. Make a plan for our newspaper. 3. Read in my book…. 4. Comments on todays and yesterdays work: we found out what we are going to write about. 5. Homework: write a article about fashion, and read in my book ‘The narrow path’. Monday, 28th August. 1. Share homework with Nanna. Nanna has found some pictures to her article about models and fashion. 2. Write my article about fashion. 3. Homework: write about fashion. Tuesday, 29th August. 1. Share homework with Michelle. She has finished her article about Whigfield. 2. 2 minutes’ talk with Michelle. We talked about the Green day concert I went to yesterday. 3. Write a new article ’cause if I write about fashion I won’t use enough language. Some call them x-generation, others call them punkers. They wear a particular kind of clothing, it’s almost like a uniform. 4. Homework for Monday: Finish my article, and maybe write it on the computer. [Here she inserts her draft article] Monday, 4th September. 1. Share homework with Nanna. She has finished her article about Helena Christensen and written it on the computer. She has also read it aloud to me. 2. Leni has corrected my article about punkers and the x-generation.

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3. Find a new subject for an article. I’m going to write a article with Michelle about ‘Timm and Gordon’. 4. Homework: write my article on the computer and read in my book which is called ‘The narrow path’. Tuesday, 26th September Leni corrected some of our articles. There were a lot of mistakes, so I’m going to write them again on my computer. The magazine was presented to the class on the last day before the autumn holidays. At the back of the magazine the group had included a feedback sheet so that readers could give their comments. One entry reads as follows: DATE

READ BY

COMMENTS

23/10

Jacob and Emrah

I think it’s a good newspaper and a good idea to make a newspaper, with a lot of stof [stuff]. And it’s good because there are alot of English and you can learn alot from it.

Seven years later this activity was introduced to another class of 14 year olds. They were given No Name and other examples to provide them with a stimulus. This is what one member of the later class wrote on the feedback sheet attached to ‘No Name’: DATE READ BY

COMMENTS

18/03

I think it’s very good, because there is a lot of new words and a lot of good expressions in it. And it’s also a nice front page with many colours.

Anette Eriksen

Conclusion We began this chapter by stressing the importance of exploiting learners’ ‘action knowledge’ and sense of identity, which underpin their capacity for autonomous behaviour outside the classroom. We went on to explain why authentic TL use plays a central role in the autonomy classroom, and why writing is no less important than speaking. Then we illustrated some of the ways in which the teacher engages her learners in authentic TL use from the very first lesson, introducing them to activities that balance intentional learning with communicative text production. The use of logbooks and posters means that individual learning is always embedded in communal

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learning, which in turn feeds back into individual learning. Although we have largely concentrated in this chapter on the individual production of learning materials and TL texts, the collaborative nature of the autonomy classroom has always been in evidence. Learners share the materials they create (word cards, dominoes, picture bingo) and the texts they write (picture + text and small books); in some cases the texts they produce individually are contributions to a collaborative enterprise – a collection of stories and poems like the one compiled by Emrah and Helene, a newspaper or magazine. Indeed, both kinds of learner product achieve their full value only when they are drawn into the processes of collaborative knowledge construction, which is our concern in Chapter 2.

Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action •

•

•

• •

•

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In this chapter we summarize a number of arguments in favour of putting TL use at the very centre of language learning. It is probably true to say that the learners’ L1 (or the language of schooling) is used to a greater or lesser extent in the majority of language classrooms. When do you think use of the learners’ L1/language of schooling is justified, and why? And when should it be avoided? We share the view of those researchers who argue that explicit grammar teaching does not effectively promote acquisition of the TL. What role has explicit grammar teaching played in your language learning experience, and what do you think was its impact? Logbooks and posters play a central role in our approach. In our experience, however, the introduction of logbooks and posters presents considerable challenges. Would it be easy or difficult to introduce these tools in your context? If the latter, how could the difficulties be overcome? Try to think of at least three more ways in which you could help young beginners to make authentic use of the TL in the very early stages. What kinds of learning materials could intermediate or advanced learners produce? How, for example, could word cards, dominoes and picture lotto be adapted for use with university students? Consider also the kinds of TL text it would be appropriate for those students to produce. Try out as many as possible of the activities described in this chapter in a language with which you have some acquaintance but in which you are not fluent. If you can, do this with a partner so that you can discuss the processes involved. Consider the following argument, paying particular attention to the words we have italicized: ‘[Errors] are indispensable to the learner himself, because we can regard the making of errors as a device the learner uses in order to learn. It is a way the learner has of testing his hypotheses about the nature of the language he is learning. The making of errors then is a

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strategy employed both by children acquiring their mother tongue and by those learning a second language’ (Corder, 1967: 167). Now look again at the examples of learners’ work reproduced in this chapter. What evidence can you find to support Corder’s argument? Select and read one of the chapters in Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (Atkinson, 2011) or one of the articles included in our suggestions for further reading and make a list of discussion points that are directly related to the theoretical arguments and practical procedures presented in this chapter.

Further Reading There is a substantial literature on the need for education to respond to the interests and motivations that learners bring with them to the classroom, to accommodate their identity and their agency. Two books by Phillida Salmon, Psychology in the Classroom (1995) and Life at School (1998), develop general pedagogical arguments (from the perspective of Personal Construct Psychology) that coincide closely with the assumptions on which this chapter is based. The same may be said of two recent books by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, Out of our Minds (2nd edn, 2011) and Creative Schools (2015), and Ken Robinson’s TED talks, available on YouTube. It is impossible to work at the boundary between language teaching and applied linguistics without becoming aware of the large body of research that argues for and against the explicit teaching of TL grammar. A comprehensive summary is provided by Rod Ellis’s Understanding Second Language Acquisition (2nd edn, 2015), while John Truscott’s Consciousness and Second Language Learning (2014) offers an up-to-date version of the non-interface position. Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition, edited by Dwight Atkinson (2011), contains accessible introductions to recent theoretical and empirical work, much of which uses approaches that could easily be used to explore learning in the autonomy classroom. Merrill Swain’s (1985, 2000, 2005) ‘output hypothesis’ is especially relevant to the concerns of this chapter, as is David Olson’s (1991) argument that writing is necessarily a metalinguistic activity. Andy Clark’s (1998) article ‘Magic words: How language augments human computation’ discusses the relation between language and thought, writing and discursive thinking, in ways that have obvious resonance for L2 learning and the use of writing we have described in this chapter.

2

Interaction and Collaboration: The Dialogic Construction of Knowledge

Introduction Target language use in the autonomy classroom In Chapter 1 we were concerned with the role of target language (TL) use in the autonomy classroom. We argued that, in order to be an effective channel of learning, TL use should be spontaneous and authentic: spontaneous in the sense that it responds to the shifting demands of classroom communication; authentic in the sense that it reflects the learners’ priorities and preoccupations within the range of possibilities specified by the official curriculum. At the same time, we noted that the learners’ L1 has an indispensable role to play, especially in the early stages of learning. It is, after all, the involuntary medium of their discursive thinking and the necessary scaffold on which they gradually assemble the elements of the TL as an alternative code. In the discourse of the autonomy classroom, however, the role of the L1 is deliberately restricted in two ways. First, although at beginners’ level the teacher provides learners with translations from their L1 on request, from the very first lesson she herself communicates with them in the TL; secondly, the goal of all learning activities is some kind of TL production, which means that TL use is necessarily central to the learning process. We also argued that writing is as important as speaking. From the beginning the autonomy classroom engages learners in the production of texts that come from within themselves in the sense that they reflect their experience, interests and needs – for example, ‘About myself’ (Chapter 1, pp. 28–30); however, it also engages them in intentional learning activities – for example, the production of word cards, dominoes and picture lotto – the content of which is shaped by their own interests. As learners’ skills develop in creative text production and 44

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intentional learning activity, little by little they become proficient in three interacting roles: communicator, experimenter with language, and intentional learner. And as their proficiency in these roles grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between creative text production and intentional learning.

The role of interaction Although Chapter 1 was particularly concerned with TL use in relation to the individual learner, the learning activities we described and illustrated were all very explicitly embedded in a communal learning effort. Each learner’s logbook is unique to him- or herself, yet in compiling their logbooks all learners follow the same structure. Posters help to extend this common learning focus, as does the fact that learners must all try out the same learning activities at least once – word cards, dominoes and picture lotto, for example, as ways of learning vocabulary. What they create reflects their individuality, but it also enriches the learning of the class as a whole when it is made available to other learners. Even when learners are working together in pairs or smaller groups on projects that may take several weeks to complete, each lesson ends with a ‘together’ session for the whole class. This serves to remind them that, besides being individuals with a particular set of interests and priorities, or members of a group with defined responsibilities in relation to the project under development, they are also members of a class, a learning community that is pursuing a set of common learning goals in harmony with the curriculum guidelines. In other words, the autonomy classroom never loses sight of the fact that learning is a matter for the class as much as for the individual, and that the individual-cognitive dimension of learning contributes to but also feeds on the social-interactive dimension. In this chapter we focus on interaction in the autonomy classroom: through dialogic use of the TL, learners construct the knowledge that is their developing proficiency; and through dialogic use of the TL, the class as a whole establishes and constantly renews itself as a learning community.

Learning Through Dialogue Communication and learning It seems obvious enough that there can be no learning without communication. But what kind of communication results in the most effective L2 learning? In Chapter 1 we briefly discussed the role played by TL use in three mainstream approaches to language teaching; here we revisit those approaches from the perspective of classroom communication. For the grammar/translation approach, classroom communication is essentially a matter of transmitting information to learners in the form of

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grammatical rules and vocabulary items, and the medium of much of that communication is not the TL but the language of schooling. Learners are expected to master the rules and memorize the words by performing written exercises, and in this way gradually to assemble a mental toolkit that in due course they will be able to use to perform communicative tasks. For the audio-lingual approach, classroom communication consists of presenting sentence patterns and their transformations for practice, perhaps in a language laboratory or on a computer. Because the learners’ task is to develop new linguistic habits, theory claims that introspection, analysis and their L1 have no role to play (although materials and procedures informed by contrastive analysis seek to take account of differences between learners’ L1 and the TL). At the end of each unit, audio-lingual textbooks usually provide an opportunity to use the habits that should have been acquired, although communicative possibilities are necessarily constrained by the thematic and structural content of the unit in question. In many versions of the communicative approach, classroom communication is a matter of presenting learners with elements of a communicative toolkit, often organized according to themes and situations, and having them perform exercises and tasks designed to mimic real-world communication. Sometimes communication is illustrated by dialogues that are uncannily similar to the dialogues in audio-lingual textbooks. The extent to which the TL is the medium of classroom communication is highly variable. All three approaches share the assumption that language learning is a matter of first assembling the components of competence (defined differently by each approach) and then deploying them in performance. Errors are seen not as an inevitable part of learning but as obstacles to success, and no room is left for learners to hypothesize and experiment and thus outperform their competence. This is the opposite of what happens in child language acquisition, of course, which results from the child’s efforts to communicate; it is also the opposite of what happens in the autonomy classroom, where proficiency in the TL gradually emerges from TL use that moves backwards and forwards between creative text production and intentional learning.

Dialogue as exploratory talk As we explained in the Introduction, our first steps in the development of the approach presented in this book were to a large extent prompted by the work of Douglas Barnes. He challenged the assumption that teaching is simply a matter of transmitting knowledge to learners, but he did so from the perspective of schooling in general. In the second chapter of From Communication to Curriculum (1976), for example, he provides an extended analysis of three examples of exploratory talk, in a science lesson about air pressure, an English lesson that sets out to analyse a poem, and a history lesson about life in Saxon settlements. In each case the task is set up by the

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teacher but, because the learners are required to work collaboratively in small groups, they are able to bring their ‘action knowledge’ to bear on the ‘school knowledge’ they are presented with. Inevitably, some groups do this with more success than others. Because this communication takes place in the learners’ L1, however, Barnes is not concerned with language learning as such. In the Introduction (pp. 8–9) we referred to research reported by Barnes that placed language teachers close to the transmission end of a Transmission– Interpretation spectrum of teaching styles: ‘most teachers perceive themselves to have access to coherent and public bodies of knowledge which their pupils’ everyday experience does not give them access to’ (Barnes, 1976: 143). This view is diametrically opposed to the guiding belief of the autonomy classroom, that proficiency emerges from sustained efforts to use the TL in spontaneous and authentic communication.

The importance of working in groups Barnes (1976: 20) observed that ‘what [pupils] learn can often hardly be distinguished from the ability to communicate it’. Knowledge, after all, is not a collection of discrete elements that we store in memory and draw on as the need arises. How we learn and how we use and present what we know always involves complex structural relationships. This applies as much to L2 learning as it does to history, geography, science and maths. Current work in general pedagogy that is in line of descent from the work of Barnes and his colleagues in the 1970s has responded to this reality by insisting that knowledge is ‘socially constructed’ and ‘dialogic’ in its nature. Theories of ‘dialogic pedagogy’ have been particularly influenced by engagement with the work of two Russians: the psychologist Lev Vygotsky, and the philosopher and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin.

Vygotsky’s view of language, learning and thinking As we noted in the Introduction, Vygotsky’s sociocultural psychology claims that all higher mental functions – for example, remembering, reasoning, evaluating – are appropriated from social interaction (Vygotsky, 1998: 169). That is, children learn to perform these functions internally, on their own, by first performing them externally, in interaction with others. Vygotsky also argues that children follow a developmental path from social speech (speech with others), through egocentric speech (speech to and for themselves), to inner speech (in which ‘the word dies away and gives birth to thought’; Vygotsky, 1987: 280). It is important to stress that this is not an account of L1 acquisition but an explanation of the role of language in the development of thinking. Vygotsky’s arguments have been used to explore and explain the power of group work in classroom learning; when the goal of learning is proficiency in an L2, they may also be used to argue that group

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work carried out in the TL can promote processes of internalization that support the development of proficiency in the TL for metacognitive as well as communicative purposes.

The Zone of Proximal Development Recent pedagogical theory has also paid a great deal of attention to Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development, which he defined 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’ (Vygotsky, 1978: 86). According to this definition, the goal of development is behavioural autonomy, the ability to do things for oneself; and progress through each successive developmental zone is a matter of using the support of others to build on the autonomy already achieved. Vygotsky laid great emphasis on the role of ‘adult guidance’ or ‘more capable peers’. It is thus important to repeat here what we pointed out in the Introduction: research in cooperative learning has shown that groups of equally inexperienced learners are capable of helping one another through their current ZPD by performing tasks that no group member could perform alone (see, for example, Zuckerman, 2003: 194). It is important to recognize that not all learners will be at the same stage of development, and that weak learners will have something to contribute to the development of stronger learners. In classrooms, too great an insistence on ‘adult guidance’ (the teacher) can easily undermine the development of learner autonomy by constraining the exploratory processes that generate knowledge. What is more, in our experience the effectiveness of group work is not enhanced by insisting that groups include learners of different ability levels (Kagan, 1994) or forming them according to criteria designed to ‘maximize heterogeneity and diversity of perspectives’ (Cuseo, 1992: 5). We discuss the formation of groups in the autonomy classroom in Chapter 3.

Bakhtin’s concept of dialogue While Vygotsky emphasized the role of mediation in human development and learning, a never-ending interaction between the social-interactive and individual-cognitive domains, Bakhtin was concerned with dialogue not just as a feature of individual communicative events but as the structure that links together infinitely many events. As Alexander (2008a: 138) has put it, for Bakhtin dialogue is ‘more pervasive than talk alone’, ‘encompasses the interaction of minds and ideas as well as words’, ‘transcends the boundaries of time, space and culture’ and ‘entails imagination, empathy and the making of connections’ (Alexander, 2008a: 138).

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Wells (2009) has pointed out that combining Bakhtin’s emphasis on dialogism with Vygotsky’s emphasis on mediation via social interaction generates two key insights: First, when I contribute to joint meaning making with others, I also make meaning for myself and, in the process, extend my own understanding, both through the process of discovering what I think and want to say and through the feedback I receive in the responses of my interlocutors. And second, the dialogue I have with others can be internalized and the search for understanding continued in the dialogue of what Vygotsky […] called ‘inner speech’. […] [T]hese insights taken together make a compelling case for reconceptualizing learning and teaching in terms of a dialogue of collaborative knowledge building. (Wells, 2009: 269) Wells is referring here to teaching and learning in which the medium of communication is the language of schooling. In the autonomy classroom, by contrast, collaborative knowledge building is the product of spontaneous and authentic L2 use. In other words, the TL itself is the principal tool of learning and the medium through which the learners’ agency is channelled.

The collaborative construction of knowledge: A practical example Here is an uncorrected text written collaboratively by four Danish learners – Lars, Pia, Sanne and Thomas – in their fourth year of English. The activity was to write ‘Our own story’. The Martian with the magic stick Before we start the story, we would like to describe what a martian looks like. It is green with a pink nose and about 3 foot tall. On the top of its head it has 4 transparent antennaes, which have the same function as a compass. Well, let’s start the story: One early morning a flying saucer landed on the top of the Statue of Liberty. Out of the saucer cam our martian, with the magic stick in his hand. It was send to the Earth, because of the pollution. It had to finish its job, which was to make the world clean, before evening. First he went to Central Park. Suddenly a man jumped out of a bush. “Oh, it’s you, mr. Bush. I saw you last night in spacevision”. Mr Bush: “I have read your thoughts, martian. We don’t want you to clean our world. So just (beep) of, and leave us alone”. And so the martian did, and that’s why our world is still polluted.

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In order to generate this text the four learners had to engage in sustained dialogue which in this case was recorded for subsequent analysis. Here are four examples of the way in which their negotiation proceeded. First, the opening sentence of the text – ‘Before we start the story, we would like to describe what a martian looks like’ – resulted from the following exchanges: Sanne: Lars: Pia: Sanne: Thomas: Sanne: Pia: Sanne: Thomas: Sanne: Thomas: Lars: Pia: Lars: Sanne: Thomas: Pia: Thomas: Pia: Sanne: Lars:

Once upon a time. No. No. What, what… That’s a fairy tale. Hmm, but what, what if we say, says it in, in another way. Hmm. Once upon a time, not once upon a time but once in the future. No. You can’t say that. (?) Ehm. We can as a first describe him how he looks. Hmm. Before we start the story we would like to describe how a Martian look like. Hmm, right. Great. Fine. Has he got a name? (?) [laughing] Right. What? Before … [dictating] Before we start the story we would like to des- [typing]

Secondly, the collaborative production of a story requires not just the negotiation of narrative structure and content but agreement on matters of linguistic form. This is how the phrase ‘what a martian looks like’ was decided on: Pia: Sanne: … Lars: Pia: Sanne: Lars: Sanne: Pia:

Describe how a Martian look. How … How ‘a’ or how ‘the’? ‘a’ How a Martian eh … looks like. Then you can write ‘what a Martian looks like’ Yeah.

Note that these exchanges also engage with the challenge of indefinite versus definite reference in English. Thirdly, the words needed by the group are not

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always immediately available. The Martian arrives by flying saucer, but that word must be prompted by ‘flying plate’: Sanne: Lars: Sanne: Lars: Pia: Sanne:

One hot summer day a (?) Space, ahSpaceship ButBut they have plates to fly on. Hm, a flying plate. [laughter] Lars: No, they don’t call it like that. I don’t remember what they call it. Pia: I think we better have to look it up. Sanne: No. Lars: Hm. No, flying saucers; they call it flying saucers.

Fourthly, the process of negotiation also leads to reflection on an oddity of English idiom (‘I saw you last night …’): Sanne: It’s funny it’s called ‘night’ when it’s not night, it’s afternoon (eh)? Lars: It’s evening. Sanne: It’s evening, well, it’s called ‘night’ Pia: I saw you last night. Sanne: This evening in … Pia: in space-vision As these examples show, collaborative goal-oriented activity requires that learners externalize questions, doubts and uncertainties that might remain internal in a solo version of the same activity. In doing so they weave a rich linguistic fabric; when the goal of their activity is production of a TL text, their efforts to reach agreement necessarily generate a focus on form. In this way intentional, analytic learning becomes an integral part of creative text production and the dichotomies of more traditional approaches – language learning versus language use, form-focused exercise versus meaning-focused task, pedagogical task versus communicative task – cease to have meaning.

The autonomy classroom as a community of practice The examples presented in this book, whether produced by beginners or intermediate learners of English, are all testimony to successful learning. From the perspective of L2 acquisition research, that success might be explained partly in terms of multiple forms of linguistic scaffolding: the teacher for the whole class, the teacher for individual learners, learners for one another when working in pairs or groups. It might also be explained with reference to the

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notion of ‘pushed output’ (Swain, 1985), that is, the TL produced by learners when they are under pressure to perform. Both explanations imply that there is more to language learning than the solo effort of the individual learner. What that ‘more’ might consist of is suggested by research that takes a ‘collectivist’ or ‘societal’ perspective on the ZPD and tends to concentrate on processes of social transformation (cf. Lave & Wenger, 1991: 49). It is not simply that learners in the autonomy classroom are developing individually under the stimulus of the various forms of social interaction that the approach generates: their learning constantly transforms them collectively, as a learning community.

Situated learning According to Lave and Wenger (1991), the most effective learning is situated learning governed by the principle of legitimate peripheral participation: individuals gradually become full members of a community of practice via processes that draw them from the periphery to the centre, from novice to expert status. The paradigm case of such learning is apprenticeship. Seen from this standpoint, all forms of schooling face the problem that they are remote from communities of practice. Schools teach physics and history, for example, at a distance from practising physicists or historians, and they teach languages separately from their contexts of use and sometimes at a great distance from communities of native speakers. In these circumstances the best that traditional L2 pedagogies can manage is an encounter with the TL that remains largely external to the learner. Whether teaching is based on a textbook or the use of authentic texts, it starts from the assumption that the language is ‘out there’, and the most it can hope to achieve is a fragmentary mastery of linguistic information and communicative process that learners can build on later, when they come into contact with the TL community.

The autonomy classroom as a self-transforming community of practice A pedagogy based on the principle of learner autonomy, on the other hand, can achieve much more. To the extent that it succeeds in giving learners a sense of individual and collective responsibility for their learning and an understanding that language use is the only path to success in language learning, it can create a self-transforming community of practice. With guidance from the teacher, such a community can gradually develop in communicative proficiency and linguistic competence. All learning is ‘from the inside out’, since it comes from within the individual language learner and the collective activity of the learning community. ‘The Martian with the magic stick’ provides an illustration of this process at the micro level. The constant interaction between the individual and group learning experience described in the logbooks and the analysis of this experience during ‘together’ sessions (often captured on posters) ensures that the same process exists at

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the macro level. The dialogue that produced the text about the Martian is just one link in a ‘complexly organized chain of other utterances’, to borrow Bakhtin’s phrase (1986: 69; cf. pp. 48–49, above). That chain of utterances is what gives the autonomy classroom life as a community of practice, an authentic language community in its own right.

Learning as ‘transformation of participation’ Drawing on the work of Lave and Wenger, Rogoff et al. distinguish between theories of learning that are one-sided, focusing exclusively either on transmission of knowledge by teachers or on acquisition of knowledge by learners, and theories that treat learning as a ‘community process of transformation of participation’ (Rogoff et al., 1996: 388, emphasis in original). Their description of a classroom functioning as a community of learners also serves as a description of the autonomy classroom and thus provides a fitting conclusion to this introductory discussion of interaction and collaboration: Instead of a teacher attempting to address and manage many students as one recipient of instruction, trying to treat them as a unit, the organization involves a community working together with all serving as resources to the others, with varying roles according to their understanding of the activity at hand and differing (and shifting) responsibilities in the system. (Rogoff et al., 1996: 397)

Interactive and Collaborative Learning Activities Getting learners to work and talk collaboratively If learners are to interact authentically with one another in the TL they must feel safe, accepted and respected; in other words, they must be comfortable working in pairs and small groups. And if their previous classroom experience has not included pair and group work for which they themselves are responsible, they need to acquire basic skills of joint focus and collaboration. A first step in developing those skills in TL communication is to give them simple non-threatening tasks to perform in pairs. For example, they can try to come up with as many TL words as possible in, say, 10 minutes. In the following example the learners themselves transformed a very simple task into a more sophisticated activity by adopting two rules: B must respond to A with an item in the same semantic field, and A must respond to B with a typical collocation: A: dog A: black A: fruit A: juice

B: cat B: orange B: apple B: milk

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Another easily administered task that can be performed in pairs is the production of a ‘word snake’, in which each word after the first begins with the last letter of the preceding word: dog, green, no, open, nose, and so on. In order to make them aware of reading strategies and to show them that two heads working together often understand a great deal more than two heads working separately, learners can be given a TL text that is too difficult for them and asked to see how much of it they can understand. In the seventh week of English, for example, one class was given a text explaining how to use the Michelin pedestrian reflector: How to use the MICHELIN reflector Michelin high quality pedestrian reflectors can be carried in your pocket ready to use when needed. Fasten the pin to your pocket so that the reflector hangs at low level and can swing freely. It is then visible to traffic from both directions. Safety facts – a driver with dipped headlights sees a pedestrian without a reflector only at a distance of approximately 20 to 30 metres – with a Michelin reflector a pedestrian is seen at 150 metres When they had completed the task, learners were asked to note in their logbooks how much of the text they thought they had understood and what they had done in their attempt to understand the text. Here are some of their comments (translated from Danish): Susan:

A little. But we are not that good. Worked together and found a few Danish words. Anja: We understood only 20 words. We think we could recognize the words from Danish. Jannie: I understood a lot of the text. We talked about all the words. I read the text aloud for Luise in English and then Luise had to say it in Danish. Karsten: I think that we understood it all. We found words and in the end we found a connection. Birgitte: We understood nearly all of it. We read it aloud and put a line under the words that we understood and tried to say it in Danish. These comments reflect a wide range of ability; besides informing us about the learners’ insights into reading strategies, they also reveal their awareness of collaborative effort. The reading strategies included in the comments were collected on a poster entitled ‘Things we can do in order to understand a text’.

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Two minutes’ talk We have made the point several times that the autonomy classroom does not ban the use of the learners’ L1, especially in the early stages, always provided that the goal of their learning activity is the comprehension or production of the TL in speech or writing. At the same time, however, it is essential to encourage learners to make as much use as possible of the proficiency they already have in the TL (cf. the activities for pair work described above), and in this way to use the TL as a channel of authentic communication. The importance of engaging pairs of learners in authentic TL dialogue cannot be overstated, for their developing capacity to use the TL spontaneously to express meanings that are unique to them is their most useful cognitive tool when it comes to learning the TL. ‘Two minutes’ talk’ has proved an effective way of doing this, and it is an activity that is easy to organize. At the beginning of a lesson – at all proficiency levels – the learners spend a few minutes talking in pairs about things of interest to them. In their logbooks they record what they talked about and with whom, as well as new words they learned. Among the topics discussed by learners in Grade 7 (third year of English, age 14) and noted in their logbooks were: the weekend; today; the play that the group was writing; ‘our bicycle with only one wheel’; our holidays; girls; what to do as a teenager. When the activity is introduced at beginners’ level, learners can create a simple scale from 0 to 2 minutes, perhaps divided into twelve 10-second segments, and mark on it how long they manage to keep going – they are competing with themselves, not with their conversation partner. A poster captures what their experience suggests are essential features of ‘A good talk’ (Figure 2.1, p. 56). Three extracts from recordings of ‘Two minutes’ talk’ illustrate the authenticity of this activity. These recordings were made for research purposes (cf. Chapter 5), but it is worth noting that learners may sometimes record themselves in order to have evidence that they can refer to subsequently. The recording facility on mobile phones has made it easy to do this. The first extract is taken from a conversation between two learners who (unlike all other learners whose work is quoted in this chapter) started English in Grade 4 (age 10+) and had been learning English for about six months (70 lessons). It shows that when classroom talk is authentic, even beginners find themselves negotiating issues of correct linguistic form: Jonas: Daniel: Jonas: Daniel: Jonas: Daniel: Jonas: Daniel:

What did you do yesterday? I, yesterday, I have (.) play a football with my little brothers. All right. (..) Little brothers? Have you more than one? (2sec) What? Have you more (?). One little brother? Yes You say ‘little brothers’. (?) One little brother. Oh, only one.

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Figure 2.1 Poster summarizing features of ‘A good talk’

The second extract is from a conversation between two boys in Grade 6 (second year of English, age 12), who had been learning English for 17 months: Lars: What should we talk about, Karsten? Karsten: I don’t know, we could talk about our music group ‘Big Engine’. Lars: Yeah, that’s a good idea – Karsten: I think it’s fun. Now we have to play, ah, record our tape. Lars: Yeah, the first time. Karsten: Yes, it’s very exciting. I have made a cover to our tape at home. Lars: That one you showed me? Karsten: Yes. Lars: The only thing it’s beautiful. Karsten: Beautiful? Lars: Yes. Karsten: It’s lovely. (Laughing) Lars: I think it’s good, too. Karsten: Yes. Our third extract occurred in a conversation between the two weakest learners in the same class: Dennis: … What did … what should you do today? Lasse: Today I erm I shall have my birthday. Dennis: Have you birthday today?

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Lasse: Yes. Dennis: Happy birthday. Lasse: Thank you. So I should home and … and … and make … made a cake to my … Dennis: Birthday cake? Lasse: Cake, yes, so I should have this cake and … so to … afternoon my uh my friend is coming and my Dad and Mum’s friend is coming too, so I should have birthday [?]. Two things make this talk authentic: it is concerned with the learners’ present reality – when Lasse reveals that it is his birthday, Dennis immediately wishes him a happy birthday – and it possesses a key structural feature of ‘real life’ talk: the topic of birthday is developed to include the making of a birthday cake and the guests who will attend the birthday party. This conversation also provides an illustration of authentic meaning making: although it is Lasse who expands on the topic of birthday, Dennis supplies ‘birthday cake’, which helps to sharpen the topic focus. The conversation is also authentic in the sense that Dennis is listening to Lasse and is ready to support him by completing his sentences for him: clear evidence that he is collaboratively involved. This aspect of communication in the autonomy classroom is discussed further in Chapter 5.

Talking in groups: Talking cards The activity ‘Talking in groups’ is an extension of ‘Two minutes’ talk’ and involves three or more learners. Here too learners can keep a record of how long they are able to maintain a conversation or discussion; they can also make a list of the strategies they notice themselves using in order to keep the conversation going. In some groups finding something to talk about is never a problem, but in others getting started may be more of a challenge. One way of coping with this is to let each learner produce two or three ‘talking cards’, which are placed in a pile in the middle of the table and used as topics for conversation. After they have been used, the cards are placed in an envelope like dominoes and picture lotto and added to the learning resources available to the whole class. Topics can be fairly general and randomly chosen or concerned with particular subjects. Each time learners use the ‘talking cards’ they must add a new one, so that the collection becomes a gradually expanding learning resource that reflects the interests and preoccupations of individual learners as well as the learning community as a whole. Topics added by members of one class included: a computer game; indoor soccer; the school; football; yesterday/today; animals; our names/family; the Polish guests. It is worth noting that ‘talking cards’ have proved especially effective with adult immigrants learning the language of the host community and needing to focus on a range of different TL scenarios; also that working with talking cards involves writing as well as speaking.

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Making discussion points for a text ‘Making discussion points for a text’ is an extension of ‘talking cards’ and can be introduced as soon as learners start reading texts. In traditional practice it is the teacher who devises questions to test her learners’ comprehension of a text they have read. Such questions are also a common feature of textbooks. In the autonomy classroom, however, the learners devise their own questions and discussion points. This activity can be applied to texts that the learners choose for themselves or texts that the curriculum requires them to read for official exams. Individual learners may formulate questions and discussion points for homework, then pool their efforts for group discussion when ‘sharing homework’ at the beginning of the next lesson. When a group of learners has finished working on a text, their questions and discussion points can be placed in an envelope and used by other learners reading the same text, either for comparison with their own questions and discussion points or as a stimulus. A group of learners in Grade 9 (age 15+) read O. Henry’s short story ‘The Last Leaf’. Here are some of the (uncorrected) questions formulated by individual learners: • • • • • • • •

Why does old Behrmann not have any success as a painter? Why did Behrmann paint the leaf on the wall? Do you think that the 10 first lines fit into the story? Why/why not? Do you think Johnsy looked out the window at the Ivy because she knew Sue was going to die? Why do you think that the story is called the last leaf. Would you like to live like Sue and why no/yes. Why did Behrmann paint the last leaf falling of the tree? What do you think of Johnsy’s way of thinking about her death?

The questions reflect learners’ individual interpretations of the text and provide an authentic basis for group discussion. Teacher questions, by contrast, often serve a controlling function and lead to a question-and-answer exchange between the teacher and individual learners rather than to discussion among groups of learners or the whole class. Requiring learners to formulate their own questions can also improve their awareness of what constitutes a good question. When discussing their own questions, they can put on one side as ‘bad questions’ any that stimulate less than one minute’s talk and then consider how they can be turned into ‘good questions’.

Collaborative text production According to the literature on task-based learning, L2 proficiency develops when learners work together on tasks that require a focus on meaning, are related to ‘real life’, have a clearly defined outcome, and entail problem

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solving (cf. Skehan, 1998). The difference between the autonomy classroom and a conventional task-based learning environment is that our learners choose their own tasks and define their own goals within the curriculum guidelines, and the problems they are called on to solve arise naturally from the decisions they have taken. Collaborative writing provides a good example of this, especially when learners’ dialogic interaction generates written text as with ‘The Martian with the magic stick’ (pp. 49–51).

Writing and performing short plays An activity closely related to writing stories is writing and performing short plays. Our first example of this activity is Oh no!!!!!, which was written by four learners in Grade 5 (age 11+) when they were about two months into their first year of learning English. They began to work on the play on 26 October. Figure 2.2 shows an extract from Karsten’s logbook for 11 November: work is progressing with Lars, Morten, Lasse and Helene; the three new words that Karsten has written down all occur in the play; and his judgement of the day’s lesson is positive because ‘vi nåede en hel del’ (‘we did a great deal’). Note that he is working not only on the play but on a small book (cf. the examples presented in Chapter 1, Figures 1.9 and 1.10, pp. 37 and 38). The final text of the play is reproduced in Figure 2.3 (pp. 60–61). The group performed the play twice, to their own class and to a Grade 6 class. Afterwards the script was given to the class as reading material. The

Figure 2.2 Page from Karsten’s logbook

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Figure 2.3 A play about bullying written by beginners in English

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Figure 2.3 (Continued) A play about bullying written by beginners in English

judgement of the performance that Birgitte wrote in her logbook is not entirely positive: ‘It was OK. But I think they talked far too fast and you couldn’t really hear what they said’ (translated from Danish). Even at this stage learners are able to give their peers critical but constructive feedback.

Focus on linguistic form and dialogic structure When learners collaborate on the production of written dialogue they must pay explicit attention to formal matters as in all writing tasks, but they must also reflect on pragmatic and structural features of dialogue: appropriateness and turn-taking, for example. This is one reason why writing plays is a highly valued activity in the autonomy classroom. Another reason is that when they write and perform plays, learners create and speak their own roles, which is a variety of authentic TL use. This is a world apart from traditional forms of role play, which often require learners to act out roles that lie beyond their experience.

Collaborative text production as a way of exploring prescribed texts Collaborative text production can also be a way of exploring poems and stories that the curriculum guidelines require learners to read. For example, a Grade 9 class (age 15; fifth year of English) turned a poem entitled ‘Romance’ into a short play. In English they decided on the number of scenes, their titles (‘At the party’, ‘Along the railway’, ‘Queuing at the fish-and-chips

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shop’, etc.), the characters involved, and so on, before negotiating and writing down the script of the play. Figure 2.4 shows an extract from the play transcribed from the logbook of one of the learners.

Figure 2.4 Excerpt from a play based on the poem ‘Romance’

From story to play Another possibility is that the whole class turns a story into a play. For younger learners stories or fairy tales that they already know in their first language have proved very useful for this purpose, for example, ‘The Tinderbox’ and ‘The Princess and the Pea’ by Hans Christian Andersen. The class forms groups, each group writes one section of the play, and then the various sections are put together and the actors are chosen for the different roles. To ensure that all learners take part in the performance of the play, it may be necessary for some of the roles to be shared. Figure 2.5 shows the first part of a play written by a Grade 6 class (age 12; second year of English). The play was performed for their parents as well as parallel classes.

From word cards to board games In Chapter 1 we explained that making word cards is among the first intentional learning activities that the teacher introduces in the autonomy classroom (see pp. 31–33). As they progress from word cards to dominoes and then to picture lotto, all of which they think of as games, some learners still in the early stages of learning English may be inspired to make board games following models they are already familiar with. It is an

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Figure 2.5 Excerpt from a play based on ‘The Princess and the Pea’

ambitious undertaking to imagine the process that the game embodies and then to capture it on a board and in a set of accompanying materials and rules. It is a doubly ambitious undertaking, of course, when the production of a board game is simultaneously a language learning activity. In addition to the learning stimulated by making the game, other members of the class can learn by playing it. Sometimes a game is developed by one learner working alone; it may, for example, be a homework project that stretches over a number of weeks. Normally, however, board games are the product of collaboration in pairs or in groups. Coming up with the basic design as

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well as the rules and materials involved in the game demands a lot of interaction and communication. At beginners’ level this may take place partly in the learners’ L1, but all elements of the product must be in the TL. The development of the game is a dialogic process in Bakhtin’s broader sense: a successful outcome depends on each participant expecting ‘response, agreement, sympathy, objection, execution, and so forth’ (Bakhtin, 1986: 69). Playing board games also requires collaboration: participants must be willing not only to play but to abide by the rules. In this way even games produced by individual learners contribute to the collaborative construction of knowledge. The following examples show a high level of creativity. Our first example is ‘The Shopping Center’, which was devised by learners in their second year of English (Grade 6, age 12+). The board (Figure 2.6) shows the layout of the shopping centre. The objective is straightforward: to be the first to get from the entrance to the exit. Players progress through the shopping centre by throwing a dice. If they land on a shaded square they must turn up a card that will either speed up or obstruct their progress, for example: • • • • • •

you see a boy he is crying he can’t find his mother. make an extra throw you are eating an ice cream without paying go 3 steps back you hear, it is closing time make an extra throw you fell in a banana-peel. Wait a turn you are going the wrong way wait 2 turns you see some clothes make a fashion show you have 10 sec. the other players will decide the points make it fair

Figure 2.6 The Shopping Center

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Players can choose which way they go at each junction unless they land on the square at the junction itself; then they must answer a general knowledge question correctly in order to proceed. Encouraged by ‘The Shopping Center’, which was made, played and evaluated in class, another learner (Grade 6, age 12+; towards the end of the second year of English) made ‘The Restaurant Game’ as an individual

Figure 2.7 The Restaurant Game

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homework project, which was then brought to school and played in class. The game is for three players, Elisabeth, Mary and Nancy, and the object is to be the first to get from their home to the restaurant to dine with a rich and handsome man (Figure 2.7). Progress is again determined by the throw of a dice and, when players land on a square with a question mark, by the instructions on the card they turn up. The game is ironic in its conception, inventive in the rewards and penalties written on the cards, and fully functional. The production of board games appeals particularly to young learners in the first years of learning English, but it is also an activity that is sometimes chosen by older learners (even some adults like to devise and play board games). Our last example, ‘The Great Quest for Captain Claw’s Treasure’, was produced by learners in their fourth year of English (Grade 8, age 14+). Their greater maturity is reflected in the complexity of the game (Figure 2.8) and the sophisticated style in which the rules are framed (Figure 2.9). The variety of questions is determined by the personal interests of the learners but also reflects curricular demands at this level (Figure 2.10). The capital letters on the board refer to the different categories of question: Nature, History, Sport, Language, Entertainment, Geography, Special Questions, Mixed Questions.

Figure 2.8 The Great Quest for Captain Claw’s Treasure

Interac t ion and Coll aborat ion

Figure 2.9 The Great Quest for Captain Claw’s Treasure – rules

Figure 2.10 The Great Quest for Captain Claw’s Treasure – sample questions

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Conclusion In the first part of this chapter we discussed the relation between communication and learning with reference to the work of Douglas Barnes, the sociocultural psychology of Lev Vygotsky, and the extended concept of dialogue elaborated by Mikhail Bakhtin, and we went on to consider the autonomy classroom as a community of practice. We then presented and illustrated learning activities calculated to promote the collaborative construction of knowledge: activities that introduce beginners to collaborative work; activities that require them to talk – ‘Two minutes’ talk’, talking cards and discussion questions; and activities that combine talking and writing in a variety of ways – producing creative texts, writing and performing plays, creating and playing board games. All of these activities assume that learning results from the performance of tasks. Unlike conventional task-based approaches, however, collaborative learning in the autonomy classroom is learner directed. The message of this chapter may be summarized thus: learner-directed project work requires interaction and the sharing of ideas, which is authentic communication as we have defined it; this may lead to a division of labour, which leads to information gaps, which leads to further authentic communication, which leads to the collaborative construction of knowledge. In Chapter 3 we consider the issue of learner control in greater detail.

Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action •

•

•

In our discussion of the work of Douglas Barnes we referred to his exploration of Transmission and Interpretation teaching styles (p. 47, above). Where on the Transmission–Interpretation spectrum would you place: (1) your experience as a language learner and (2) your practice as a language teacher? Give reasons for your answer. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) model of apprenticeship assumes that learning is a matter of gradual transition from novice to expert. In the autonomy classroom, however, all learners are experts in some things and novices in others, although not in respect of the same interests, knowledge and skills. That explains why in group work they can support one another through their current Zone of Proximal Development. How could you explore this in your own classroom? Robin Alexander (2008b: 105) has proposed that dialogic teaching should be ‘collective’, ‘reciprocal’, ‘supportive’, ‘cumulative’ and ‘purposeful’. To what extent do the learning activities presented in this chapter possess the same features?

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• •

• •

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We have argued that one of the merits of collaborative text production is that it inevitably generates a focus on form. Can you think of any other merits it possesses? Test your answer by working with a fellow student or colleague to produce text collaboratively in a language that you both know, but only slightly. Analyse your experience with reference to our discussion in this chapter. Some teachers have dismissed as a waste of time the creation of board games like those presented in this chapter. How would you defend this learning activity in the face of such criticism? Two common objections to group work in the L2 classroom are (1) that some learners do more work than others and (2) that learners do not use the TL to communicate with one another. How could you use the activities presented in this chapter to argue against these objections? How would you adapt the activities presented in this chapter for use with a class of adult learners, e.g. university students, immigrants? Read one of the contributions to Exploring Talk in School (Mercer & Hodgkinson, 2008), all of which are concerned with talk that is carried out in the language of schooling. With the arguments and examples presented in this chapter in mind, consider how far the talk under analysis can be replicated in an L2 classroom. Select one of the texts suggested for further reading. Agree with a colleague or fellow student that you will each read it and make a list of discussion points. When you have completed the activity, compare your discussion points. What are the similarities and differences? How would you explain them?

Further Reading Douglas Barnes’s (1976) From Communication to Curriculum is currently out of print, but we strongly recommend that you ask your local library service to secure a copy so that you can read it. When you have done so, you should go on to Communication and Learning Revisited, by Douglas Barnes and Frankie Todd (1995). The work of Barnes and his colleagues in the 1970s had a strong impact on more recent research on collaborative talk in classrooms, which has also come under the influence of Vygotsky and Bakhtin. Exploring Talk in School (Mercer & Hodgkinson, 2008) includes a summary by Robin Alexander of his version of ‘dialogic pedagogy’. More detailed exploration of classroom talk, supported by extensive analysis of empirical data, is provided by Neil Mercer in The Guided Construction of Knowledge (1995), Neil Mercer and Karen Littleton in Dialogue and the Development of Children’s Thinking: A Sociocultural Approach (2007), and Gordon Wells in The Meaning Makers: Learning to Talk and Talking to Learn (2nd edn, 2009). All of these are concerned with talk carried out in the language of schooling.

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In the empirical exploration of L2 acquisition, the research that began with Michael Long’s early work on the ‘interaction hypothesis’ (Long, 1981) has focused on L2 talk, but usually without a strong emphasis on learners’ interests, motivations and agency. Alison Mackey’s Input, Interaction and Corrective Feedback (2012) provides a recent overview of research in this paradigm, which is also concerned with the impact of corrective feedback on L2 development. Etienne Wenger’s Communities of Practice (1998) provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory of situated learning. ‘Models of teaching and learning: Participation in a community of learners’, by Barbara Rogoff, Eugene Matusov and Cynthia White (in Olson & Torrance’s Handbook of Education and Human Development, 1996) explores the theory’s application to learning at school.

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Letting Go and Taking Hold: Giving Control to the Learners

Introduction The nature and origin of learner autonomy: A reminder In the Introduction we explained that for us language learner autonomy is a special case of learner autonomy, and we followed Edward Deci (1996) in arguing that learner autonomy responds to a universal human need and exploits a universal human capacity. In other words, for us autonomy is a cultural value because it is a matter of how we manage our own behaviour (cf. Ryan & Deci, 2006: 1558). The exercise of learner autonomy in the L2 classroom requires, of course, that learners become skilled in managing their own learning. But it also requires that we acknowledge and build on the capacity for autonomous behaviour they bring with them, which means finding ways of using their existing knowledge and interests to support the acquisition of proficiency in a new language.

The key role of target language use In Chapter 1 we began our exploration of the procedures of the autonomy classroom by focusing on the role of the TL. We did so because in our view language learner autonomy entails that from the very beginning the TL itself is the channel through which, as far as possible, the learner’s agency should flow: autonomous language learners should use the TL to plan, monitor and evaluate their learning. We discussed TL use chiefly from the perspective of the individual learner: how his or her interests and knowledge, experience and sense of identity can be drawn into the complementary and sometimes overlapping activities of intentional learning and creative text production, both of which also generate substantial amounts of incidental learning. 71

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The role of interaction in learning This is not to say, however, that the autonomy classroom views learning as an exclusively individual phenomenon. On the contrary. The word cards, dominoes and picture lotto described in Chapter 1 are shared with other learners, who thus have an opportunity to benefit from the interests and effort of their peers, engaging with words and phrases that they might not otherwise have encountered. Also, as we explained in the Introduction, our thinking about learner autonomy and the role of ‘old knowledge’ in the language classroom was stimulated by the pioneering work of Douglas Barnes (1976) on the relation between communication, especially exploratory talk, and learning. Accordingly, Chapter 2 was concerned with the role played by dialogic communication in the development of TL proficiency and explored some of the ways in which the agency of the individual learner contributes to the collaborative agency that characterizes successful pair and group work.

What this chapter is about: Learner self-management The activities that we described in Chapters 1 and 2 require learners to make choices and exercise responsibility and control. In this chapter we are concerned with their developing capacity to manage their own learning. We share the majority view that learner self-management is the very essence of learner autonomy. But, as we explained in the Introduction, we differ from the majority in our insistence that choice, responsibility, control, reflection and evaluation – all dimensions of the learner’s agency – should be channelled as far as possible through the TL. For that is how we ensure that our learners’ developing TL proficiency acquires a fully integrated metacognitive dimension: the TL gradually becomes an instrument of discursive thinking and reflection as well as a medium of communication. If we fail to develop this metacognitive dimension, our learners will find it difficult to progress beyond a communicative repertoire that consists largely of rote-learned chunks of language. We begin the chapter by focusing on matters of principle, referring briefly to relevant research in order to build on the discussion in the Introduction. Then we describe classroom procedures, illustrating them with examples drawn from learners’ logbooks and from posters created either by the teacher or by groups of learners.

Arguments for Giving the Learners Control Learner involvement: Interest, identity and motivation According to the American philosopher and educational theorist John Dewey, we involve learners in the educational process by capturing, feeding and further developing their interest. But as Green (1996: 64) has pointed out,

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by ‘interest’ Dewey meant much more than ‘a momentary kind of attentiveness or curiosity’. In Democracy and Education (1916), he wrote that ‘self and interest are two names for the same fact; the kind and amount of interest actively taken in a thing reveals and measures the quality of selfhood which exists’ (Dewey, 1997/1916: 352). With schooling explicitly in mind, Dewey added that ‘it is interest in the occupation as a whole – that is, in its continuous development – which keeps a pupil at his work in spite of temporary diversions and unpleasant obstacles’ (1997/1916: 353). In other words, when learners’ interest (or identity) is fully engaged, they find within themselves the motivational resources to maintain their commitment to learning, whatever external setbacks they may encounter. This is another way of elaborating the principle of learner involvement that we discussed in the Introduction.

Intrinsic motivation Self-determination theory makes essentially the same point, replacing Dewey’s notion of ‘interest’ with the concept of intrinsic motivation, defined as ‘the inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s capacities, to explore, and to learn’ (Ryan & Deci, 2000: 70). As Deci and Ryan (1985) argue, Intrinsic motivation is in evidence whenever students’ natural curiosity and interest energize their learning. When the educational environment provides optimal challenges, rich sources of stimulation, and a context of autonomy, this motivational wellspring of learning is likely to flourish. (Deci & Ryan, 1985: 245) Note that Deci and Ryan link intrinsic motivation and its nurture to the idea of autonomy: when learners have the sense that they are in control, they will learn more willingly and more effectively than otherwise. In a similar vein, Bruner proposes that learning is its own reward when it can be approached ‘as a task of discovering something rather than “learning about” it’ – ‘there will be a tendency for the child to work with the autonomy of self-reward’ (Bruner, 1962: 88); while van Lier (1996) argues that there is a close link between autonomy in the sense of individual agency and intrinsic motivation.

External motivation Important though intrinsic motivation is, however, it is not the whole story. As Deci and Ryan (1985: 261) point out, if learners’ motivation is exclusively intrinsic, there is a risk that they will concentrate on what interests them and ignore what does not, whereas education seeks to recruit their interest for areas of knowledge that they might not otherwise encounter or engage with. To this end educational systems impose curricular requirements and use

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exams and other forms of assessment to determine the extent to which those requirements have been met. The challenge facing pedagogy is to find ways of helping learners to integrate external with intrinsic motivation. Selfdetermination theory argues that successful learning depends on integrating external constraints and requirements with the learner’s intrinsic motivation, which is thus strengthened and expanded; self-efficacy theory emphasizes the central role played by self-esteem (e.g. Bandura, 1997); and, as we have seen, Barnes (1976) argues that successful learning depends on making ‘school knowledge’ – the content of the official curriculum – part of learners’ ‘action knowledge’. The so-called ‘social turn’ in the study of second language acquisition (Block, 2003) insists on the integral role played by environmental factors in L2 development and thus moves away from an exclusive focus on individual cognitive processes (see, for example, Atkinson, 2011). The study of motivation has undergone a similar paradigm shift. As Ushioda (2003: 92) puts it, ‘when considering how to enhance the motivation of the individual learner, it seems clear that we must expand the unit of analysis beyond the individual to embrace the interaction between the individual and the social learning setting’ (see also Ushioda, 2006, 2011). This is another reason why, in the autonomy classroom, the interactive processes of pair and group work are fundamental to learning success.

Learners taking charge For Holec, learner control is the touchstone of learner autonomy, which he defines as ‘the ability to take charge of one’s own learning’ (Holec, 1981: 3). He glosses this ability as follows: 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, i.e.: • determining the objectives; • defining the contents and progressions; • selecting methods and techniques to be used; • monitoring the procedure of acquisition properly speaking (rhythm, time, place, etc.); • evaluating what has been acquired. The autonomous learner is himself capable of making all these decisions concerning the learning with which he is or wishes to be involved. (Holec, 1981: 3) Holec is primarily concerned with adults pursuing an individual programme of learning, but his description inevitably prompts the question: To what extent can language learners at school take charge of their own learning and thus be autonomous in Holec’s sense? This chapter seeks to provide an answer.

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Managing external constraints It is sometimes assumed that official curricula, obligatory use of textbooks, and public exams are insuperable obstacles to the development of learner autonomy at school, but this is to confuse autonomy (acting freely, ‘with a sense of volition and choice’, Deci, 1996: 89) with independence (the state of not relying on others, Deci, 1996: 89). As we have seen, from the perspective of self-determination theory, these external constraints (or motivations) are essential if intrinsic motivation is to flourish and grow. The challenge to educational systems and their pedagogical methods is ‘how to utilize extrinsic structures in such a way as to encourage self-regulation’ (Deci & Ryan, 1985: 245). As Deci and Ryan (1985: 251) point out, ‘Selfdetermination involves initiating and being active, but it also involves accommodating to unyielding elements of the environment and functioning harmoniously within certain structures’. Accordingly, in the autonomy classroom learner self-management must operate within the framework of the official curriculum and the structure provided by the teacher, who is responsible for ensuring that her learners meet the curriculum requirements. To quote Ushioda again: ‘In the motivation literature, there is research evidence that students’ readiness to internalize curriculum goals and values depends to a large extent on the degree to which the social environment supports their sense of autonomy, and involves them in some of the choices and decision-making processes that shape their learning’ (Ushioda, 2011: 224).

Learner control and learner responsibility Learner control implies learner responsibility: it is impossible to take charge of one’s learning without at the same time accepting responsibility for it, at least implicitly. In the autonomy classroom learners are responsible for their own learning; in pair and group work, they are responsible also for the learning of their peers; and the class as a whole has collective responsibility for achieving the learning outcomes required by the curriculum. Learners are also accountable to the teacher, who gives them control of their learning but remains responsible for ensuring that learning takes place. Of course, learners cannot be expected to manage all aspects of their learning from the beginning; they must gradually acquire skills of self-management as an integral part of their developing proficiency. This means that the transfer of control from the teacher to her learners is not a single act but a continuous process, and taking charge of one’s learning and accepting responsibility for it is as much a state of mind as a succession of discrete acts. It is a state of mind, moreover, that is engendered and nourished by constant reflection on the learning process: its goals, its challenges, its methods and its outcomes. The remainder of this chapter is concerned with the recursive processes of letting go and taking hold.

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Handing over Control to the Learners Some misconceptions and six principles Among the many misconceptions that gather around the concept of learner autonomy, perhaps the most widespread is that autonomy is synonymous with self-instruction – that it is essentially a matter of learning without a teacher. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, for in formal educational contexts, without teaching in one form or another there is unlikely to be much learning. In the autonomy classroom the teacher’s first pedagogical responsibility is to secure her learners’ active involvement in their own learning: she must find ways of getting them to take initiatives and follow them through so that they gradually develop a capacity to manage their learning. Much of what follows in this part of the chapter is captured in the following six guiding principles: •

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•

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Focus on learning rather than teaching. See yourself as a co-learner. Recognize that if you want your learners to take initiatives you must allow them to share control of classroom discourse. Recognize too that this means reducing the amount of time you spend talking to the class as a whole. Give your learners models for managing the different phases of learning. Make sure they understand the basic structure of a lesson and what the different parts of the structure are intended to achieve. Always use the TL in the classroom and encourage your learners to do the same. Trust that they will become increasingly proficient in the TL by using it. Remember that the need to document their learning involves them in non-stop writing of the TL, which is a major factor in their development of grammatical accuracy. Take what your learners say at face value and respect the effort they put into their learning and the time they spend on it. Only if you trust and respect them can you expect them to accord one another the trust and respect that are a precondition for successful collaborative learning. See problems not as obstacles that block progress but as challenges to which you and your learners must respond together. Keep your learners and their parents fully informed at every stage. Make sure that parents as well as learners understand what you do as a teacher, why you do it, and what you expect from them.

Making learners willing to take control The teacher cannot hand over control to her learners unless they are willing to take hold, and this presupposes that they feel at ease in the classroom.

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One way of promoting a sense of ease among the members of a new class is to ask them to give individual and anonymous written answers to these questions (beginners respond in their L1): • •

What do you like in class? What makes you feel at ease? What do you dislike in class? What makes you feel uncomfortable or puts you in a bad mood?

Among the answers that one class gave to the first two questions were (translated from Danish): • • • • •

That there are good relations in the class When I have finished a task When the teacher is in a good mood and I am happy and having a good time That all of us can decide When you learn something new

Among the answers to the third and fourth questions were: • • • • • • • •

Doing boring things When the teacher shouts When the teacher scolds somebody and takes the others’ time When I am blamed for something I didn’t do When we say nasty things to each other When somebody in class is not feeling at ease Silly comments from the others When I feel excluded

These answers, which can be real eye-openers to learners as well as the teacher, provide a basis for drawing up a negotiated list of ‘Dos and Don’ts’ which the teacher writes on a poster (in the TL) and the students copy into their logbooks. Another way of putting learners at ease is to have them sit in groups, even when they are engaged in different learning activities (Figure 3.1, p. 78). This brings a number of benefits: sitting in groups encourages a shift in focus from teaching to learning; it facilitates collaboration and a sense of interdependence; it is less threatening to talk to two or three peers than to the whole class; peer tutoring is likely to arise naturally; and the introduction of group work benefits from the sense of ease and familiarity that comes from sitting in groups. Perhaps the three most important ways of making learners feel at ease are: exploiting the knowledge they bring with them to the classroom; making clear that they are accepted for what they are; and always treating them with respect.

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Figure 3.1 Seating plan for classroom

Making learners aware of curriculum requirements Besides making her learners willing to take over, the teacher must ensure that they are capable of doing so. Her first step is to make clear what is expected of them and why, because only then can they begin to be precise about their own aims and objectives. The curriculum or curricular guidelines state what is required of teachers and learners. This information is often kept from learners, as though it is none of their business, but in the autonomy classroom the teacher makes it public and ensures that her learners understand its implications. In the case of very young learners, who may not be able to understand the curriculum guidelines for themselves, the teacher ‘translates’

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them into classroom activities that fulfil the curriculum requirement to learn vocabulary: Make word cards, Play word cards, Make dominoes, Play dominoes, Make picture lotto, Play picture lotto, Write a story. At a later stage, curricular demands can be reformulated as concrete aims, perhaps in the form: ‘You must be able to …’ followed by tasks derived from the guidelines for the grade in question. When the guidelines focus on the communicative skills that learners should develop, a different kind of summary may be appropriate, for example: ‘In order to improve your writing skills you could write a story, make a book, make a newspaper, etc.’; ‘If you want to improve your writing and speaking skills you can make a play, produce a radio programme, make a talk show, etc.’ At the beginning of the school year the teacher gives intermediate learners a copy of the official requirements for their grade as well as the requirements for the final exams. They stick them in their logbooks, and in order to help them relate their own learning goals to these official demands, the teacher asks them to underline or highlight passages that they find important for their own learning. This provides the learners with a basis for drawing up individual learning contracts (Figure 3.2). Individual goals may then be brought together in a poster that summarizes the curricular demands for the year and can be referred to when group work is being planned. Needless to say, these procedures presuppose that the teacher herself is familiar with the goals of the curriculum or curricular guidelines, which is not always the case when teachers use a textbook and treat it as a substitute for the curriculum.

Figure 3.2 Max’s learning contract

Giving learners choice We take our first steps towards handing over control to our learners when we require them to select their own learning activities and decide how to carry them out. The more choice we give them, the more we can expect to engage

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their interest and commitment. Learner choice is constrained, however, not only by the curriculum but by the present state of their knowledge and experience. In the early stages, it is advisable to let them choose from a small number of alternatives with which they are already familiar. A poster listing possible homework activities, for example, can help them decide what to do, and the list can be expanded as new activities are introduced, tried out and discussed in class. It is an inevitable consequence of giving learners freedom of choice that they sometimes make wrong decisions. In our experience this is less likely to happen, however, if we require them to focus in advance on the criteria according to which they will choose and the criteria by which they will in due course determine whether or not their choice was appropriate.

The importance of structure It is an essential part of the teacher’s role to make her learners aware of possible ways in which a task or a lesson can be structured and carried out, for it is on the basis of such an awareness that learners gradually become skilled in devising and carrying out their own plans. This may seem obvious and straightforward. However, when asked, many language teachers are unable to describe the structure of their lessons, either because they have always used a textbook and so have never thought in detail about what they are doing and why, or because they think it is a good idea not to follow a fixed structure. A teacher of German once told one of us: ‘I vary the structure of my lessons and our work as much as possible so that my learners don’t get bored.’ The problem is, of course, that this makes it extremely difficult, perhaps impossible, for the learners to take control of the work. A lesson structure that we have used for many years has three parts: teacher’s time, learners’ time, and ‘together’ time.

Teacher’s time The teacher uses this part of the lesson to steer the learning of the class as a whole. This is when she introduces curricular requirements, for example, or a new learning activity that she wants the class to try. When introducing a new task, especially in the early stages, the teacher must explain clearly why she has chosen this particular task, how she wants her learners to carry it out, and what results might come from it. In this way, she provides them with a model that in due course they can use themselves when working individually or in groups. At the beginning of a week she may also use teacher’s time to remind herself and the rest of the class who is doing what and with whom, creating a poster for this purpose (Figure 3.3). She may have decided that she needs to work with a particular group; alternatively, one or more groups may have asked for her help. In either case she can indicate on the poster how she plans to distribute her time.

Learners’ time For this part of the lesson learners are always seated in groups, for reasons we have already explained. In our experience many teachers have three concerns

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Figure 3.3 Poster summarizing plans for group projects

about group work. First, will the learners actually do any work? Our reply to this is that they certainly will, provided that they understand what is expected of them and are required to use logbooks, posters and portfolios to record, manage and store their work. Secondly, will they use the TL? Clearly they will sometimes need to use their L1, especially in the early stages, but it is the teacher’s job to convince them of the essential role played by language use in successful language learning and to require them to engage in tasks that can be performed only by using the TL. Thirdly, when they use the TL, won’t they make mistakes? Of course they will, but it has long been understood that error is an inevitable part of L2 development. In any case, as we saw in Chapter 2, when learners work collaboratively in the TL they often correct one another’s mistakes. The teacher helps learners to manage their own time by providing them with scaffolds to structure their work. For example, she may use a poster to propose a structure for group work, which the learners copy into their logbooks. Within this structure, she can give them particular tasks to carry out, such as ‘Sharing homework’, ‘Two minutes’ talk’ (cf. Chapter 2, p. 55), ‘Planning homework’ and evaluation – a learning cycle in itself.

Together time Lessons and phases of learning always end with ‘together time’, when the whole class – preferably sitting in a circle – takes part in activities that are of

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interest to them all. It is during ‘together time’, for example, that learners present the results of their work – games, stories, poems, plays, magazines, etc. – to the rest of the class. Their presentation always includes an evaluation of their work (process as well as product) based on the posters they have drawn up summarizing their aims and the different roles played by different group members (Figure 3.4; the project referred to in this poster is described in Chapter 1, pp. 37–39). ‘Together time’ is also used for more general evaluation that brings together the individual evaluations learners have noted down in their logbooks; an example can be seen on the DVD ‘It’s up to yourself if you want to learn’ (Dam & Lentz, 1998). Equally important, ‘together time’ is used simply to have a have a good time together. The teacher may read a story to younger learners, or the class may sing a song. Nursery rhymes, limericks and short films also provide authentic input for ‘together time’, as do quizzes that learners themselves have devised. However ‘together time’ is used, it always provides space for authentic interaction and communication.

Figure 3.4 Emrah and Helen’s poster summarizing their project plan

Forming groups and managing group work In the autonomy classroom learners are free to choose who they work with as well as what they work on. At beginners’ level they often decide to work with a good friend or someone they feel at ease with – criteria that are unlikely to be made explicit. But from a very early stage evaluation includes consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of working with a

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particular partner or as a member of a particular group. When groups are being formed, learners are not allowed to reject anyone who wants to join them provided he or she has a reason for doing so. This may have to do with the activity the group is planning: ‘I would like to join the “Make a play group” because I like to make plays and I want to speak more English’, or with other members of the group: ‘I would like to work with Karsten because I think that we get on well together’. However, a group is allowed to express reservations, perhaps because the last time learner X joined their group he didn’t do what he agreed to do, or showed no interest in the work, or fooled around instead of working concentratedly. In such a case, the group may subsequently expel X if he fails to live up to the new plan of work, and X will have to work on a project of his own until new groups are formed. Needless to say, working alone is not an enjoyable experience. When groups are formed in this way, their composition varies considerably, although weak learners often prefer to work together in order not to feel under pressure from strong learners, while strong learners enjoy the challenge of working together. When groups have been formed, a poster is drawn up listing the membership of the different groups and the activities they have agreed to work on (e.g. Figure 3.3). Each group then produces its own poster showing: Who? What? How? Why? (Figure 3.4); sometimes posters also take curriculum requirements and timing into consideration. Learners who have decided to work on their own must produce their own poster. They don’t sit on their own, however, but with one of the groups (Figure 3.1) so that they can join in activities like sharing homework and ‘Two minutes’ talk’ and benefit from peer tutoring.

The importance of documentation All of the procedures we have described in this chapter depend on a continuous process of documentation: writing things down in order to give structure to the teaching/learning process; writing things down in order to capture and reflect on them; writing things down in order to maintain a cumulative record of individual and group learning. In our version of the autonomy classroom these processes depend on three tools: logbooks, portfolios and posters. In Chapters 1 and 2 we drew on logbooks and posters to illustrate particular learning activities. Here we are concerned with the role they play in the management of teaching and learning.

The logbook as a record of learning As we explained in Chapter 1, a logbook is a plain exercise book in which learners keep a record of each lesson, giving the day and date and noting what they are doing, who they are working with, and with what results. Figure 3.5 records a typical lesson in Grade 6, following a structure established by the teacher (the learner was 12 years old and had started English in Grade 4; by the time she wrote this logbook entry she had had approximately 180 45-minute lessons). The lesson begins with ‘Two minutes’ talk’, which

Figure 3.5 Julie’s logbook – record of a lesson

Figure 3.6 ‘Month page’ in learner’s logbook

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challenges the learners to speak interactively on a topic of their own choice. Then homework is shared, after which the group resumes work on its play. This learner intends to do some reading for homework, evaluates the lesson very highly, and concludes by noting the activity the class plans to engage in next. As learners become more proficient in the TL their logbook entries are more detailed, although the activities they record remain the same.

Requirements for the keeping of logbooks Some learners don’t enjoy keeping a logbook. They find it time-consuming and difficult, and especially at beginners’ level they may have problems with writing. The result is often an untidy mess that the learners themselves are not proud of. But here too the teacher’s responsibility comes into play: it is for her to draw up a list of demands when logbooks are first introduced.

Figure 3.7 Learner's logbook with teacher‘s feedback

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For example, logbooks should be easy to follow; new words and expressions should be recorded every week and framed so that they can quickly be identified; pages should be numbered for ease of reference; the beginning of each month should be marked by a ‘month page’ that includes text relevant to the month in question (Figure 3.6, p. 84); handwriting should be neat, and logbooks should be visually attractive and make a ‘tidy’ impression. From time to time the teacher reminds learners of these requirements. Logbooks also serve as a basis for communication between learners and between learners and the teacher. Such communication may be oral and involve discussion and evaluation of work done and things learned; it may also be written – for example, the teacher may periodically collect and review logbooks, providing learners with written feedback (Figure 3.7, p. 85).

The teacher’s logbook The teacher keeps a record of each lesson in her own logbook, which is divided into two columns (Figure 3.8). In the left column she writes her plan for the lesson, which is based partly on the outcome of the previous lesson

Figure 3.8 Page from teacher’s logbook

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and partly on her overall aims and expectations. The right column is used during the lesson to write comments and record decisions made with individual learners or with groups. At the end of the lesson she records her overall evaluation, which she shares with the class during ‘together time’; she also makes a note of points to bear in mind when planning the next lesson.

Portfolios The logbook serves two purposes: it is a tool for documenting and managing learning, but it is also where learners write the various short texts they produce in class and at home. Logbooks, in other words, record learners’ individual progress on a more or less continuous basis. Individual portfolios, on the other hand, always entail selection. They contain examples of work – stories and essays, evidence of progress in reading (a page copied from the book they are currently reading), audio-recordings that provide evidence of progress in pronunciation and intonation, tests, and so on – chosen by the learners themselves according to agreed guidelines (Figure 3.9) and a variety

Figure 3.9 What to put in a portfolio

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of criteria. They may, for example, select the best work they produce for a certain activity, e.g. ‘small books’, or work done at intervals as evidence of their progress, or ‘my best result’ in a month or a term. To each selection learners are expected to attach the date when the work was produced and to give their reasons for choosing it. Whatever criteria learners apply, their portfolios tend to be quite bulky by the end of term, so at that point they make a final selection of the work that represents ‘where I am now’ in terms of personal objectives and curriculum goals. This is carried forward to the next term. Together, logbooks and portfolios are a constant reminder to learners and teachers of the progress that has been made; they also provide parents with clear evidence of their children’s learning.

Using logbooks to organize and carry out learning tasks We conclude this chapter by presenting three examples of the way in which learners use their logbooks to organize their work and document their learning over time. The learners in question were in their fourth year of English (Grade 8, age 15), so by now they had considerable experience of self-management.

Example 1 Our first example consists of transcribed extracts from the logbooks of Karsten and Lars. On Monday 21 August Karsten writes: What to do! Who: Emrah, Lars, Anders, Karsten. What: A play about Benny and Brian. Why: I practise my written language and my pronunciation. How: We’ll write it down and practise it. Produkt: A good funny play with ideas from a book. Time? Homework: read in my new book “Peanuts”. find ideas for the play. Lars’s entry for the same day is almost identical apart from the reason he gives for writing a play: caus’ I think I could be better to pronounce English. On the following day, Tuesday 22 August, Karsten writes: Talking with Leni about our group. We talked about – our project, – our monthpages, – our reading-book. Characters. Bryan: Lars. Age: 15. Hobby: Eating at Joey’s Burgerbar. Personality: Stupid as hell. Death Metal fan. Benny: Karsten. Age: 15. Hobby: Eating at Joey’s Burgerbar. Personality: Stupid as hell. Death Metal fan. Joey: Emrah. Age: 43. Hobby: Watching TV at the back of the bar. Personality: Always mad at Benny & Brian / Living in room at the back. Gilbert: Anders. Age: 14. Hobby: Doing papers. Personality: Full time nerd.

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Homework: Read in “Peanuts”. Get ideas for our play. – Comments: It has been a good time the last few lesson. It’s a great group, and I think, we’re gonna make a hell of a play. Lars’s comment on the same day reads as follows: comments: I think it’s goin to be a very funny play On Monday 28 August Karsten writes: Share homework with Lars. Lars had read in his book called “The Soul …”. he has also found some pretty good ideas for our play. Work on the play with my group. – Discuss the contens of our play. – Started to write the play down in “Play-book” [the learners’ own coinage]. What to do tomorrow: Karsten + Lars writes on scene 1 + 2. Emrah + Anders writes on scene 3. Homework: read in “Peanuts” The group continues to work in this way, adding new scenes to their play. Karsten finishes Peanuts and starts reading Ivanhoe. The teacher interrupts work by giving the class a test, but on 19 September they seem to have finished the play. Karsten writes: Work on the play. Count how many lines each charactor has. Emrah has 36 lines & Anders has 19 lines & Lars has 78 lines & Karsten has 92 lines [In the teacher’s view the distribution of lines reflects the different proficiency levels and capacities of the learners.] A week later, on Tuesday 26 September, Karsten writes: practise the play: Practise our lines and where to stand. Homework: practise the play, read in “Ivanhoe” f.p.32. On Monday 2 October they are ready to present their play, which by now has eight scenes and 235 lines. Karsten writes: Show the play to the class. It failed. we’ll show next week. Homework: Read in my book called “Ivanhoe” f.p.35. The failure of the play is due partly to lack of time and partly because the group was not well prepared. Clearly, however, Karsten feels no need to spend homework time practising his lines, although Lars does. The next day Karsten reports: Practise the play in the info-room. Anders wasn’t here, but the rest of the group worked well, and I think we’ve “got it” now. Homework: Practise my lines.

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On Tuesday 10 October Karsten writes: Share homework with Lars. Lars has read in his book, but not so much because the must of his day went by practising his lines in the play. Practise the play for about 30 minutes. Show our play for the class. This time we didn’t fail, and I think it went quite well. I think it was good groupwork and a good product.

Example 2 Our second example is taken from Max’s logbook. On Monday 21 August he writes: form the groups. What to do! Who: Michael and I. What: a long story like a book. Why: because we want to learn to write more clearly and because we will learn to spell better. How: we will write it down in our diary [logbook] and after that we will make some pictures and write the story to the pictures. Product: A long book. On Tuesday 22 August Max writes: share homework with Michael. Michael has started our story at home. But he hasn’t found any book yet so he couldn’t read. 2 minutes talk with Michael about the weekend. work on our long story continued from Michael’s diary: the old man rolled down through the town to the local supermarket to get a booklet. after he had found it he rolled down to the travel-agency. New words: booklet, travel-agency. comment on today’s work – it was good because we did a lot and it was good that leni spent so much time with us. And on Tuesday 29 August Max writes: share homework with Michael. Michael has read in his book called “The Man from Rio” he had read one page. But he hasn’t found any new words. work on our long story continued from My diary to Michael’s diary plan for tomorrow: 1. share homework. 2. 2 minutes talk. 3. work on my story Max and Michael continue to work in this way. For homework Michael reads his book, whereas Max writes a story of his own. Work on their joint story is suspended for a week in September when Michael is absent from school, but on Monday 9 October Max’s logbook records that the story is finished. On Monday 23 October, after the autumn holidays, they present their story to the rest of the class. Max writes in his logbook:

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Read projects: The old man in a wheelchair by Michael and I. Comments: I think it was a good story with funny drawing, but I thinked we could have done it better. In the course of the school year, Max’s preference for story-telling develops and is integrated with ideas he gets from the activities of other learners. Towards the end of the year, on 13 May, he writes: Planning the “projects”. Who? Jan, Emrah, Louise, Jacob, and I. What? We will make one big story and everybody has to read it aloud and act. Why? Because I want to be better at talking English than I had ever been, because sometimes when I’m talking English you can’t understand the meaning. How: First we will discuss all our ideas, and make one big story, then we will act, every one has to read it aloud and the acters shall not say anything, they just have to mime. On Monday 17 June Max evaluates the result: I think that it was a very good play, but our articulation and our language could be better. The play could also be a little longer, because it only took us 3 minutes to present our story / play for the class. Not long.

Example 3 Our third example is taken from Susan’s logbook. On Monday 21 August she writes: Who to work with and why? What to do a book with penfriends and contagts with other contries why Because we would like to get better at writing and … how we is going to writtet on conpouter room and in a book homework for tomorrow Read in my book form page 10 The following day she writes: Share homework with Jacob and Lasse. Lasse have written a letter to a penfrind I have read in my book called Bebel pony from page 10–11. Jacob have read in hes book and he have learnd 3 new words and Jacobs book is Called over the line write letters The collaboration of Susan, Jacob and Lasse – sharing homework, writing letters, planning and doing homework – continues till mid-October. Susan creates an extensive correspondence between two fictitious girls, Mary and Kathrin Andersen, the latter of whom lives in London. Susan mentions that the boys are writing letters but says nothing about their content. Her logbook doesn’t record that the letters were presented to the class and there is

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no evaluation, but Susan, Jacob and Lasse work together for nearly two months.

Conclusion We began this chapter by briefly recapitulating the arguments of Chapters 1 and 2 on the nature and source of learner autonomy, the indispensability of TL use, and the key role played by interaction in learning. We then summarized the theoretical arguments in favour of handing over control to the learners, which have to do with engaging their interest in and commitment to their learning and exploiting their intrinsic motivation. We went on to discuss learner self-management with reference to external constraints, especially the official curriculum or curricular guidelines. In the second part of the chapter we considered the practical steps involved in handing over control to the learners. We emphasized the importance of ensuring that learners feel at ease and confident, making them aware of curriculum demands, requiring them to make choices that they can cope with, and imposing a predictable structure on classroom activity. We then explained how groups are formed in our version of the autonomy classroom, before focusing on the all-important matter of documenting the learning process. Here logbooks were again a central concern, and we concluded the chapter with three examples of the way in which they are used to document and manage an extended period of learning. According to Henri Holec (1981: 3), learner control entails ‘determining the objectives, defining the contents and progressions, selecting methods and techniques to be used, monitoring the procedure of acquisition …, [and] evaluating what has been acquired’. In this chapter we have limited ourselves to the first four of these activities. Evaluation, which we have described elsewhere as the pivot on which learner autonomy turns (Dam, 1995), is the concern of Chapter 4.

Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action •

Self-determination theory makes a direct link between autonomy and intrinsic motivation. The autonomy classroom we describe in this part of the book is concerned with ‘general’ language learning, and the teacher engages learners’ intrinsic motivation by encouraging them to pursue their own interests in and through the TL. This approach is not so readily available to teachers of advanced learners who must meet very specific requirements in one or another field of academic study. How would you advise them to engage the intrinsic motivation of their students?

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We have argued that if learners are to manage their own learning, they need to feel at ease in the classroom. Make a list of the things teachers can do to create such an atmosphere. Now use the items on your list to describe your own classroom and some of the classrooms you have experienced as a learner. If the atmosphere is less than optimal, how would you go about improving it? What are the arguments in favour of allowing learners to form their own groups? Do you find those arguments persuasive? Can you foresee any problems in letting learners form their own groups? How would you tackle these problems? Many teachers hesitate to ‘let go’ because they are afraid of losing control, while others worry that their learners may refuse to ‘take control’. How would you respond to these concerns? Given that the teacher is responsible for ensuring that her students learn whatever they are supposed to learn, what criteria do you think she should apply when deciding whether or not to intervene in learner-controlled activities? In this chapter we have argued that in order to be successfully managed, learning must be fully documented, and we have described how three tools – logbooks, portfolios and posters – can be used for this purpose. How would you develop the use of these tools and the interaction between them in your own teaching/learning context? Do you already use a logbook to plan and record your teaching? If not, what sort of logbook structure would you find most helpful? Think of your own lessons, or lessons/classes/seminars that you have recently attended as a learner. How would you describe their structure? Are they similar to or different from the structure proposed in this chapter? In the classroom we describe, ‘together time’ concludes a lesson and/or a phase of learning. In our view it is important to include activities that are enjoyable for their own sake, for example, singing a song or reading a story. What ‘together time’ activities would your learners be likely to enjoy? Look at the curriculum or curricular guidelines that frame your teaching at present or that will frame it in the future. Does the document contain explicit support for the approach outlined in this chapter? If it doesn’t, what would you need to do to align the curriculum/curricular guidelines with our approach?

Suggestions for Further Reading Edward Deci’s book Why We Do What We Do (1996) provides a compact, accessible and highly readable summary of self-determination theory and the empirical research on which it is based. Three articles by Ema Ushioda

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explicitly relate learner autonomy and autonomous language learning to current developments in motivation research: ‘Motivation as a socially mediated process’ (2003), ‘Motivation and autonomy in language learning’ (2006), and ‘Why autonomy? Insights from motivation theory and research’ (2011). Two recent edited collections contain much material relevant to the concerns of this chapter: Ema Ushioda (ed.) International Perspectives on Motivation (2013) and Zoltàn Dörnyei, Peter D. MacIntyre and Alastair Henry (eds) Motivational Dynamics in Language Learning (2014). On portfolio learning in general, it is worth reading two books by Richard Kent, both of which contain a wealth of suggestions applicable to the autonomy classroom: Room 109 (1997) and Beyond Room 109 (2000). Portfolio language learning received a boost when the Council of Europe launched its concept of the European Language Portfolio (ELP) in 2001. Although the ELP seems not to have taken root in most European education systems, it provided the stimulus for a great deal of theoretical and practical work, much of it published on the Council of Europe’s ELP website (http:// www.coe.int/portfolio). Jennifer Moon’s Learning Journals (2006) contains much material relevant to teacher logbooks.

4

Evaluation: The Hinge on which Learner Autonomy Turns

Introduction Evaluation, assessment and learner autonomy Learner autonomy entails that learners take charge of their learning, which necessarily involves them in reflection; and reflection that guides the planning and implementation of learning depends upon and generates evaluative judgements. Thus, in the autonomy classroom all aspects of teaching and learning are subject to evaluation: procedures and activities, materials and content, the interactive dynamic of the classroom, the learning environment, the participants and what they contribute to the learning process, and of course language learning outcomes. In general educational usage ‘assessment’ refers to the grades the teacher awards to the work she requires her learners to hand in, the tests she devises and administers, and external examinations. In the autonomy classroom assessment is continuous with evaluation, because both are shaped by reflective processes that are rooted in collaborative interaction: like evaluation, assessment involves the learners as much as the teacher. Taking account of curriculum requirements, the teacher helps the learners to generate the criteria on which evaluation and assessment are based, so when she grades her learners she applies criteria that they have helped to define and have used to assess themselves and one another.

Structure and content of the chapter We begin the chapter by summarizing traditional views of assessment and briefly reviewing recent work that emphasizes the positive contribution assessment can make to teaching and learning. Against this background we go on to explain what is distinctive about our view of the role played by evaluation and assessment in the autonomy classroom. In the second part of 95

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the chapter we describe how a class of beginners in English was introduced to evaluation and assessment, and then illustrate some of the ways in which evaluation and assessment can be implemented as learners’ TL proficiency and learning skills develop. Evaluation and assessment are confirmed as the hinge on which the processes of autonomous learning turn: without them learner autonomy is an empty concept.

What is Distinctive about our View of Evaluation and Assessment? Traditional views of assessment Traditionally, assessment has been treated as something wholly separate from teaching and learning and has focused exclusively on learning outcomes. In countries that use external examinations to measure learning achievement, the curriculum is typically represented by one or more textbooks, and the public exam is the goal towards which teaching and learning lead. The exam usually follows a known structure and past exam papers may be available, but the specific content of each iteration of the exam is not known in advance. ‘Teaching for the exam’ is nevertheless a widespread practice, usually based on teachers’ perceptions of how scoring and grading schemes are administered and their attempts to predict which topics the examiners will choose to focus on. It is sometimes assumed that those charged with setting the exams do their best to surprise the candidates and their teachers. In Ireland, where secondary education is dominated by the Junior and Leaving Certificate exams, taken at the end of the junior and senior cycles of secondary education respectively, national newspapers devote many pages each summer first to preparation for the exams and then to what teachers and students think of the exam papers after the event. Within this kind of tradition, the exams that teachers themselves may be required to set at the end of a term or school year are likely to reflect the same view of the relation between teaching/learning and assessment, and they may well draw on past public exam papers. The end-product of such assessment is usually a score that assigns the individual learner to a grade, a position on a scale, or a rank order in a group. There are almost as many numerical scales in use as there are national educational cultures. In countries where high-stakes assessment is the teacher’s responsibility, much the same ideology tends to prevail. Precisely because the grades awarded by the teacher may have a decisive impact on learners’ future study or career options, the process of assessment tends to be kept strictly separate from teaching and learning. Again assessment is a concluding act of judgement that has no impact on the teaching/learning process.

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Formative assessment Although the situation we have just described still obtains in national education systems around the world, theorists of assessment have long insisted that, in addition to judging learners’ achievement at the end of a period of learning, assessment has an important role to play in providing teachers with feedback on the process of teaching and learning. The distinction between formative and summative assessment was first made by Michael Scriven in 1967. Formative assessment takes place during and summative assessment at the end of a period of teaching/learning, and for Scriven an assessment is formative only if it is used to adjust the content and/or process of teaching in order to help learners achieve curriculum goals.

Assessment for Learning (AfL) Assessment for Learning (AfL) is a version of formative assessment that was established in England at the end of the 1990s, partly in response to the government’s attempt to raise educational standards by increasing the number and frequency of external tests. In 1999 the Assessment Reform Group (ARG) issued a pamphlet, Assessment for Learning: Beyond the Black Box, which draws support from a wide-ranging review of published research carried out by Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam (Black & Wiliam, 1998). The pamphlet argues that there is ‘no evidence that increasing the amount of testing will enhance learning. Instead the focus needs to be on helping teachers use assessment, as part of teaching and learning, in ways that will raise pupils’ achievement’ (ARG, 1999: 2). As this last sentence makes clear, AfL is teacher-led. The authors of the pamphlet argue (ARG, 1999: 4–5) that improving learning through assessment depends on ‘five, deceptively simple, key factors’: • • • • •

the provision of effective feedback to pupils; the active involvement of pupils in their own learning; adjusting teaching to take account of the results of assessment; a recognition of the profound influence assessment has on the motivation and self-esteem of pupils, both of which are crucial influences on learning; the need for pupils to be able to assess themselves and understand how to improve.

Despite the reference to the involvement of pupils in their own learning and their need to be able to assess themselves, it is clear that the teacher is firmly in control. This is further confirmed by some of the stated characteristics of AfL (ARG, 1999: 7): ‘it involves sharing learning goals with pupils’ (rather than allowing pupils to set their own goals on the basis of the official curriculum); ‘it aims to help pupils to know and to recognize the standards they are aiming for’ (rather than having them set their own standards, again

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with reference to the official curriculum); and ‘it provides feedback which leads to pupils recognizing their next steps and how to take them’ (rather than involving pupils in creating the informational structures to generate their own feedback). Proponents of AfL argue that self-assessment is ‘essential to learning because students can only achieve a learning goal if they understand that goal and can assess what they need to do to reach it’ (Black & Wiliam, 2006: 15). But even self-assessment seems to remain under the control of the teacher to the extent that it is evidently she who supplies the criteria: … the criteria for evaluating any learning achievements must be made transparent to students to enable them to have a clear overview both of the aims of their work and of what it means to complete it successfully. Insofar as they do so they begin to develop an overview of that work so that they can manage and control it; in other words, they develop their capacity for meta-cognitive thinking. (Black & Wiliam, 2006: 15) James and Pedder (2006: 28) argue that, when AfL is fully implemented, ‘it gives explicit roles to learners, not just to teachers, for instigating teaching and learning’: This has its clearest embodiment in processes of peer and self-assessment when students (i) individually or collaboratively, develop the motivation to reflect on their previous learning and identify objectives for new learning; (ii) when they analyse and evaluate problems they or their peers are experiencing and structure a way forward; and (iii) when, through selfregulation, they act to bring about improvement. In other words, they become autonomous, independent and active learners. When this happens, teaching is no longer the sole preserve of the adult teacher; learners are brought into the heart of teaching and learning processes and decision making as they adopt pedagogical practices to further their own learning and that of their peers. It gives the old expression of being ‘selftaught’ a new meaning. (James & Pedder, 2006: 28) We share James and Pedder’s belief that learners should ‘individually or collaboratively … reflect on their previous learning and identify objectives for new learning’, ‘analyse and evaluate problems they or their peers are experiencing and structure a way forward’ and ‘through self-regulation … act to bring about improvement’: these activities are all essential features of autonomous learning. But we differ from James and Pedder on one vital point. For them, teacher-led AfL stimulates peer and self-assessment, which generate a clearer understanding of the learning process, which leads to learner autonomy, whereas in the autonomy classroom things move in the opposite direction. Guided by their teacher, autonomous learners begin by evaluating and

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assessing their own learning, and this gives them the experience and knowledge necessary to evaluate and assess their peers. The evaluative discourse in which these procedures are embedded – talk between the teacher and the whole class, between the teacher and groups of learners, and among the learners themselves – helps to inform and shape teacher assessment, which also takes account of the demands of the curriculum. According to research carried out in England in the 1980s, secondary pupils found self-assessment difficult partly because they were unused to it and partly because the assessment criteria [drawn up externally] caused problems. Often clear assessment criteria were not available and even when they were, students tended to make norm-referenced judgments of their achievement i.e. in relation to their perception of the range of achievement in their teaching groups rather than directly in relation to the categories. (Gipps, 1994: 129) These outcomes seem to us inevitable when self-assessment is added to an otherwise traditional teaching/learning approach. Things are very different, however, when self-assessment is just one dimension of a classroom culture that is rooted in continuous evaluative reflection.

Evaluation and assessment from the perspective of learner autonomy In the Introduction and again at the beginning of Chapter 1 we argued that learners of any age already know what it is to be autonomous from their lives outside the classroom. The teacher’s task is to harness a capacity that learners already possess to a greater or lesser degree, make it explicit to them, and help them develop and use it to manage their own learning. Our view of the role of evaluation and assessment in the language learning process is shaped by a similar consideration. The cognitive and metacognitive processes on which evaluation and assessment depend are already available to learners, at least in a rudimentary form, as part of their natural endowment. In a classic study of the development of self-regulation in early childhood, Martha Bronson has noted: ‘Although young children do not have the metacognitive awareness and the resources for cognitive control available to adults, they are capable of intentional action and choice and are increasingly capable of cognitive self-regulation in pursuit of their goals’ (Bronson, 2000: 126). And 30 years ago Jerome Bruner pointed out that ‘the available research on “linguistic repairs”, self-corrections in utterances either to bring one’s utterances into line with one’s intent or to make them comprehensible to an interlocutor, suggests that an Anlage [‘predisposition’] of metacognition is present as early as the eighteenth month of life’ (Bruner, 1986b: 67). Bruner also pointed out (1986b: 67) that metacognitive activity (self-monitoring and

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self-correction) is very unevenly distributed and varies according to cultural background. The extent to which it develops of its own accord depends on the demands of the culture in which one lives, but its intentional development as ‘critical thinking’ is a central goal of most education systems. It is generally accepted that language plays an essential role in the development and exercise of metacognition (see, for example, Goswami & Bryant, 2010: 155); the central role that the autonomy classroom assigns to evaluative discourse in the TL is what helps to secure the development of a proficiency that is metacognitive as well as communicative. Evaluation does not mean stepping aside from learning; on the contrary, because it entails authentic communication in the sense we defined in Chapter 1, it is an essential language learning activity in its own right. It is worth pointing out that this is another respect in which our approach to evaluation differs from AfL. When applied to L2 learning, AfL evidently assumes that evaluation and assessment require use of the learners’ L1: While we believe that formative assessment is consistent with the goals of MFL [modern foreign languages] teaching, certain assumptions about the use of the target language that preclude the development of formative assessment in MFL classrooms may need to be moderated. The judicious use of English [the learners’ L1] provides an opportunity for students to become more active learners, to use their knowledge about language to help them in learning a foreign language and to reap the benefits of formative assessment. (Jones & Wiliam, 2008: 4) In the autonomy classroom, learners use their L1 for evaluation in the early stages but are encouraged to switch to the TL as soon as their proficiency allows them to do so. That is how they gradually develop the ability to turn their proficiency back on itself, using it as a channel of ‘reflective intervention’ in their learning (Bruner, 1986a: 132) – an ability that is surely essential if they are to progress beyond basic transactional language.

Processes of evaluation in the autonomy classroom Everything that happens in the autonomy classroom is framed by evaluative discourse that embraces all aspects of learning and its outcomes. In this way a collective resource of experience and knowledge is accumulated that supports the planning, organization and evaluation/assessment of further learning. Self-determination theory emphasizes the importance of what it calls ‘informational environments’ – environments that allow choice and ‘provide some type of feedback, or structures that allow one to derive one’s own feedback’ (Deci & Ryan, 1985: 96). The autonomy classroom is a selfcreating and self-sustaining version of such an environment, for it is the

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learners themselves who progressively develop and implement the structures that generate evaluative feedback. As with planning, however, so with evaluation: the teacher must take the first step. She is responsible for introducing and explaining the principle of evaluation, initiating its implementation, and making her learners aware of different approaches and the different kinds of criteria available to them. In the early stages she may use a series of simple questions, not necessarily all at the same time, to stimulate discussion and help her learners understand the essential role that evaluation plays in effective learning: • • • • • •

What are we doing? Why are we doing it? How are we doing it? With what result? What can it be used for? What next?

In the remainder of the chapter we explain how evaluation and assessment are developed as central components of the teaching/learning process.

Introducing Learners to Evaluation and Assessment First steps In our version of the autonomy classroom the teacher introduces her learners to evaluation and assessment over a period of time via the following tasks, which entail a shift of focus from classroom procedures to self and from self to peers: • • • • •

learners evaluate a lesson or a particular learning activity; they are then asked to evaluate their own contribution to the lesson or learning activity; after that they assess what the lesson or learning activity has added to their TL proficiency; next they evaluate the contribution that one or more of their peers made to a lesson or learning activity; and finally they assess what the lesson or learning activity seems to have added to the TL proficiency of their peer(s).

For each of these evaluation and assessment tasks one of two formats is used: either an open question or a yes/no question with one or more followup questions (see Examples (1) and (6), respectively, in the next section). In either case, learners are always asked to give reasons for their judgement.

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Whenever appropriate, a simple scale is used to answer binary questions, for example: Was the lesson enjoyable/not enjoyable? 0 10 Was the learning activity easy/difficult? 0 10 How well did you participate in the lesson? 0 10 How well did you and your partner manage your Two Minutes’ Talk? 0 10 Learners make a vertical mark at the point on the scale that they consider appropriate. Weak learners give a reason for their judgement orally, beginners and weaker learners give it in their L1, and for more advanced learners it is a challenge to try to do it in the TL. The use of a scale from 0 to 10 has four advantages: • • • •

It is quick to devise and easy to use. Because learners write the scales in their logbooks they gradually accumulate a record of their self-evaluation and self-assessment, which they can use to remind themselves of their progress (or otherwise). Learners cannot avoid reflecting when they use a scale. Where learners place themselves on a scale provides a basis for discussion with the teacher and other learners.

In the early stages most learners find evaluation and assessment difficult. In all likelihood they have never before been asked to express an opinion about themselves, their peers or the learning process, and they lack the necessary concepts with which to do so. This requires them to develop new reflective skills in their mother tongue, which is one of the reasons why the teacher accepts them using their L1 for early evaluations and assessments. In the next section we describe how a class of Grade 5 learners (age 11–12) gradually developed skills of evaluation and assessment in the course of their first year of English.

Developing evaluation/assessment skills in the first year of English In order to develop learners’ evaluation/assessment skills, it is not enough simply to focus on the tasks we have just described. We must also create an environment in which learners are used to thinking about what they are doing and comfortable sharing their views with their peers and the teacher, and we do this by involving them in additional awareness-raising tasks.

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These are some of the evaluation/assessment and awareness-raising tasks that Grade 5 learners were required to perform in their first year of English: 21 September 30 September 30 September 5 October 7 October 21 October 28 October 4 November 27 March 14 June

Individual evaluation of a lesson (Example 1) Why do I learn English? How do I learn English? (Example 2) Evaluation of the task of reading an English text in pairs (Example 3) Preparing evaluation of the first two months of learning English (Example 4) Self-evaluation of the first two months of learning English (Example 5) Planning what to do and with whom (Example 6) Peer-evaluation: sharing homework (Example 7) Guided individual evaluation of an activity (Example 8) Peer-evaluation developed (Example 9) End-of-year evaluation including self-evaluation of own performance (Example 10)

In the following examples of learners’ comments, (w) indicates a weak learner, (a) an average learner, and (s) a strong learner as regards their proficiency in English. The label (L1) indicates that a comment was written in Danish and has been translated into English; the label (L2) indicates that a comment was written in English (as elsewhere in the book, learners’ English has not been corrected).

Example 1: Individual evaluation of a lesson On 21 September, when they had been learning English for about six weeks, the learners were told at the end of the lesson to write down in their logbooks how they felt about the lesson. The instruction was given in English as well as Danish, but the evaluations were written in Danish (what the weak student wrote was very difficult to interpret). Note the striking difference between what the three learners (weak, average and strong) said they had got out of the lesson: Anja (w):

I think that the lesson was good because I have started working with Susan. Me and Susan learned a new word and we have helped each other. (L1) Jacob (a): It has been fun because we have done a lot being part of a play. It was good because we did not quarrel. (L1) Karsten (s): It went really well, but it was a tough lesson especially ‘theatre’, I learned some new words but not that many, but I think that we should be allowed to go outside when making a play, because they disturb you when working. (L1)

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Example 2: Why do I learn English? How do I learn English? On 30 September the class was asked to consider and write down why and how they were learning English. There could be no right or wrong answers to these questions; all answers were equally acceptable. Why do I learn English? (L2) Anja (w):

When I grow up I will go to England and see if I can find a job as a street-policeman on horseback. (L1) Emrah (a): Because when I am abroad I can talk with people, and if something has happened to our car I can tell somebody. (L1) Karsten (s): You can tease the small ones without them understanding a word (I find that fun). (L1) How do I learn English? (L2) Anja (w):

In the school the teacher has to speak English almost all the time to you and you have to write a lot and read a lot. (L1) Emrah (a): I can watch many English films, and read many English books, and look in an English magazine and see if there is anybody that I can write to. (L1) Karsten (s): I learn English by concentrating when doing things. (L1) The teacher used individual learners’ answers to make two posters in English, one for each question (see Figure 1.1, p. 28); she also copied all the learners’ answers and gave them to the whole class.

Example 3: Evaluation of the task of reading an English text in pairs In the same lesson, the class was given a short text in English that was far too difficult for them because the teacher wanted to activate inferencing strategies (see Chapter 2, p. 54). Working in pairs, learners were asked to read the text, trying to understand as much of it as possible. When they had finished they were asked to discuss the activity with their partner and then write down in their logbooks how well they thought they had done. We quoted some examples in Chapter 2 but repeat three here for the sake of convenience: Anja (w):

We understood only 20 words [out of 83]. We think we could recognize the words from Danish. (L1) Emrah (a): We have not understood that much. We read the text many times as well as one word at a time and we put circles around the words that we knew. (L1) Karsten (s): I think that we understood it all. We found words and in the end we found a connection. (L1) This example shows that evaluation can be a communicative as well as a socially stimulating task. The outcome of the task was displayed on a poster in English: ‘Things we can do in order to understand a text’.

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Example 4: Preparing evaluation of the first two months of learning English On 5 October the teacher gave the class the following instruction: We have now had English for two months. I would like to know how you feel about learning English, but I would like you to ask the questions. Please write down in your logbook the questions that you would like to ask. (L2) Many questions were the same or very similar, but all in all the class came up with 20 different questions. In this way they were involved in their own task design. Their questions (L1) included the following: • • • • • • • •

Has it been fun to learn English? How do you feel about learning English? So far, have you learned what you wanted to learn? Would you like to learn more? Have you learned something that was fun? Has it been difficult to learn English? Has it been good to work in groups? Are you dissatisfied with anything?

Example 5: Self-evaluation of the first two months of learning English On 7 October the teacher gave the class these instructions: I have entered all your questions in a questionnaire. Below each question, I have added a line with ‘yes’ at one end and ‘no’ at the other. Please indicate your answer to the questions with a mark on the line and give reasons for your mark. (L2) This is how four learners answered the first question (given in English): Has it been fun to learn English? Yes||||———————————————————————No Why? • Because you do what you like to do. (L1) • It is a good language. (L1) • I don’t know. (L1) • Because I did a good job. (L1) The teacher collected all the answers and the reasons learners gave for their marks, copied them, and distributed them to the class for inclusion in their logbooks. In this way learners were provided with evaluative language in their mother tongue.

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Example 6: Planning what to do and with whom In order to feel comfortable with peer-evaluation, it is important that the learners themselves decide who to work with as well as what they want to do (cf. Chapter 3, pp. 82–83, where we explained how groups are formed in the autonomy classroom). These decisions are recorded in their logbooks, which means that they can easily be discussed and negotiated with peers and/or the teacher. This is the plan that Susan wrote on 21 October for work to be carried out after the autumn holidays. Susan (w): I would like to work with Anja. Me and Anja will make games together. We will work for 2 weeks. (L1)

Example 7: Peer-evaluation: sharing homework From the beginning, learners shared homework in pairs, showing each other what they had done, e.g. ‘Find a picture, write a story’ (cf. Figure 1.8, p. 36). On 28 October they were asked to evaluate the homework done by their partners – and if possible to do so in English. Michael (w): Karsten was a very godt at wirthing. He hat laning very mucth. (L2) Max (a): Annemette was good at reading. (L2) Emrah (a): Max was good at saying the numbers. (L2) Jacob (a): Michael has learned 10 new words And he has read in ‘A Tot of Englis’” (L2) As these examples show, the expression ‘be (very) good at’ has entered into the productive repertoire of all the learners, although at this early stage their evaluations remain very simple.

Example 8: Guided individual evaluation of an activity Starting with the evaluation of the first two months of English in October, the class used a simple scale to evaluate their learning activities. By the turn of the year they were used to recording what they were doing and with whom in their logbooks (cf. Example 6), so on 4 January the teacher asked them to add comments to their record of learning activities. Note that learning activities were recorded in English, even by weak learners, whereas the comments were written in Danish: Nanna (a): Comments:

Make a play and make a story together with: Birgitte, Annemette, Louise N., Jannie, Louise H. (L2) It was good, but I think that we started quarrelling too quickly. It was because it is difficult to make up a play on your own and in English! (L1)

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Karsten (s): Make a play with: Helene, Morten, Lars, Lasse. (L2) Comments: It was just great. (L1) Why? I don’t know, that is just the way it is. (L1)

Example 9: Peer-evaluation developed On 27 March the class was asked to evaluate the performance of a play that a group of their peers had written. Their comments are still in their L1, but they all give reasons for their views. Helene (a): It was very good but they talked too fast. It was good because they were good at acting, they also had some good sentences, but I did not understand all the words. (L1) Jacob (a): It was good because you learned a lot and Karsten and Anja played very well but Louise should practise more and I did not understand when Lars was the father and he was the mother. (L1) Emrah (a): It was good because there were many good words. And Karsten was funny. (L1) The teacher brought these evaluations together on a poster (in English): ‘What is a good play?’ The poster provided a starting point for evaluating learners’ plays in the future and, like other posters summarizing evaluation, contributed to the transfer of basic evaluative concepts from Danish to English.

Example 10: End-of-year evaluation including self-evaluation of own performance For the end-of-year evaluation, the learners were asked to write about ‘good things’ and ‘bad things’. They were also asked to use a scale to evaluate their learning of English. Good things: Susan (w): Make a newspaper, play games, E-mail with Mosede skolen, read books. (L1) Helene (a): The groups were good. Most of the things we did were good. (L1) Bad things: Susan (w): Nothing (L1) Helene (a): I did not like the exercises with “The Twins” and when we had substitute teachers we were always told to do things that we were not used to and I do not like it when Leni gets sulky. (L1)

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My work: Susan (w): – ————|————————————————-+ Helene (a): – ——————————————————|——-+ It is interesting to see Susan’s assessment of her own performance. At this point she is not sure enough of herself to show how she actually feels. It is the teacher’s opinion that the mark for her performance should be placed to the very right of the scale. This discrepancy seems to indicate that at this point her self-esteem is very low. The video ‘It’s up to yourself if you want to learn’ (Dam & Lentz, 1998), from which we quote in Chapter 6 (p. 177), suggests that of all the learners in her class Susan probably made the greatest progress. Helene’s comment on the teacher being sulky resulted in an evaluative task in the following grade: ‘What is a good teacher? What is a good student?’

Evaluation and Learners’ Developing Proficiency in English: Some Examples As we have seen, at first learners record evaluations in their L1, partly because they lack the proficiency needed to do so in English, and partly because they need to develop basic concepts in their L1 before transferring them to the TL. By the end of their first year of English they write their evaluations partly in the TL, and the shift from L1 to L2 is gradually completed as they become more familiar with evaluative procedures and their proficiency in English increases. By the time they are in their fourth year of English (Grade 8, age 15), spoken and written evaluation is fully integrated in the oral and written discourse of learning, as further examples from learners’ logbooks will show. The teacher is responsible for ensuring that all dimensions of the learning process are regularly evaluated. For example, when one class of Grade 8 learners was asked: ‘What is good group work?’ Emrah answered as follows: A good group work is work everybody take part in, and discuss everything, and they like each other. Everybody has to talk English all the time. Everybody has to do something for the group. When you learn something from the group. Max’s response focused on harmonious collaboration that takes advantage of the chance to speak English: Good group work is: That we talk English all the time, and we can work without getting mad at each other. Everybody has to work with something.

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You have to learn something about it. We have to discuss everything what we are doing. Karsten likewise emphasized the importance of involving all members of the group and working harmoniously, but also of choosing a worthwhile project: Good group work. A: Everybody is doing something, including homework. B: Everybody should get along with each other. C: It should be a good project, a good idea. These criteria were clearly in the mind of a Grade 8 learner who participated in a project to make a newspaper and at the end of the project evaluated the group work like this: We were a good group and worked very good, because we were all at the same level. We helped eachother very much even though we splitted up in two groups. We learned also a lot of good words and sentences. We was very concentrated and that was very important. I think our newspaper was very good, and that was maybe because we was so concentrated. After returning from a school trip to England, where they stayed with families, another class of Grade 8 learners was asked to write answers to the following three questions in their logbooks: • • •

How did I cope in England with my English? When did I cope well, and when poorly? How am I going to use this experience in my English lessons?

This is what two students wrote (L2): Lene I coped well: When I was talking to people, who I knew, I did well. I didn’t meet any problems, when I was shopping. I found it easier to talk to Jackie and the younger brother, than to talk to Lisa. I coped poorly: When they were telling jokes, I didn’t understand the point. If somebody, who I didn’t know, addressed me, I found it difficult to catch the questions. If they spoke to fast or used words, which I didn’t understand, I didn’t always understand it if I was about to tell something, I sometimes meet a word, which I couldn’t explain. How am I going to use this experience in my English lessons? We are going to explain an english word (which we don’t know) in other english words. I’m going to learn something about english humor. Read some jokes.

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Tine I coped well: I coped very good with my english when I was talking with my freinds. In the shops when I were asking things I also cope well. I think that I coped very well on the hole trip. I coped poorly: The first day I mumbled a lot. And when I was explaining things and experiences to Valerie Parry and Julie Tuz. I think it was because I thought that if I talked slowly they wouldn’t listen to me. I was talking very fast and it was silly of me. How am I going to use this experience in my English lessons? In the next lessons I will try to talk with somebody and when I talk I will try to open my mouth a bit more and talk a bit slower. I will worke together with Gitte. First we will record a discussion about the things we have been doing for the weekend. Like the definitions of good group work, these answers remind us that evaluation and awareness raising are two sides of the same coin. A monthly contract is another way of setting up criteria against which learners can evaluate their work. At the beginning of each month they write their targets for the month in their logbooks, and at the end of the month they record whether or not they have met their targets. Figures 4.1 and 4.2 show contracts and evaluations written by Karsten and Max, together with

Figure 4.1 Karsten’s learning contract, self-evaluation and the teacher’s feedback

Evaluat ion

Figure 4.2 Max’s learning contract, self-evaluation and the teacher’s feedback

Figure 4.3 Examples of peer assessment in Julie’s logbook

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the teacher’s evaluative feedback. These examples remind us of the autonomy classroom’s capacity to accommodate a wide range of learning approaches and learning styles. Both contracts include curriculum targets, but Karsten focuses on specific aspects of his proficiency (pronunciation, spelling, fluency in writing), while Max is more concerned with the quantity of work to be done (translating a page each time he reads his book, reading a whole book, writing a story). Peer evaluation is part of the general evaluative ethos of the autonomy classroom and is thus one of the features that the teacher requires of learners’ logbooks. This, for example, is how Annette evaluated Anders and Nicklas’s presentation of a magazine they had made: I think that they needed some more to put into the magazine fx [for example] succes and problems, but it sounds like a good magazine and I would like to read it. Figure 4.3 shows Julie’s evaluation of the same presentation and of a film review presented by Karina, Louise and André. The examples of evaluation we have presented so far focus on particular activities and their contribution to the learning process; they are a matter of looking back in order to move forward. The retrospective and prospective functions of evaluation also underlie students’ end-of-year reflections, when the teacher asks them to consider: 1. Things I’ve improved 2. Things I want to improve further This is what some of the learners wrote (L2): André (a new member of the class) 1. I’ve become a lot better since last year at my old school because I didn’t say anything. I was afraid of my teacher. 2. That I can do a good job if I just want to or if it is of interest to me. Michelle (an average student) 1. I’ve become better at spelling, but I still need to work a lot with it; I now write with a better language because I use my good expressions, and I have improved my behaviour, but I still need to work with ‘becoming down to earth’. 2. Spelling, grammar, a better language, use my good expressions, my behaviour. I will give myself more time to study at home, keep my things tidy at school, I will try to use good expressions and the good starters [conversational openings] and read aloud for my mother once a week.

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Figure 4.4 Karina’s evaluation of her fourth year of English and the teacher’s feedback

Anette (an above average student) 1. I’ve got a larger vocabulary. I read a lot more now. I use good starters a lot more now. Grammar. 2. Pronunciation. Grammar. Reading aloud. I will not write ‘so’ and ‘but’ all the time. Make more projects that involves pronunciation. Read aloud from my book to my parents. Figure 4.4 shows Karina’s end-of-year evaluation and the teacher’s response.

Assessment and Official Grades in the Autonomy Classroom We began this chapter by explaining that in the autonomy classroom assessment is continuous with evaluation; many of our examples of evaluation use techniques that can be applied to assessment, whether it is carried out by learners, teachers or external agencies like examination boards. This part of the chapter is concerned with evaluation that embraces assessment in the conventional sense. Teachers often complain that when they return corrected work their students are interested only in the mark they have been given; they pay no attention to feedback that might help them to improve. In the autonomy classroom

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the teacher addresses this problem by requiring learners to grade their own essays before handing them in to her. This presupposes that criteria for a good essay have been negotiated between the teacher and her learners within the framework provided by the official scale,1 as in the following example: Mark

Grade description

12

Excellent

10: …

Very good

7: …

Good

Etc.

Extended criteria for an essay negotiated between teacher and learners Excellent structure, excellent language: precise and varied vocabulary, near-native sentence structure, rich content, etc. Very good structure, very good language: advanced and adequate use of vocabulary, content above average, etc. Good structure, good language: reasonably varied use of vocabulary, fairly simple sentence structure, decent story-line (content), etc.

Students are expected to justify the marks they award themselves, as in this example from Karina’s logbook: I will give myself a “7” because I think that I have met the demands for a “7” by having a good structure of my essay, a reasonably varied vocabulary, and well-documented arguments for my views. However, I have a feeling that the ending could be improved. Students’ self-assessments can be further developed – and sometimes improved – by peer assessment, as the following comments by Annette illustrate: I agree with Karina. I would also give it a “7” for the reasons she mentions. However, I think that she should really try to be more precise in her choice of vocabulary, and I find that there are too many mistakes in spelling. This combination of self-assessment and peer-assessment makes the teacher’s job much easier because it allows her to build on what the learners have written; it also helps to make the learners more receptive to the teacher’s mark and comments. This, for example, is Karsten’s (Grade 8, age 15) reaction to being given a 102 by the teacher: I’ve got a 10 and I am very satisfied with it, but I also think it is a fair grade, because last time I had a 9, and I have improved since, especially in my articulation, but also in my vocabulary, which now is containing much more grown-up language. So the conclusion must be that is a good grade.

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Conclusion This chapter has been concerned with evaluation and assessment as indispensable components of the reflective processes on which learner autonomy depends. In the first part of the chapter we contrasted our own approach with that of the Assessment for Learning movement, pointing out that whereas AfL starts with teacher assessment and proceeds through peer and self-assessment to learner autonomy (James & Pedder, 2006), the autonomy classroom moves in the opposite direction. Learners first evaluate and assess their own learning, which gives them the experience and knowledge necessary to evaluate and assess their peers, and the evaluative discourse in which these procedures are embedded helps to inform and shape teacher assessment. Some recent work (e.g. Earl, 2013) defines three forms of assessment: of, for and as learning. But this is further removed from our position than AfL because it divides responsibility for assessment between external agencies (of ), the teacher (for), and the learner (as), whereas for us all aspects of evaluation and assessment should be occasions for collaboration in which learners have an equal role to play. We began this book by describing what happens in our version of the autonomy classroom. Chapters 1–4 have built on this description, explaining and illustrating classroom practice from four interacting perspectives: use of the TL, collaboration, learner self-management, and evaluation/assessment. The examples we have given of learners’ work are, we believe, evidence of a successful learning process, but research is nevertheless essential if we are to arrive at a systematic understanding of the learning outcomes that can be achieved by autonomous learners, especially if the procedures we describe are to be adapted to other learning environments. This is the concern of the second part of the book. Chapter 5 summarizes the findings of the LAALE project (Language Acquisition in an Autonomous Learning Environment), a longitudinal study of proficiency development in one of Leni Dam’s classes, while Chapter 6 shows that the autonomy classroom allows learners to flourish even when they have difficulties that are not easily accommodated in ‘normal’ classrooms.

Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action •

•

We have described evaluation as the hinge on which learner autonomy turns. However, teachers often claim that evaluation is too timeconsuming, that it takes time away from learning. On the basis of the evidence we have presented in this chapter, how would you argue against this view? Teachers sometimes worry that group work doesn’t allow them to assess the contribution and performance of individual learners. What arguments would you use to reassure them?

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The institutional and/or curricular requirement to assess learners’ proficiency on a regular basis often results in ‘teaching for the test’. Has this been a problem in your experience as language teacher and/or language learner? If it has, how would you describe its impact? If it hasn’t, how did you or your teachers manage to avoid it? When discussing testing and assessment it is usual to distinguish between ‘norm-referenced’ and ‘criterion-referenced’ judgements. What evidence would you use to argue that only criterion-referenced judgements are appropriate in the autonomy classroom? Learners are usually assessed, sometimes externally, at the end of major phases in their education. In most education systems they are also assessed internally, at the end of each school year on the basis of tests devised by their teacher. If your institution decided as a matter of policy to ban such tests, what other means would you be able to use to assess your learners’ progress and report on them at the end of the year? Self-assessment is sometimes dismissed on the ground that learners don’t know enough to assess themselves. We would argue that such a view is based on a misunderstanding of the purpose and limits of self-assessment. On the basis of what you have read in this chapter, construct your own version of that argument. In the autonomy classroom as we have described it, peer assessment is no less important than self-assessment and teacher assessment. How would you go about introducing peer assessment in your context? What problems would you expect to encounter, and how would you overcome them? On pp. 108–109 we quote three learners’ evaluations of good group work. How many more criteria can you think of, drawing on your own experience as teacher and/or learner?

Further Reading In recent years there has been a significant growth of interest in formative assessment, especially under the impact of the AfL movement. Assessment and Learning, edited by John Gardner (2006), provides a useful overview, although the 2nd edition (2012) does not include the excellent article by Mary James and David Pedder from which we quote on p. 98. So-called ‘learning-oriented assessment’ is a version of AfL that is exclusively concerned with L2 learning. Learning Oriented Assessment by Neil Jones and Nick Saville (2016) provides a comprehensive introduction. Language teachers at university level will find many echoes of our arguments in John Cowan’s On Becoming an Innovative University Teacher (1998), which describes the approach to teaching, learning and assessment that he developed for students of engineering. In their article ‘Learner identity, learner agency, and the assessment of language proficiency: Some reflections prompted by the Common European

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Framework of Reference for Languages’ (2015), David Little and Gudrun Erickson argue that the CEFR implies and supports an approach to assessment and evaluation closely similar to the one advocated in this book. The rather sparse literature on self-assessment and peer assessment is mostly based on research conducted in traditional teacher-directed learning environments (for an overview, see Little & Erickson, 2015).

Notes (1) The marks on this partial scale belong to the official scale currently used in Danish schools. (2) This refers to the scale used in Danish schools between 1963 and 2006, which was superseded by the scale referred to in note (1). The highest point on the earlier scale was 13 (rarely awarded); 10 was equal to ‘excellent’.

Part 2 Language Learner Autonomy: Evidence of Success

5

Exploring Learning Outcomes: Some Research Findings

Introduction: The LAALE Project (1992–1996) Why carry out empirical research? From the beginning, our pedagogical practice has been rooted in research of various kinds. In Chapters 1–4 we focused in turn on four key features of the autonomy classroom: TL use; the collaborative construction of knowledge; planning and managing learning; and evaluating and assessing the learning process and its outcomes. In each chapter we explained the principles that underlie our practice before describing that practice and illustrating it with examples of learners’ work. Although many of the examples are themselves clear evidence of successful learning, one of the questions we have been asked most frequently when presenting our work at conferences is: Can we be sure that learner autonomy works? This prompted two of us (Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen) to launch the LAALE project (Language Acquisition in an Autonomous Learning Environment), a longitudinal empirical exploration of different dimensions of learning by members of one of Leni Dam’s mixed-ability classes. In this chapter we present the project’s findings relative to the learning of vocabulary, the acquisition of TL grammar, the acquisition of pragmatic competence, and the validity of learners’ self-assessment.

Participants in the research and data collection The autonomy class comprised 21 mixed-ability learners, 10 girls and 11 boys, who began learning English in Grade 5 (age 11); eight of them had received remedial teaching in reading and writing Danish and/or in maths. The class had four 45-minute lessons a week (two double periods) on Mondays and Wednesdays (after two years the number of weekly lessons was reduced from four to three). All other subjects were taught in the conventional, teacher-directed way. When investigating vocabulary learning and 121

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the acquisition of grammar and pragmatic competence it was possible to compare data collected in the autonomy class with data collected in a class (31 learners) in a German Gymnasium. The German school system is selective: when our data were collected only about 40% of the school-going cohort attended Gymnasium, usually with the intention of taking Abitur (the schoolleaving examination) and going on to university, so the German participants were taken from the upper ability levels. They had five 45-minute English lessons per week, one each day, and were using a communicative textbook, Green Line (Beile et al., 1984). We collected data to explore the autonomous learners’ grammatical and pragmatic competence on two occasions, at the end of 18 months and at the end of four years. On the first occasion we could again compare their performance on test tasks with the performance of the Gymnasium learners who were being taught using Green Line, but when we collected the second data set that class no longer existed. For the sake of comparison we collected data in a Gymnasium class where the 29 pupils had been learning English for three and a half years but had received roughly the same number of lessons as the autonomous learners. Like the first Gymnasium class, this group was being taught English with a communicative textbook, in their case English G, Ausgabe A (Schwarz et al., 1985).

A note on the significance of our findings It is important to emphasize that we make no claims for the generalizability of our findings. Our data were collected over several years from just one group of autonomous learners. By comparing their learning outcomes with those of a group of German learners we hoped to identify similarities and (especially) differences that might be explored further with other learners in other contexts. We believe our findings are convincing, but they need to be confirmed or disconfirmed by replication studies in other countries, working with other language pairs (for example, English pupils learning French, French pupils learning German, Japanese pupils learning English). This book will have served one of its purposes if it prompts further research of this kind.

Acquisition of Vocabulary in the Early Stages of Learning English The initial phase of the LAALE project focused on the acquisition of vocabulary in the first weeks of learning English.

Size and distribution of vocabulary in the autonomy classroom In the autonomy classroom the learners themselves decide which words they need to learn in order to engage fully in classroom activities

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(cf. Chapter 1). Accordingly, in order to investigate the process of vocabulary acquisition it was necessary to enter into a database all words that were made public in the classroom during the first four weeks – words that were written on posters, for example, or used by learners when making word cards (logbooks were excluded because they are mostly individual and private). It was possible to trace which words were introduced into the classroom when, by which learner(s) (or the teacher), and in what context. The database contains 400 entries. The textbook Green Line introduced 124 words in the first four weeks, and the Gymnasium curriculum for North Rhine-Westphalia (where the German learners’ school is situated) required learners to master 800 words in their first year of English. This meant that in their first four weeks of English the Danish learners had encountered half as many words as their German peers were expected to learn in their first year.

Semantic fields What kinds of words were available to be learnt in the autonomy and Gymnasium classrooms? This is of theoretical as well as practical interest. The vocabulary presented in textbooks is normally selected on the basis of criteria such as frequency, range, coverage and utility. Taken together, these criteria are used to overcome the problem of arbitrariness by restricting the textbook author’s options in a principled way. No doubt authors make every effort to take learners’ interests and needs into account, but they can never be entirely confident of success. In order to explore the extent to which the vocabulary introduced in the autonomy classroom coincided with the choices made by the authors of Green Line, we decided to make a comparison based on semantic fields. These were determined by examining first the vocabulary database compiled for the autonomy classroom and then the first 233 words introduced by Green Line (because the textbook introduced only 124 words in the first four weeks, which was insufficient for our purpose, we based our analysis on the first seven weeks, or 35 lessons). Each set of words was sorted into semantic fields; for purposes of comparison we included only those semantic fields that contained at least eight words in one or another set. The results of this analysis are presented in Table 5.1. The differences between the two vocabulary sets are immediately obvious. Green Line introduces school equipment like schoolbag, rubber, biro, ruler from the very beginning; numbers are dealt with systematically at an early stage, but colours are introduced much later (green is an exception because it turns up in a song as well as in the textbook’s title). By contrast, the words in the autonomy database seem to reflect the interests of the learner group as a whole (ANIMALS, COLOURS) but also the specific interests of individual learners (the eight types of fruit included in the category FOOD appeared in a small book made by the daughter of a greengrocer).

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Table 5.1 Vocabulary in (i) the autonomy classroom and (ii) Green Line, compared on the basis of semantic fields Semantic field

Autonomy classroom after 16 lessons

Green Line after 35 lessons

People

20

13

Animals

28

–

Parts of the body

8

1

Colours

13

1

Numbers

2

14

Food School items

12 (including 8 different types of fruit) 3

– 8

Comparison with a standardized frequency list The vocabulary made public in the autonomy classroom includes lowfrequency words like galaxy, submarine and parachute, which reflect individual learners’ interests but are not found in any list of basic vocabulary. In order to arrive at a more objective picture of the semantic range and especially the frequency values of this vocabulary, we decided to align it and the first 233 words introduced by Green Line with a standardized frequency list developed to assist textbook authors and syllabus designers. At that time the best available option was the Leuven English Teaching Vocabulary List (LET-List; Engels, 1981), which combines objective frequency criteria with more subjective selection criteria. Engels and his colleagues first merged data from three wellknown corpora – The Brown Corpus, The LOB Corpus and the Leuven Theatre Corpus – in order to construct a list of the 2000 most frequent words (A-words). Since this list omits many concrete everyday words (for example, apple), it was checked against Richards’s (1971) familiarity list and a highcoverage list, West’s (1977/1965) International Reader’s Dictionary, and 1493 B-words were added to the 2000 A-words. Figure 5.1 aligns the first 400 words made public in the autonomy classroom and the first 233 words introduced by Green Line with the LET-List. In the autonomy classroom, 62 of the 100 most frequent words were made public in the first four weeks (16 lessons); on the other hand, 10% of the vocabulary that the learners introduced (35 words and six proper nouns) is not included in either section of the LET-List. By contrast, after seven weeks (35 lessons), Green Line had introduced only 30 of the 100 most frequent words, and only six words and one proper noun (2.6%) that are not included in the LET-List. Five of these six words are classroom related – biro, vocabulary, dialogue, rhyme, register (an important concept in

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Figure 5.1 Comparison of learners’ vocabulary with LET-List

German classrooms). The sixth word is teddy, the only word that might be said to reflect the specific interests of this age group (interestingly, it is also among the autonomous learners’ first 400 words). The 35 words of the Danish learner group that fall outside the LET-List include vocabulary from Westerns – sheriff, revolver, duel; words for animals – shark, whale; youth organizations – Girls’ Brigade/Boys’ Brigade; and the low-frequency words mentioned above.

Parts of speech Another distinctive feature of the vocabulary made public in the autonomy classroom becomes apparent if we consider the distribution of the various parts of speech. Here we can make comparisons with the vocabulary in Green Line but also with data from research on second language acquisition in a naturalistic environment (Wode, 1987). The results of the comparison are presented in Table 5.2. The overall distribution of the various parts of speech is roughly similar across the three learning contexts except that nouns tend to predominate in the autonomy classroom. This is probably to be explained by the fact that a large proportion of vocabulary found its way into the classroom via word cards, dominoes and picture lotto, which meant that the selection of words was in part determined by the need to represent them pictorially.

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Table 5.2 Vocabulary in (i) the autonomy classroom, (ii) naturalistic second language acquisition and (iii) Green Line, analysed according to parts of speech Part of speech

Autonomy classroom (first 16 lessons)

Naturalistic L2 acquisition (Wode, 1987)

Green Line (first 35 lessons)

Verbs Adjectives/ adverbs Pronouns Prepositions/ conjunctions Nouns Miscellaneous

18% 12%

22% 11%

19% 16%

5% 3%

8% 4%

5% 6%

55% 6%

31% 24%

34% 20%

How many words did learners actually learn? The fact that vocabulary is made public in the autonomy classroom is no guarantee, of course, that it will be learnt. Two vocabulary tests were designed and administered in order to find out which words learners could recall and reproduce in writing. The first test was administered after seven and a half weeks of learning (30 lessons) and was an informal elicitation of all the words the learners were able to recall spontaneously. They were given the following instructions (in English, but with examples in Danish or German as appropriate): (1) Write down as many words as you can (a) colours (b) animals (c) words for persons (e.g. dreng [‘boy’], mor [‘mother’], droning [‘king’]) (d) things you can eat (e) things you can see in the classroom (f) things people can do at work/in their free time (e.g. spise [‘eat’], side [‘sit’], stå [‘stand’], ridde [‘ride’], svømme [‘swim’], skrive [‘write’]) (2) Write down other words or sentences in English Figure 5.2 shows the results for individual learners. Each column represents the total number of words presented in an identifiable form. The top section refers to words written with two or more deviant graphemes, the middle section to words written with one deviant grapheme, and the bottom section to orthographically correct forms. Thus Birgitte (Learner A) was able to recall 118 English words and to spell 99 of them correctly, whereas Dennis (Learner U) recalled only nine words and wrote none of them correctly (he also had problems writing Danish). Variation between total number of words recalled and the proportion of those words written correctly may reflect

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120

100

Number of words

80

60

40

20

0 A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

Orthographically correct words

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

Words with one deviant grapheme

P

Q

R

S

T

U

Words with more than one deviant grapheme but still recognizable as an English word

Figure 5.2 Number of words recalled – Danish autonomy group

different learner types and different strategies; compare, for instance, the column of Anne Mette (Learner D) with that of Michelle (Learner G). This test was also taken by the German Gymnasium learners at the same stage of learning (Figure 5.3). Their results are much more homogeneous and 120

100

Number of words

80

60

40

20

0 A

B

C

D

E

F

H

I

Orthographically correct words

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

Words with one deviant grapheme

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

AA

Words with more than one deviant grapheme but still recognizable as an English word

Figure 5.3 Number of words recalled – German Gymnasium group

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Table 5.3 Average number of words produced in (i) autonomy and (ii) Gymnasium class Average number of words produced

Autonomy class

Gymnasium class

Whole class – all words Whole class – error-free words only Top 10 learners in class – all words Top 10 learners in class – error-free words only Bottom 10 learners in class – all words Bottom 10 learners in class – error-free words only

62 37 85 59 40 16

47 37 59 49 36 24

show that they are generally better at orthography than their Danish peers; formal correctness seems to have been an important teaching goal in their classroom. We also compared the average number of words and the average number of error-free words produced by all learners in each group, by the top 10 learners in each group, and by the bottom 10 learners in each group (Table 5.3). The average number of error-free words produced by each class was identical; the bottom 10 learners in the Gymnasium class produced on average more error-free words than their Danish peers. On the remaining four measures, however, the autonomy class was ahead of the Gymnasium class, substantially so when we focus on the total number of words recalled and produced.

Vocabulary Test 2: Receptive vocabulary knowledge/spelling The second vocabulary test was administered after 15 weeks (60 lessons) and sought to assess the learners’ receptive vocabulary in a more systematic way. The test items were all taken from the 400 words made public in the autonomy classroom in the first four weeks of learning English. Because there was a lapse of 11 weeks between the learning activities that yielded the 400 words and the administration of the test, the focus was on longer term retention rates. The test was biased towards receptive abilities (auditory and visual recognition of words) and spelling. It consisted of six subtests and 175 items. Criteria for the selection of vocabulary items included: • • •

How was the word introduced into the classroom – vocabulary game, video, song, small book, classroom discourse, etc.? How often was the item attested in the data bank, in other words, how many learners actively used it? Are polysyllabic words less likely to be retained than monosyllabic words?

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Subtests 1, 3 and 4 (55 items) tested auditory recognition and recall of meaning in different formats (translation equivalents or drawings; matching); Subtests 2 (matching) and 6 (translation equivalents or drawings) focused on visual recognition and recall of meaning (90 items); and Subtest 5 focused on auditory recognition and spelling (30 words were dictated). Contextual embeddings were deliberately avoided in order not to complicate things for weak readers/writers. Because some autonomous learners were very weak in writing, some subtests allowed them to use drawings to represent the meaning of words. The test was also administered to the Gymnasium class. To allow for the fact that some of the words had not been part of the German syllabus, the German learners’ results refer only to the subset of vocabulary that had actually occurred in the textbook by the time they took the test. This also explains why scores for Subtest 4 could not be calculated for them: only four of the 20 items occurred in Green Line. This subtest was designed to check to what extent the autonomous learners recalled words that were attested only once in the database, including polysyllabic words (e.g. corkscrew, envelope,

Table 5.4 Vocabulary Test 2: Structure, content and results Structure of the test

Results in %

Subtest

No. of items

Source/selection criteria

Abilities in focus

Item format

Autonomy class

Gymnasium class

1

20

92.2

88.2

20

matching

93.3

89.3

3

15

songs/nursery rhymes

matching

98.7

90.4

4

20

translation (drawing)

63.1

–

5 6

30 70

single attestation (1–20) polysyllabic words (11–20) random selection random selection

auditory recognition/ meaning recall visual recognition/ meaning recall auditory recognition/ meaning recall auditory recognition/ meaning recall orthography visual recognition/ meaning recall

translation (drawing)

2

multiple attestation (1–10) classroom discourse (11–20) word games (1–10) video films (11–20)

dictation translation (drawing)

73.1 73.3

88.7 86.1

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octopus, umbrella). The structure and content of the second vocabulary test and the results for the two learner groups are presented in Table 5.4. The results may be summarized as follows: • • •

• •

the autonomy group performed slightly better on auditory recognition; the Gymnasium learners were better in writing and spelling; vocabulary presented in songs and rhymes was much better retained, especially by weaker students – this may explain the score difference in Subtest 3, where the items were presented in songs or rhymes only in the autonomy classroom; the relatively high retention rates for single-attestation and polysyllabic words in the autonomy group imply a strong link between these vocabulary items and learners’ personal interests; multiple attestations in the database had a positive impact on retention, no doubt because they were also a sign of increased interest on the part of the autonomous learners.

Concluding remarks The results of the two vocabulary tests show that vocabulary acquisition in the autonomy classroom was very successful and compared favourably with vocabulary acquisition that depended on a textbook. The number of words that emerged and were publicly shared in the first few months, as learners created their own world of TL learning and use, exceeded the requirements of official syllabus guidelines for German Gymnasium classes, which are made up of higher ability learners. The availability of an extended vocabulary in the autonomy classroom may also have been due to the fact that the approach adopted made learners aware of the English language present in their L1 environment and encouraged them to integrate this knowledge into their developing L2 competence: in some cases it may have been a matter not of learning new words but of fully activating words that were already half-known. Traditional approaches might turn out to be less successful in this regard.

The Acquisition of Target Language Grammar In Chapter 1, in our introductory discussion of the central role played by language use in effective language learning, we referred to the ongoing debate that surrounds the explicit teaching of grammar. In the autonomy classroom learners are engaged from the beginning in spontaneous and authentic TL communication, and it is assumed that as a result of this engagement they will gradually, and to a large extent unconsciously, develop the ability to produce grammatically correct utterances. At the same time, as we pointed out in Chapter 1 (pp. 26–27), the central role played by writing (logbooks,

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posters, word cards, picture lotto, creative text of various kinds) encourages a focus on linguistic form, especially in collaborative work (cf. Chapter 2, p. 50). In textbooks like Green Line, by contrast, grammatical forms are explicitly introduced and practised in the expectation that learners will be able to draw on what they have consciously learnt when they communicate in the TL. The second phase of the LAALE project focused on the way learners in both groups used a variety of grammatical structures in spontaneous communication after they had been learning English for 18 months.

Instruments used and data elicited The instruments used were so-called ‘peer-to-peer talks’ and informal interviews. In a peer-to-peer talk two learners engage in conversation about one or more topics of their own choice. The autonomy group was familiar with this activity – as we saw in Chapter 2, ‘Two minutes’ talk’ is a regular feature of the autonomy classroom, while Green Line (Beile et al., 1984) included a series of exercises that required learners to practise phrases and structures that would be useful to them in spontaneous conversation. All participating learners (19 from the autonomy classroom, 31 from the Gymnasium) were required to engage in two peer-to-peer talks, with different partners. Conversations and interviews were video-recorded and subsequently transcribed: 20 conversations and 19 interviews in the autonomy classroom (approximately 13,000 words) and 29 conversations and 31 interviews in the Gymnasium classroom (approximately 19,000 words).1 When interpreting the data it is important to bear in mind the different sizes of the two corpora; it is also important to note that tests of significance could not be applied because the two learner groups were not strictly comparable – as pointed out above, the autonomy group was mixed ability, whereas the Gymnasium group had undergone a process of selection which excluded low-ability learners.

The use of grammatical structures by autonomous and traditional learners: Research questions Our analysis focuses on core grammatical structures that had emerged or were emerging in the autonomy classroom and had been introduced by Green Line and thus were in principle also available to the Gymnasium learners. We were particularly interested in finding at least tentative answers to the following questions: • •

How accurately did autonomous learners use grammar structures compared with learners who had undergone systematic grammar instruction? To what extent did the Gymnasium learners actually use the structures they had been taught, and how frequently did they use those structures compared with the autonomous group?

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Did the autonomous learners use structures that had not been introduced by Green Line? Did any of the structures introduced by Green Line not occur in the data collected from the autonomous learners?

Acquisition and use of tense forms It probably does not come as a surprise that in both learner groups the predominated in the peer-to-peer talks. But we were concerned to explore how learners handled PAST and PRESENT PERFECT tenses and forms with future reference when they had been learning English for 18 months. We show the frequency of occurrence and accuracy rates of these forms in Tables 5.5–5.7. In compiling the tables we discounted so-called ‘echo usage’ of tense forms, which occurred in the interviews when learners repeated (‘echoed’) the tense form used in the interviewer’s question. The overall frequencies of PAST TENSE forms (Table 5.5) reflect the different corpus sizes. However, percentage accuracy rates are higher for the autonomy group. The unacceptable forms occurred in sentences that required a PAST TENSE: learners used some other form, PRESENT TENSE in the majority of cases. The PAST TENSE data for the Gymnasium group derive almost exclusively from the interviews, where questions were asked that required answers in the PAST TENSE. The same group’s peer-to-peer talks contain only six instances of the PAST TENSE, compared to 31 in the autonomy group’s data. The Gymnasium group avoided irregular full verb forms in the peer-to-peer talks with just two exceptions: the forms rode and threw each occurred once, although with deviant reference to present time. PRESENT TENSE

Table 5.5 Use of PAST TENSE (full verbs)

Gymnasium group Autonomy group

Regular verbs Irregular verbs Regular verbs Irregular verbs

Total number of forms

Acceptable

Unacceptable

54 65 24 46

54% 45% 67% 61%

46% 55% 33% 39%

Table 5.6 Use of PRESENT PERFECT

Gymnasium group Autonomy group

Total number of forms

Well-formed

23 32

0% 63%

The forms and functions of the PRESENT PERFECT are much more difficult to acquire than the PAST TENSE, as Table 5.6 confirms. Learners in both groups

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produced unacceptable forms that used an unmarked INFINITIVE instead of a PAST PARTICIPLE, as in Example 1.

Example 1 Ehm, have you buy a present for the boy that you’re going to live with? The PRESENT PERFECT was wrongly used for the PAST TENSE twice by the autonomy group and 12 times by the Gymnasium group. On nine of those 12 occasions the deviant structures additionally lack a PAST PARTICIPLE marker, as in Example 2.

Example 2 Yesterday … we have listen The distribution of deviant and non-deviant forms across the two learner groups is remarkable in a number of ways. The peer-to-peer talks of the Gymnasium learners contain only four examples of learners trying and/or having to construct a PRESENT PERFECT (cf. Example 3).

Example 3 I play piano one year ago [cf. ‘I have been playing the piano for one year’] This might be interpreted as an avoidance strategy, which has probably got to do with a general uncertainty about the formation and function of PRESENT PERFECT forms. Although the contrast between PRESENT PERFECT and PAST TENSE was one of the last major grammatical topics dealt with in Green Line prior to the data collection, attempts to use the PRESENT PERFECT where the PAST TENSE is required are among the more frequent deviations in the data (12 occurrences). Especially when compared to the autonomy group, the number of PRESENT PERFECT structures in the Gymnasium group’s data is surprisingly low. Explicit teaching of the structures evidently had no impact either on frequency of occurrence or on rates of accuracy, which seems to corroborate Pienemann’s (1987, 1998, 2006) argument that premature teaching of complex structures does not facilitate learning. In view of the semantic and grammatical complexity of the PRESENT PERFECT, the percentage of correct forms in the autonomy group’s data is remarkable. It should be noted, however, that most of these correct forms were produced by the more able members of the group. Similar observations can be made regarding linguistic forms that refer to future events or states. Table 5.7 provides an overview of the use of such forms by the two learner groups. Echo-occurrences of be going to-structures are excluded as well as shall/gonna in the stereotypical talk opening: ‘What shall we talk about?’/‘What are we gonna talk about?’ The most striking difference between the two learner groups is the total number of references to a future state or event. Although the autonomy

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Table 5.7 Future time reference Autonomy group

be going to gonna will shall EXPANDED FORM PRESENT TENSE

should Total

Gymnasium group

Number of occurrences

Correct

Incorrect

Number of occurrences

55 15 31 11 15 23 59 209

73% 53% 84% 55% 87% 4% 0% 45%

27% 47% 16% 45% 13% 96% 100% 55%

9 0 14 2 3 58 0 86

Correct 89% – 71% 100% 67% 5% – 30%

Incorrect 11% – 29% – 33% 95% – 70%

group’s data corpus is much smaller than that of the Gymnasium group, the conversational exchanges of the autonomous learners contain two and a half times more references to future time. A similar though less pronounced tendency can be observed in the use of PRESENT PERFECT forms, and it is tempting to conclude that the difference between the two groups is attributable to differences in the discourse characteristic of the two classrooms. The autonomy classroom creates its own world of authentic TL communication, whereas textbooks seem to draw learners into a world where normal discourse conventions are suspended (cf. pp. 139–142 below). Some of the distributional differences can also be explained, however, in terms of the two mother tongues involved. For example, the large number of deviant shouldstructures in the autonomy group’s data, as in Example 4.

Example 4 Should you play computer tomorrow? is due to interference from Danish L1; such structures do not occur in the German data. At the same time it is worth pointing out that only the three weakest learners in the autonomy group used should in this way, one of them producing 31 of the 59 deviant forms. If we exclude the deviant shouldstructures of these three learners from consideration, the autonomy group’s overall accuracy rate for future time reference goes up to 63%, which compares even more favourably with the Gymnasium group’s 30%. Other differences between the groups may be due to the syllabus followed by the Gymnasium group. Neither informal gonna nor the PROGRESSIVE or EXPANDED FORM with future time reference had been introduced by Green Line, which accounts for the absence of the former and very low frequency of the latter in the Gymnasium group’s data.

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Overuse of PRESENT TENSE for future reference is a characteristic feature of both learner groups, since Danish and German both use PRESENT TENSE for future reference without restriction, whereas English does so only in certain contexts. The very fact, however, that this structure accounts for two-thirds (67%) of all instances of future time reference in the Gymnasium group shows the low impact of teaching will- and be going to-structures. Not only are the forms systematically dealt with in Green Line, but the German learners had worked intensively on their functional differences. Another interesting feature of the autonomy group’s data is the distribution of be going to versus gonna. The higher percentage of errors for gonna-structures derives from the fact that some learners have apparently not completely analysed the form. The following examples point to its opaqueness:

Example 5 (a) If you not gonna skiing, what do you gonna do there? (b) I would gonna play cards

Do-support questions One of the key grammatical challenges facing learners of English is mastery of do-support question forms (e.g. ‘Do you go to school on Saturday?’). Danish and German both form questions by inversion, so the challenge must be very similar for both groups. Although overall accuracy figures for questions requiring do-support (Table 5.8) seem to indicate slightly better results for the Gymnasium group (74%) than for the autonomous learners (70%), the figures conceal the extent to which learners had achieved creative mastery of this structure. The very fact that more than half of the questions requiring do-support in the Gymnasium data are constructed with the verbs like and live (83/135) points to their formulaic character. They were practised intensively with these verbs in the textbook, and learners seem to have automatized them to a large extent. The accuracy rate for questions with like approaches Table 5.8 Do-support questions

Gymnasium group Autonomy group

Total number of questions

Well-formed

Ill-formed

135 142

74% 70%

26% 30%

Table 5.9 Do-support questions without the verbs like and live

Gymnasium group Autonomy group

Total number of questions

Well-formed

Ill-formed

52 103

46% 63%

54% 35%

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almost perfect mastery with 98% in the Gymnasium data. If questions with like and live are excluded (Table 5.9), the accuracy rate drops for both groups, but much less for the autonomy group.

Structures not yet covered by the German syllabus In addition to the structures we have been concerned with so far, the autonomy group’s data includes a host of grammatical structures that had not been taught in the Gymnasium class and, as a consequence, did not occur in the Gymnasium group’s conversations or interviews. These structures reflect the spontaneous communicative and linguistic needs of young teenage learners and should thus be of great interest to syllabus designers; they are also evidence of the additional learning that the autonomy group had already accomplished. Relative clauses are among the more frequent of the structures that are found only in the autonomy group’s data. They occur 36 times with an accuracy rate of 78%. Hypothetical past tense clauses (ifclauses) occur 16 times with an accuracy rate of 75%, but they are used only by a few more able learners. At first glance the frequency of structures that have undergone wh-movement out of prepositional phrases as in Example 6(a)–(c) is also surprising.

Example 6 (a) What is your … what are your parents working with? (b) I have no … no friends to play basketball with (c) I like ah Guns ’n Roses, too, and some other groups that I don’t know the names on However, Danish also allows wh-movement of this kind. By contrast, complex grammatical forms of the kind illustrated in Examples 7 and 8 cannot be explained in terms of language transfer.

Example 7 Do you think that Jacob is nice to stay with in … in his house?

Example 8 He think it stupid A more detailed longitudinal study could attempt to trace the developmental path taken by such complex grammatical forms. Meanwhile, a limited corpus of the type collected by the LAALE project seems to show that learners master certain structures by first coming to grips with one or two prototypical forms and then experimenting with those forms in other contexts. The various gerund structures in the autonomy group’s data may be a case in point, and could be interpreted as resulting from hypothesis

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formation and testing. In both corpora, for example, prototypical gerund formations of the types in Examples 9 and 10 are well-represented, with verbs such as swim, ride, fish filling the V-slots.

Example 9 my hobbies are V-ing

Example 10 to go V-ing However, it is only in the autonomy group’s data that we find a number of additional well-formed and deviant gerund structures, which indicate that the learners have begun exploring ing-structures even further. For example, after mentioning that her hobby was riding, one learner came up with the ing-structures in Example 11(a)–(c).

Example 11 (a) Ehm, yesterday I was out in … on riding down in the town (b) [What did you do over the weekend?] I walked out at riding (c) [What are you going to do today?] I’ll back riding The following examples are also worth considering.

Example 12 Have you try skiing before?

Example 13 I don’t know if I’m very good at skiing, so …

Example 14 (a) Today was our going down to the [?] (b) [Topic: Guns N’ Roses] I like the songs and their singing

Example 15 (a) But I … I … I don’t like to driving in the bus so long time, but … (b) Are you going to skiing down there?

Example 16 (a) I would talk to them without they were singing and playing (b) without seein’ them … see at them If hypothesis formation and testing are crucial to second language acquisition and if, as many researchers believe, interlingual variability is a prerequisite for the construction of new knowledge, Examples 11–16 help to explain the overall success of the autonomous learners.

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Concluding remarks Although the data collected from the two learner groups should not be over-interpreted, it is possible to draw the following tentative conclusions: •

•

•

•

The data from the autonomy group support the view that when learners in institutional settings engage from the beginning in spontaneous, authentic TL communication, they gradually develop the capacity to produce grammatically correct utterances without benefit of explicit formal instruction. Indeed, the autonomy group’s grammatical proficiency was markedly better developed than that of the Gymnasium group, who had received explicit grammar teaching. Transfer from form-focused exercises to free communicative practice is not as successful as the designers of traditional language courses and authors of textbooks assume it to be. There is clear evidence that the Gymnasium group relied on a limited number of memorized and/or automatized structures to serve as ‘islands of reliability’ (Dechert, 1983) in communicative interactions. The accuracy rates achieved by both groups, especially in the use of more complex grammatical structures, seem not to be the result of systematic teaching. Our data analysis thus corroborates the findings of other researchers (e.g. Bleyhl, 1995; Felix & Hahn, 1985: 236; Green & Hecht, 1992: 178; Prabhu, 1987: 69; Seliger, 1979: 364; Terrell, 1991). In order for learners to fully exploit their language processing capacity, they need to be given ample opportunity to experiment with linguistic forms in authentic communicative situations. It seems clear that teachers who follow the principles we have elaborated in this book can ensure authenticity of interaction to a much greater extent than those who follow traditional approaches. Because they are encouraged, and in some cases compelled, to interact with one another in meaningful ways, autonomous learners develop an oral communicative competence that is characterized by a high degree of grammatical proficiency.

Acquiring Pragmatic Competence Introductory remarks While grammatical competence enables us to produce well-formed sentences and utterances, pragmatic competence enables us to produce wellformed discourse. In their reviews of pragmatics in language teaching and learning, Kasper and Schmidt (1996) and Kasper and Rose (1999) pointed out that studies in this field tended to focus on language use rather than language acquisition, intermediate and advanced learners, snapshot or (more rarely) pseudo-longitudinal studies, naturalistic settings, and the realization

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of various speech act types. They argued that there was ‘a dearth of research into pragmatic development’ in institutional settings (Kasper & Schmidt, 1996: 149). How the development of pragmatic competence is related to, or results from, classroom learning had been largely ignored in the past. This part of the LAALE project was intended to help fill this gap. It is concerned with the L2 pragmatic development of young teenage learners in the relatively early stages of learning and on the development of the same learners in a classroom setting over a longer period of time. It focuses on a selection of pragmatic features other than speech act realizations, and it considers the impact of different teaching approaches on learners’ emerging pragmatic competence. We argue that the way in which foreign language classrooms are organized and the activities that learners are required to carry out influence the way in which they process linguistic material, which in turn influences the communication strategies they use. We compare and contrast data from two different classroom cultures, although our primary concern is the pragmatic development of the group of autonomous learners. The data we present and discuss were elicited on two occasions, first when the autonomy class had been learning English for 18 months and again at the end of four years. As we explained at the beginning of the chapter, we compared the first data set with data collected from the Gymnasium class that was using Green Line and the second data set with another Gymnasium class that had been learning English for three and a half years but had received approximately the same number of lessons as the autonomy class at the end of four years. This second German class was also using a textbook, English G, Ausgabe A (Schwarz et al., 1985). Whereas all the learners in the first round of data collection (Grade 6) did the peer-to-peer talks twice, with different partners, in the second round the German Grade 8 pupils did them only once. In this way we ensured that the data sets were roughly the same size.

Grice’s conversational maxims2 and the coexistence of discourse worlds: Some evidence from traditional classrooms The topics discussed by both learner groups in the first round of data collection included the learners’ family background, their hobbies and free time activities. The German group’s favourite topic, though, was school: What are your favourite subjects? was asked 41 times in 32 peer-to-peer talks. By contrast, the topic ‘school’ was of no interest to the Danish learners, who preferred to discuss pop groups – a topic that was not raised once by the German learners and had not been dealt with in their textbook. The crucial contrast between the two groups, however, was not the topics they chose to talk about, but the way the topics were dealt with. The communicative strategies employed by the Gymnasium learners seemed to be largely determined by the transfer principle; in other words, when required to communicate spontaneously they tried to exploit what they had

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practised intensively in ‘do-as-if’ activities in the classroom. Apart from limiting the range of topics available to them, this strategy placed them in an ambiguous discourse world. For example, it was often unclear whether or not their initiating moves were motivated by a genuine communicative intent, so that their underlying pragmatic intention was not always immediately obvious to their interlocutor. More often than not, they seemed intent on displaying their ability to carry on a conversation without necessarily pursuing a conversational goal. The data confirm that this strategy frequently led to mechanical or ‘mindless’ exchanges. For example, in the first round of data collection all the Gymnasium learners without exception introduced themselves to each other by their names (only seconds earlier they had given their names to the experimenter so that he could make a note of them).

Example 17 Luise: Annelies: Luise: Anneliese: Luise:

Hello, how do you do? Thank you, I’m fine Uh, what’s your name? My name is Anneliese Hoffmann. What’s your name? My name is Luise

When they talk about their teachers and their school they are clearly basing their exchanges on textbook themes and re-enacting textbook dialogues.

Example 18 Mia: … and have you got a favourite teacher? Susanne: Uhm, yes, uhm, uhm, a lot of. Sometimes they are terrible and sometimes all they are nice. Uhm, but I like Mister Brandt and Mister Dahrenburg and a lot of other teachers. Uhm, where is your school? Mia: My school is in Mels, and your school? Susanne: Uh, my s uhm my school is uhm in Mels, too; it’s Mels Grammar School. And your –? Mia: Aha, it’s uh, it’s you [laughing] The laughter in this excerpt shows that Mia has suddenly realized the absurdity of the situation: classmates asking each other which school they go to. Laughter can serve many functions in interlanguage pragmatics (see Meierkord, 1996). In these peer-to-peer talks it often signals the participants’ awareness of the ‘do-as-if’ nature of the exchange, which is combined with a ‘let-it-pass’ strategy. Consider the next excerpt, in which Bernd asks Klaus whether he speaks German.

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Example 19 Bernd: Can you speak German? Klaus: [laughing] Yes, I can speak German Again, the textbook provides the source of this exchange. In Green Line a new member of the class, Barbara from Cologne, is asked by an English boy: ‘Can you speak German?’ (Beile et al., 1984: 24). Occasionally interactants are confused about the discourse world they are operating in and the conversational maxims that hold in that world. Consider Example 20.

Example 20 Klaus: Jan: Klaus: Jan:

Have you got a car? I? [very surprised] Uh, your parents Ach so, uhm, yes [laughing]. Have you got a par-, a … a car, your parents?

Violations of the Gricean maxims of relevance, quantity and even quality abound. Failure to observe the maxim of quality can sometimes lead to serious misunderstanding if classroom routines are transferred to situations outside the classroom. In the early days of email, a project involving Danish and German learners ran into serious problems because the Danish learners got the impression that the domestic situation of their German peers was highly problematic: many of them had referred to their brothers and sisters as either ‘terrible’ or ‘silly’. In the first round of LAALE data collection, 11 out of 29 pupils in the Gymnasium class also referred to their brothers and sisters as either terrible or silly. But these characterizations probably had little to do with actual family relationships; it seems more likely that the learners were influenced by textbook exchanges of the following type:

Example 21 Ronny: And the girl on the van? Kevin: That is my sister Kate. She’s terrible

(Beile et al., 1984: 12)

Example 22 Kevin: Ronny: Kevin: Ronny:

You have got a baby brother? Yes That is terrible No, it isn’t

(Beile et al., 1984: 18)

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The mechanical replication of textbook dialogues often seems to prevent learners from processing the meaning of what they are saying. The confirmation check ‘I?’ (i.e. ‘Do you actually mean me?’) in Example 20 above, in which the discourse world is negotiated, is an exception. The learners sometimes utter ‘mindless’ sentences without their partners challenging them or asking for clarification. Whether these are instances of the ‘let-it-pass’ strategy or the result of inadequate semantic processing is often difficult to decide, as Examples 23 and 24 suggest.

Example 23 Isa: How old is your father? Susanna: Fifteen years old. How old is your mother? Isa: My mother is eighty-three. And your f…, and your mother? Susanna: My mother is thirty-nine years old3

Example 24 Isa: What are your foreign languages? Susanna: My foreign languages are Sport, Textil. What are your foreign languages? Isa: My foreign languages are Biologie, Textil and German In Example 24 the two learners are evidently thinking about ‘favourite subjects’ rather than ‘foreign languages’. This does not at all impair their mutual understanding, and one is tempted to wonder whether meanings are ‘successfully’ co-constructed in learner-specific ways independently of native-speaker norms. The essential point to be made in this context is that the deficits in the pragmatic competence of these learners can largely be attributed to the strategies they resort to when trying to cope with quasicommunicative situations. More often than not, they try to recall memorized chunks from their textbook without actually processing them.

The impact of coping strategies on the grammaticality of structures We use the term ‘coping strategy’ here to refer to learners’ attempts to come to grips with a quasi-communicative situation by relying heavily on routines practised in the classroom, exploiting them as pragmatic ‘islands of reliability’ in Dechert’s (1983) sense. This coping strategy may also account for the oscillation between deviant and well-formed grammatical structures within adjoining moves. There are a host of instances like Examples 25 and 26, in which only the well-formed sentences can be directly related to corresponding textbook phrases, while the deviant forms result from an attempt to use language more productively.

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Example 25 Klaus: Where do you live? Jan: I live in Nordburg Klaus: Where live your boyfriend?

Example 26 Dieter: Dieter:

Uhm [2 sec] where do you live? … [4 moves] … … Drive you … arrive you with a bus to school?

The type of rote learning promoted by traditional form-focussed exercises frequently leads to overlearning and the overgeneralization of grammatical structures. This training-induced phenomenon can be illustrated in a statistically impressive way by focusing on routine questions introduced by contracted what’s, for example, ‘What’s your address?’ (Table 5.10). Table 5.10 Questions with contracted what’s: What’s your + NP?

Well-formed structures Well-formed structures categorized: Name/address/ telephone number Other NPs Deviant structures Total structures

Autonomy group (18 months)

Autonomy group (4 years)

Gymnasium Group 1 (18 months)

Gymnasium Group 2 (3.5 years)

No.

No.

No.

%

No.

%

7

–

85

64%

11

65%

– 7 2 9

– – – –

67 18 48 133

36%

– 11 6 17

35%

The striking differences between the Gymnasium and autonomy groups are evidence of qualitatively different interactional patterns. Apart from the fact that after 18 months the learners in Gymnasium Group 1 use the structure 15 times more often than the autonomy group, a closer analysis of collocating NPs and accuracy rates reveals interesting distribution patterns. In the first round of data collection the structure what’s + NP was correctly used by the Gymnasium learners in 64% of all cases. However, in 67 of the wellformed structures the following NP is name, telephone number or address – the collocations that occur again and again in textbook exercises (see, for example, Green Line, Unit 2C, Beile et al., 1984: 3). If we disregard stereotypical

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Table 5.11 Questions with contracted what’s excluding the NPs name, address, telephone number

Well-formed What’s your hobby, etc. Ill-formed *What’s your hobbies, etc. *What’s your best friend, etc. *What’s is your hobby, etc. *What’s are your hobbies, etc. Other deviant types

Autonomy group (18 months)

Autonomy group (4 years)

Gymnasium Group 1 (18 months)

Gymnasium Group 2 (3.5 years)

No.

No.

No.

%

No.

%

7

–

18

27%

11

65%

2 1 1

–

48 19 18 2 2 7

73%

6 3 – – – 3

35%

textbook phrases introduced by what’s, the Gymnasium learners’ accuracy rate drops from 64% to 27% (Table 5.11). The fact that in the data collected from Gymnasium Group 2 after three and a half years of learning English every third structure with contracted what’s is ill-formed suggests that training procedures have a long lasting and powerful negative effect on grammaticality and conversational strategies. The Gymnasium learners rarely ask questions to which they do not already know the answer. They seem to approach the peer-to-peer talks they have been asked to engage in as a language practice task in which the rules of the ‘do-as-if’ textbook world still apply. In other words, the Gricean conversational maxims of quality, quantity and relevance are subordinated to or superseded by a ‘didactic maxim’: ‘Utter sentences which you know to be correct English, whether or not they are contextually relevant.’

The emergence of pragmatic competence and its development Several researchers have taken a very pessimistic view of the possibility of developing L2 pragmatic competence in instructional settings. In reviewing the work of Hall and others, Kasper sums up their findings as follows: In the teacher-controlled IRF exchange structure, students were not provided with opportunities for developing the interactional, linguistic, and cognitive knowledge of a complexity required in ordinary conversation. (Kasper, 2001: 38) She goes on to quote Hall’s (1995: 55) suggestion that ‘extended participation in such a practice could facilitate the development of L2 interactional incompetence’. Although the Gymnasium classrooms subscribed to the

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communicative approach, they were strongly teacher controlled, and the data presented in Tables 5.10 and 5.11 tend to support Hall’s pessimistic view. The data collected from the autonomous learners, however, come from the opposite end of the control spectrum. As we have seen, the Danish classroom relies heavily on learner-directed pair and group work to generate acquisition-promoting interaction in the TL. However, this raises another pessimistic argument that centres on the deficiencies of learner language as input. As early as 1986, Patricia Porter asked: ‘What happens when students engage in communicative tasks with their production unmonitored by the teacher?’ (Porter, 1986: 201). Based on an analysis of learner–learner interactions in instructional settings, she answered the question as follows: ‘The underlying issue is whether the learners can learn various features of sociolinguistic competence from each other. The findings suggest that they cannot’ (Porter, 1986: 215). Porter’s analysis focused on just three speech acts: expressing opinions, expressing agreement and expressing disagreement. A more comprehensive exploration of pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competence would have to include learners’ ability to • • • • • • •

establish a common knowledge base and develop conversational exchanges from shared information; introduce, change and end topics, and sustain a conversation; show appropriate up-taking and responsive behaviour, and thus avoid ‘naked linkage’ between turns; plug conversational gaps and use gambits to increase fluency and establish rapport; support their partners during their turns and signal interest; adhere to politeness conventions; and show metalinguistic awareness when communication runs into problems.

Data from the autonomy classroom show that, although there was no deliberate attempt to teach them, learners developed many of these competences, a subset of which we discuss in the following sections.

Shared information One of the prerequisites for successfully co-constructing meaning in conversational exchanges is to take shared information into account. Although common knowledge is not usually verbalized in interactions and thus remains largely inaccessible to analysis, the peer-to-peer talks of the autonomous learners include a number of explicit references to shared information of the type you remember, I have heard that you …, etc. If these tokens are counted, another indicator of the qualitative difference between the two learner groups emerges. Whereas the number of explicit references to common knowledge increased from 14 to 26 in the two rounds of data collection in the autonomy

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classroom, the data collected from Gymnasium learners after 18 months contained only one such reference and the data collected from Gymnasium learners after three and a half years contained just seven.

Gambits There is a long tradition of studying gambits in interlanguage pragmatics (e.g. House, 1982, 1996; Wildner-Bassett, 1984). However, the question of when and how these pragmatically relevant particles emerge in L2 acquisition has largely been ignored. Table 5.12 focuses on a selection of gambits that are lexically more interesting than yes, yeah, ok, ah and oh, and which are often indistinguishable from L1 tokens. Since the use of gambits such as appealers, cajolers, starters, etc. (see Edmondson & House, 1981) is often said to indicate the fluency and naturalness of everyday conversation, a comparison with data we collected from native speakers who were the same age as the learners involved in the second round of data collection gives additional interpretative clues. It should be borne in mind, though, that with about 16,000 words, the size of the native-speaker corpus exceeds the autonomy corpus by 45% and the Gymnasium Group 2 corpus by 23%. Even a cursory glance at Table 5.12 reveals that gambits are largely missing from the Gymnasium data. Gymnasium Group 2 produced only one Table 5.12 Gambits Autonomy group (18 months) Tags 2 copy of auxiliary – or what tags 4 ill-formed tags – L1 tags Gambits 6 well – you know – I mean – I don’t know Asides 2 let me see, etc. Sequence-concluding pro-forms 19 and things/stuff (like that), etc. Note: *Deviant form

Autonomy Gymnasium group Group 1 (4 years) (18 months)

Gymnasium Group 2 (3.5 years)

Native speakers

5 6 2 –

– – 1 4

– 1 2 1

4 –

15 11 5 2

– – – –

– 1 – –

14 28 24 8

–

–

−

–

22

3

4 3*

17

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correctly formed tag-question (or what?), while the particle or is twice used inappropriately with an appealer function, apparently the result of L1 transfer (oder?). These statistics must be evaluated against the fact that tag-questions with a copy of the auxiliary had been intensively practised in Grade 7: another indication that learners do not necessarily learn and/or apply what they have been taught. Apart from a single occurrence of the cajoler you know, no other gambits were used by Gymnasium Group 2. A similar situation holds in the data collected from the autonomy group in the first round: the only gambit to have emerged is well, used either as a starter in sentence-initial position or as a hesitation marker in mid-sentence. It is remarkable, though, that after four years of English the autonomous learners used tag questions with a copied auxiliary and well as often as their native-speaker peers. Also, the cajolers you know and I mean had clearly emerged, testifying to the growing authenticity of the learners’ communicative interactions.

Metalinguistic comments and awareness One of the more crucial differences between the autonomous and the Gymnasium learners relates to the quality and quantity of metalinguistic talk, which is generally triggered by perceived problems of production and task management. Table 5.13 refers to instances in which learners explicitly commented on their lack of words when wanting to verbalize their communicative intention, on difficulties in sustaining a conversation, and on their own or their partner’s language. When problems arose in communication, both groups of Gymnasium learners typically fell back on their mother tongue to express their

Table 5.13 Communicative trouble/explicit comments Autonomy group (18 months)

Autonomy group (4 years)

Gymnasium Group 1 (18 months)

Gymnasium Group 2 (3.5 years)

Lack of words L2 L1

7

9

–

–

–

–

4

10

Talk management L2 L1

–

–

8 4

7 28

Comments on one’s own or one’s partner’s language L2 L1

1

16

–

–

1 1

– 1

6

3

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difficulties. Grade 8 students in particular used German to refer to difficulties in maintaining interaction. In most of the 28 instances of L1 talk management they asked their partners to take the floor (Sag du jetzt mal was, ‘Now you say something’) or admitted their inability to continue (Ich weiß nicht, was ich fragen soll, ‘I don’t know what to ask’). The high frequency of this feature in 24 peer-to-peer talks is further evidence of the gulf between authentic communication and the Gymnasium learners’ perception of their task. This gap is minimized, and sometimes bridged, in many exchanges between autonomous learners in the second round of data collection. Their emotional involvement and struggle to achieve more precise or appropriate formulations becomes evident in comments on their partner’s language or in reflections on their own language. In Example 27, for example, Jan and Michael talk about the difficulty they have in understanding the dialect of some girls from Jutland. For reasons not apparent to the observer, Michael objects to the word ‘difficult’, which genuinely upsets Jan.

Example 27 Jan: Michael: Jan: Michael: Jan:

You couldn’t understand them Yeah, that was not the problem, but (.) uhm … It was difficult Stop saying that word. I hate it Yeah, I like it. It’s … you can’t understand when I say things like that. That’s bad (.) so (.) yeah

Example 28 provides two examples of the way in which these learners typically refer to their use of the TL.

Example 28 (a) We are a bit, what would you call it, nervous (b) We are just playing a little … uh … what do you call ‘a little’; we are not playing bad ‘Little’ in this context is to be interpreted in the sense of ‘at beginner level’. Comments of this kind are practically non-existent in the data collected from the two Gymnasium groups. Learners’ metalinguistic awareness is especially evidenced in repair talk, either in self- or other-repair (Table 5.14). Whereas the statistics on other-repair are broadly comparable across the various groups, the large number of self-repairs in the two Gymnasium groups is conspicuous: another effect of the methodological approach they have been exposed to, which sets a premium on formal accuracy and thus provokes linguistic insecurity.

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Table 5.14 Repair moves

Self-repair → successful → unsuccessful Other-repair [+spontaneous] [+solicited]

Autonomy group (18 months)

Autonomy group (4 years)

Gymnasium Group 1 (18 months)

Gymnasium Group 2 (3.5 years)

5 4 1

4 4 –

29 22 7

28 26 2

7 2

6 1

3 2

6 6

Interactive moves with implications for second language acquisition The literature abounds with descriptions of various interactive moves which are assumed to be especially significant in L2 acquisition (see, for example, Ellis, 1999; Gass, 2003; Gass & Varonis, 1994; Gass et al., 1998; Larsen-Freeman & Long, 1991; Mitchell et al., 2013). In the early 1980s Michael Long hypothesized that, because interactional modifications such as confirmation checks, clarification requests and comprehension checks facilitate comprehension, they also facilitate acquisition (Long, 1981). In addition to these modifications, Table 5.15 includes instances of sentence sharing and/ or prompts, which are evidence of learners supporting one another. Table 5.15 Interactive moves with assumed second language acquisition implications

Confirmation checks Clarification requests Comprehension checks Sentence sharing or prompting

Autonomy group (18 months)

Autonomy group (4 years)

Gymnasium Group 1 (18 months)

Gymnasium Group 2 (3.5 years)

8 11 – 8

22 6 1 15

6 1 – 3

8 4 + 1 (L1) – 11

Apart from the substantial increase of confirmation checks in the autonomous group from the first to the second round of data collection and a general increase in the use of prompts, the overall figures for interactional modifications are not very revealing. Especially comprehension checks are practically absent from peer-to-peer interactions. Although interactional modifications of the types mentioned are considered very valuable when describing the learners’ strategies for negotiating meaning, they do not at all exhaust the possibilities for making meaning (see Legenhausen, 2001).

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An illustrative example Example 29 illustrates the pragmatic competence of Grade 8 students (age 15) who had been taught according to the principles of autonomous language learning as described in Chapters 1–4. Forms that are of interest in the light of the above discussion – gambits, metatalk, reference to shared information, etc. – appear in bold print. Emrah and Anne Mette are talking about a taperecording made by Emrah’s pop band.

Example 29 Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah:

Anne Mette: Emrah: Anne Mette: Emrah:

Yeah. I heard uh a tape yesterday Yes Uhm, Lars had the tape and it was really good We went to a festival in … Frederiksberg Festival yeah in uh (3 sec), I can’t I can’t remember when it was but, yes, the the tape was from the festival Yes, ‘cause Lars cheated me, well, not cheated me, but uh he told me that it was Guns N’ Roses who played and it was us, yes a live, live CD. And I asked him, which CD it was, and then uh he laughed and said that it was uh their band Yes And I really believed it because it was so great, I mean, you’re going to be so big I haven’t heard it but (2 sec) if if you say it’s good, then it has to be good [laughing] Yes, very good, I mean Yes So good Yes uhm But I heard that you had some problems yes, with my (1 sec) pedal, [laughing] or I don’t know what it’s called. Well, it doesn’t work and I have to play without it Yes, and uh Rasmus singed also Yes, yes he is a (1 sec) singer It was good. What about the audience? Uh, did they like …? No, we played in a tent, you know, in a tent that was not so much – twenty or twenty, I think

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Concluding remarks In the classrooms under discussion no systematic attempt was made to teach pragmatic competences explicitly. The answer to the question as to whether or not such competences can develop spontaneously in formal learning contexts seems to depend crucially on the type of learning/teaching approach that is followed and the discourse world in which learning takes place. The majority view in the relevant research literature seems to be that explicit instruction facilitates the acquisition of pragmatic competence (see Rose & Kasper, 2001), although not all aspects seem to be trainable. House (1996), for example, observed an increase in the use of gambits, but saw no effects of instruction on the responding behaviour of advanced learners. The ongoing discussion about the teachability of language in general and grammar in particular suggests that we need to be very careful how we define ‘teaching’. Given the highly complex interrelation between contextual factors, behavioural aspects and linguistic forms, perhaps the most teachers can hope for is ‘awareness raising’. A pessimistic view is also supported by the fact that pragmatic competences have already been ingrained in learners by their L1 socialization and strongly affect their self-identity. Acquiring new cultural conventions means changing one’s behaviour, which implicates personality factors and learners’ self-concepts. Leech’s (1983) distinction between pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic competences is relevant here. In interactive communication our pragmalinguistic competence depends on the linguistic resources available to us, whereas our sociopragmatic competence is shaped by social and cultural beliefs, perceptions and attitudes. It seems plausible to assume that grammatical proficiency correlates more strongly with pragmalinguistic than with sociopragmatic competence; indeed, the LAALE data seem to indicate that sociopragmatic competence is relatively independent of grammatical competence (see Legenhausen, 2001). In any case, our data analysis seems to confirm that the key to developing L2 pragmatic competence in formal contexts is to set up a rich learning environment in which the principles of authentic interaction, awareness raising and autonomy constitute a triad of foundational ‘constants’ (van Lier, 1996).

The Reliability of Learners’ Self-assessment Evaluation and assessment of the learning process and its outcomes are pivotal in the autonomy classroom because they drive the reflective dynamic on which progress in learning depends. We made this point when describing the autonomy classroom in the Introduction, and in Chapter 4 we explained in some detail the role played by evaluation and assessment. It is difficult to deny the effectiveness of self-assessment if it can be shown to help learners to

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identify goals that they subsequently achieve. But the question remains, how reliable is learner self-assessment in the autonomy classroom? The LAALE project set out to answer this question.

Involving learners in the assessment process In Grades 6 and 7, after approximately 200 and 345 English lessons, learners were given school reports that assigned them to one of three categories: ‘below average’, ‘average’ or ‘above average’. Whereas in the traditional classroom the teacher awards marks and grades, it seemed both natural and appropriate to involve autonomous learners in the assessment process. They were given a 10-point scale divided into three sections: 1–3 = below average; 4–7 = average; 8–10 = above average. They had to use the scale to rate their skills in reading, listening, speaking and writing; they were also required to comment on their ratings. When they assessed themselves in Grade 7 they no longer had access to their Grade 6 ratings. In both years it seems likely that they took account of their personal goals and expectations, their awareness of the proficiency achieved by other members of the class, and the extent to which they were able to cope with the challenges posed by communicating in English inside and outside the classroom. Table 5.16 shows the average scores that learners awarded themselves in Grades 6 and 7 and the number of students who rated themselves higher or lower in Grade 7 than in Grade 6. According to Table 5.16, learners tended to rate their oral skills higher than their writing skills, believed that their reading skills had improved most markedly between Grade 6 and Grade 7 (the difference is significant at p = 0.05 level), and considered that they had made least progress in writing. It may come as a surprise that listening is the skill with the highest average score – L2 learners are sometimes said to have a ‘negative listening selfconcept’ (Joiner, 1986; Oxford, 1993). It should be noted, however, that only the perceived difference in difficulty between listening and writing is statistically significant at the p = 0.05 level. Table 5.16 Self-rating scores Average scores

Listening Reading Speaking Writing

Frequencies of:

6th grade

7th grade

upgradings

downgradings

6.4 5.3 5.6 5.3

7.0 6.8 6.7 5.5

11 14 13 7

5* 3 4 10

Notes: *In the case of listening one learner gave him/herself the same mark in both grades.

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The comments that accompanied learners’ self-ratings were very often couched in simple and concrete terms. The following examples are provided by Birgitte, whose self-ratings are fairly high and correlate strongly with teacher ratings and external assessment (comments have been translated from Danish). Birgitte Listening Grade 6: 6.2 Grade 7: 8.6 Reading Grade 6: 6.5 Grade 7: 9.4 Speaking Grade 6: 7.5 Grade 7: 8.9 Writing Grade 6: 6.5 Grade 7: 7.5

I understand what most people say in English, but I don’t if they speak too fast. I understand most of what is being said, but when it is in a dialect or with an accent it can sometimes be a bit difficult. I can read many books without a dictionary. Probably because I have practised reading a lot. I found it easy to talk to Kasia [a girl from a visiting Polish class]. It is because I use a lot of English in everyday life. There you need a lot of English expressions. I think it is a little difficult to write some things, for example stories. I think it is a bit difficult with the grammar, and that it is not the same word.

Birgitte’s comments on listening, reading and speaking express confidence in her ability, whereas her comments on writing refer to task difficulty. Further examples of the latter type of comment are: Karsten Speaking Grade 7: 5.4 Lasse Speaking Grade 7: 4.0 Jan Writing Grade 7: 5.4

It is difficult to twist the tongue.

I am not good at that because I am not good at pronouncing words. Sometimes the words are not spelt the way they sound.

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Learners’ comments on writing refer more often to task difficulty and personal problems in achieving the desired goals than to confidence in their ability; to this extent they mirror the results summarized in Table 5.17. Spelling was perceived as particularly difficult; it was mentioned eight times, and three students referred to it in both years (the same students also had difficulty with Danish spelling).

Correlations of self-assessment, teacher assessment and external assessment Tables 5.17 and 5.18 show the correlations between learner self-assessment, teacher assessment and external assessment (which took the form of a C-test)4 for the skills of reading and writing. In Grade 6 the teacher either agreed or disagreed with the learners’ self-ratings; in most cases she agreed. In four cases out of 17 her ratings were higher than the learners’. She thought that low self-esteem might have caused two of these learners to underestimate themselves; in the other two cases underestimation may have been due to the learners’ awareness that there was room for improvement. There was only one case in which the learner’s rating was higher than the teacher’s. In Grade 7 the teacher’s assessment was completely independent of the learners’ self-assessment. It was based on a translation task, used as a measure of reading comprehension, and a writing task. The rating criteria for the translation task included the amount of text translated in a specified time and the number of missing and incorrectly translated words. For the writing task learners were asked to write a story based on a picture that showed two young people in conversation. The rating criteria included the amount of text produced, coherence, range of vocabulary, and conformity to grammatical norms. Tables 5.17 and 5.18 imply that the teacher’s ratings and C-test scores are no more valid than the learners’ self-ratings. Whatever is actually measured by the three sets of data, it seems reasonable to attribute their close comparability to an approach to teaching and learning governed by the principles of learner autonomy. In particular, the constant dialogue between learner(s) and teacher and among the learners themselves about the learning process and its outcomes seems to result in a heightened awareness of learning and of achievement levels in the different language skills.

Table 5.17 Reading comprehension (7th Grade) Correlation Learner/teacher Teacher/C-test Learner/C-test

0.74 0.75 0.82

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Table 5.18 Writing ability (7th Grade) Correlation Learner/teacher Teacher/C-test Learner/C-test

0.78 0.87 0.75

Conclusion In this chapter we have summarized the LAALE project’s findings as regards the acquisition of vocabulary, grammar and pragmatic competence. In each dimension autonomous learners from a Danish mixed-ability class clearly outperformed their peers in a German Gymnasium class. We have also briefly explored the reliability of autonomous learners’ self-assessment. In Chapter 6 we present two case studies from the LAALE class that demonstrate the capacity of the autonomy classroom to accommodate learners with difficulties that easily lead to their exclusion in more traditional pedagogical settings.

Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action •

•

• •

•

At the beginning of this chapter we emphasized that we make no claims for the generalizability of the LAALE project’s findings. In your own context, how would you design a longitudinal research project to explore the lexical, grammatical and pragmatic competence of your learners? The LAALE project was based on four years’ collaboration between a teacher and her learners on the one hand and an external researcher on the other. Would such an extensive collaboration be possible in your context? If not, what forms of teacher–researcher collaboration can you envisage? Analyse the lexical fields covered in the opening units of a textbook for beginners in the language you teach. How do they compare with the lexical fields discussed in this chapter? There are many ways of measuring learners’ TL vocabulary besides the one described in this chapter. How many alternatives can you think of? How easy would it be to implement them in your context? Which of them do you think would work especially well with more advanced learners? The results of the LAALE project do not support the view of some researchers that pragmalinguistic competences cannot easily be acquired in classroom contexts. What is your own experience, as

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• •

•

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teacher and/or learner, regarding the development of this dimension of L2 proficiency? This chapter contains a list of pragmalinguistic competences. Are they all equally important to the learners you teach or are preparing to teach? How would you try to foster their development in your context? Because it emphasizes documentation of learning, the autonomy classroom lends itself to action research, which aims to understand and improve the learning process and its outcomes. What aspects of your own context would you most like to understand better and improve? How would you go about designing an action research project focused on those aspects? And how would you involve your learners as co-researchers? Select and read one of the contributions in Dwight Atkinson’s Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (2011) and consider how its approach to researching L2 development might be applied to the classroom described in Chapters 1–4.

Suggestions for Further Reading The research reported in this chapter was carried out by an outsider who used well-established procedures of data collection and analysis to explore the learning process and learning outcomes. Other possible procedures are described and discussed by guides like Zoltán Dörnyei’s Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed Methodologies (2007) and collections of research papers like Dwight Atkinson’s Alternative Approaches to Second Language Acquisition (2011). An up-to-date overview of competing theories of L2 acquisition is provided by Second Language Learning Theories, by Rosamond Mitchell, Florence Myles and Emma Marsden (3rd edn, 2013) and by handbooks like The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, edited by Catherine Doughty and Michael Long (2003) and The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, edited by Julia Herschensohn and Martha Young-Scholten (2013). With its emphasis on documentation of the learning process, the autonomy classroom is an obvious site for action research. Practical orientation is provided by David Hopkins’s A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom Research (2008) and two books by Anne Burns: Collaborative Action Research for English Language Teachers (1999, reprinted 2010) and Doing Action Research in English Language Teaching: A Guide for Practitioners (2009). Exploratory Practice is an approach to classroom research that involves learners and has been explicitly associated with autonomy; see, for example, the special issue of the journal Language Learning Research (7.2, 2003) guest-edited by Dick Allwright, which includes Allwright’s article ‘Exploratory Practice: Rethinking practitioner research in language teaching’, and Judith Hanks’s Exploratory Practice in Language Teaching (2017).

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Notes (1) Since there was an uneven number of Danish learners present (N = 19) on the day of the recording, two learners did the talks three times. The data collection in the German class took place on two consecutive days, and some of the learners were absent on one of the days. This explains the discrepancy between the number of talks and interviews. (2) The philosopher Paul Grice (1975) proposed that conversational interaction is governed by four maxims, of quantity (make your contribution as informative as necessary; do not make your contribution more informative than necessary), quality (do not say what you believe to be false; do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence), relation (be relevant), and manner (avoid obscurity; avoid ambiguity, be brief, be orderly). (3) It seems likely that Susanna’s father is 50 and Isa’s mother 38. In the latter case the confusion arises from the fact that in numbers above 20, English puts tens before units (‘thirty-eight’), whereas German puts units before tens (‘achtunddreißig’). English-speaking learners of German experience the same problem in reverse. (4) A C-test is a gap-filling task in which the second half of every second word is deleted. For further details, see Grotjahn (1995).

6

Language Learner Autonomy and Inclusion: Two Case Studies

Introduction The data we presented in Chapter 5 support the claim that autonomous language learning in our sense produces greater TL fluency than a traditional textbook-based approach. We attribute this to two features of the autonomy classroom. First, the TL use that is at the centre of the learning process is authentic and spontaneous, metacognitive as well as communicative, and calculated to exploit learners’ interests; and secondly, learners engage willingly in classroom activities because individual differences are accepted, all learners are respected and valued equally, and the development of learners’ confidence and self-esteem is a key pedagogical aim. In this latter regard it is worth recalling what we explained in the Introduction (p. 6), that our approach first took shape as a response to the challenge of differentiation in mixed-ability classrooms. Nowadays, the concept of differentiation has been superseded by the altogether larger concept of inclusion. In this chapter we present two case studies of learners in the LAALE class which we believe support the claim that learner autonomy offers a way forward for inclusive education.

The move towards inclusion In 1994 the World Conference on Special Needs Education, organized by the Spanish government in cooperation with UNESCO, issued the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (UNESCO, 1994). The Salamanca Statement is a response to the fact that millions of children all over the world are excluded from regular education; and as the 158

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accompanying Framework for Action makes clear, the concept of inclusion is all-embracing: The guiding principle that informs this Framework is that schools should accommodate all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other conditions. This should include disabled and gifted children, street and working children, children from remote or nomadic populations, children from linguistic, ethnic or cultural minorities and children from other disadvantaged or marginalized areas or groups. (UNESCO, 1994: 6, emphasis in original) While acknowledging that extra support may still be necessary for children with special educational needs, the Framework for Action insists that inclusive schooling is ‘the most effective means for building solidarity between children with special needs and their peers’ (UNESCO, 1994: 12), and that assigning children to special schools should be the exception rather than the rule. There have been many attempts to investigate the impact of inclusion on the attainment of pupils with and without special educational needs. Some studies report positive effects of inclusion, while others conclude that inclusion makes no difference (Mitchell, 2014: 307). This is hardly surprising, given the infinite range of contexts in which schools operate and the multitude of other factors that can influence educational attainment. At the same time, there is some evidence that at the level of the classroom inclusion can benefit pupils with but also pupils without special educational needs: Studies show that children and adolescents with special needs – at least those with learning difficulties – achieve significantly better results in inclusive classrooms. Also, there is clear evidence that children and adolescents without special needs benefit from an inclusive education – they can practise social competences and tolerance on a daily basis without disadvantage to their performance in the various school subjects. (Klemm, 2010: 5; our translation)1 A large-scale study of the impact of inclusive education on the results of mainstream schools in England similarly reports that it found ‘some evidence (chiefly in the views of teachers and pupils) that inclusion can have positive effects on the wider achievements of all pupils, such as social skills and understanding’ (Dyson et al., 2004: 12). According to these studies, inclusion brings enhanced educational attainment to pupils with special needs and social benefits to all pupils without damaging the educational achievement of those without special needs. But this leaves unanswered the question: How does inclusion work pedagogically? The Salamanca Framework for Action uses the terms ‘integration’ and ‘inclusion’ interchangeably (see, for example, UNESCO, 1994: 11), but subsequent

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debate has tended to distinguish clearly between the two concepts (Hinz, 2002). Integration is generally understood to entail that children with special needs are placed in mainstream education and gradually integrated thanks to the provision of additional support; it is thus not necessary for mainstream teachers to adapt their methods to meet the challenges posed by a more diverse cohort of learners. Inclusion, on the other hand, entails that the educational system adapts to accommodate all learners. The UNESCO Guidelines put the matter thus: [Inclusion] involves changes and modifications in content, approaches, structures and strategies, with a common vision which covers all children of the appropriate age range and a conviction that it is the responsibility of the regular system to educate all children. (UNESCO, 2005: 13) In pedagogical terms, then, genuinely inclusive education entails that classrooms are organized in such a way that all learners can participate in the same activities and gain from them. As Florian and Black-Hawkins have argued, this requires a shift in teaching and learning from an approach that works for most learners existing alongside something ‘additional’ or ‘different’ from those (some) who experience difficulties, towards one that involves the development of a rich learning community characterized by learning opportunities that are sufficiently made available for everyone, so that all learners are able to participate in the classroom. (Florian & BlackHawkins, 2011: 826, emphasis in original) This is also the goal of the autonomy classroom, and the case studies we present below suggest that a fully inclusive pedagogy supports the academic as well as the social development of all learners.

Some affinities between inclusive education and the autonomy classroom Given the diversity of educational cultures and contexts, there are many different interpretations of what exactly is implied by educational inclusion. There is thus no single theory of inclusive pedagogy leading to a single set of classroom practices. Nevertheless, the relevant literature provides us with a number of general principles. For example, it is assumed that learners will be able to participate regardless of their abilities if the focus is on how to learn rather than on what to learn (Nind, 2005), and pupils with profound learning difficulties find it easier to be involved if they are concerned less with learning about the subject than with learning through the subject (Ouvry & Saunders, 1996). This shift from content to process is supported by what

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Nind (2005: 6) calls an ‘interactive curriculum’, which is ‘shaped by the pupils themselves as they share and negotiate power’. Great importance is attached to ‘work choice’ – allowing students to choose how, where and with whom they learn and trusting them to make good decisions (Florian & Black-Hawkins, 2011: 821). Meijer (2010) notes that ‘it can be argued that giving students greater responsibility for their own learning can contribute to the success of inclusion in schools’. Inclusive pedagogy also takes account of learners’ individuality and agency. Corbett and Norwich (2005: 28), for example, refer to the importance of ‘validating [learners’] identity and way of perceiving themselves and others’, while for Nind (2005: 5) the core principle underlying inclusive pedagogy involves ‘recognizing young people as active agents who make sense of their day-to-day experiences in their own terms and who act accordingly’. This recalls Barnes’s (1976) notion of ‘action knowledge’, discussed in the Introduction (pp. 6–7). All these features of inclusive education are also present in the autonomy classroom as we have described it. Engaging the knowledge, interests and skills that learners bring with them is a prerequisite for getting them involved in their learning. Its importance has been emphasized again and again in the literature on learner autonomy and in the earlier chapters of this book. It is also central to inclusive pedagogy: Another way of thinking about inclusive pedagogy is to focus on the need for the curriculum to make connections with learners’ perspectives – to start from, and value, what learners bring rather than just assume that learners will adjust to school objectives, priorities, teaching styles and curriculum. (Nind, 2005: 5) Giving learners choice and making them accountable for their choices is an essential first step towards shifting part of the responsibility for learning procedures and outcomes from teacher to learners, and this too is a feature that inclusive education shares with the autonomy classroom. Florian and Black-Hawkins (2011: 822), for example, describe the classroom practice of two teachers whose ‘approach was intended to create a community of learners […] in which all children were given opportunities to shape what, how, where and with whom they learnt’; they accommodated individual differences between learners by allowing them to choose between different tasks. Differentiation is a crucial concept whenever inclusive practices are discussed. In many countries differentiation is traditionally based on the child’s perceived learning ability and implies sorting learners into abilitybased groups. But in inclusive education it means accommodating the full range of individual learner needs and capacities, and this too is something that inclusive education has in common with the autonomy classroom.

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As we have seen, peer tutoring and cooperative learning play a major role in autonomous learning; in inclusive education Nind (2005: 4) identifies peer tutoring as a form of differentiation, while Avci-Werning and Lanphen (2013) argue that forms of cooperative learning as defined by Johnson and Johnson (1989) should be implemented in inclusive classrooms. The two case studies that follow focus on members of the LAALE class who had different kinds of special needs. The first student was well known in the school for his disruptive behaviour, which shared many of the features associated with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder); he was restless, impulsive and disruptive. The second student suffered from severe dyslexia.

Case Study 1: Dennis, a Student with Behavioural Problems Most classes in comprehensive schools have at least one ‘Dennis’. He may be academically weak and is usually very difficult to cope with. In classrooms organized along traditional lines, he is restless, inattentive and easily distracted, and he tends not to hear instructions the first time they are given. When he fails to do what is expected of him he doesn’t hesitate to blame the teacher rather than himself. He is often a nuisance to his peers, who are unenthusiastic about sharing pair or group work with him. This may be because he is weak in reading and writing, but also because he finds it difficult to concentrate. His frequent failure to grasp what is expected of him or to understand the materials presented to him leads to boredom, and this causes him to fool around and sometimes to bully his peers. Unless he is interested in what he is doing, he can’t be depended on to complete his fair share of pair or group work. A member of the LAALE class, the Dennis we are concerned with here began to learn English in Grade 5, at the age of 11. He was receiving additional instruction in Danish to improve his literacy skills, and because of his bad behaviour he was withdrawn from class for some lessons (although never for English). He got on badly with his Danish and geography teachers but liked his maths teacher, probably because he was relatively good at maths. His English teacher’s first impression of Dennis was positive. He clearly wanted people to take notice of him, and it was obvious that he was looking forward to learning English. He showed interest from the very beginning. In what follows we describe how Dennis responded to the challenges of autonomous learning and how the autonomous learning environment supported his learning and his personal development. We consider similarities and differences between him and his peers, compare his behaviour in the

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English classroom with the behaviour he was known for in other subjects, and give examples of his developing proficiency in English. Our account draws on: the teacher’s logbook; Dennis’s logbooks; materials and texts that he produced on his own or in collaboration with other learners; evaluation sheets and questionnaires; and video-recordings of plays and peer-to-peer talks that involved Dennis. Some of his peers had an important influence on his behaviour and his learning, and it is appropriate briefly to describe two boys with whom he often worked, Karsten and Lasse. Karsten was intelligent and hardworking, probably the best all-round student in the class. He came from an educated and ambitious family and brought a great deal of English to the classroom from the very beginning. He enjoyed high status in the class, partly because he knew a lot and partly because he was helpful and considerate in group work. Everybody wanted to work with Karsten, and to join a group that included him was always something of a personal victory. Karsten for his part made sure that he worked with learners at the same level of proficiency as himself as well as with weak learners, apparently conscious of the benefits that both could bring him. Lasse was at the other end of the scale from Karsten in terms of his proficiency in English and his engagement with classroom activities. He was even weaker than Dennis in reading and writing Danish, but well-behaved and good-natured. He never stayed long in a group because his peers tended to tire of his passive attitude. Only Karsten and Dennis worked with him for longer periods of time, although Lasse’s parents, who were very ambitious on his behalf, did not like him working with Dennis because they considered Dennis a bad influence.

The first two months of English We use unedited extracts from the teacher’s, Dennis’s and Karsten’s logbooks to track Dennis’s first two months of learning English. Note, however, that Dennis and Karsten did not work together during this time. Teacher’s logbook Wednesday, 12th August – first English lesson. The learners were given their books for the year; an exercise book in which to keep track of the on-going process – “My own English book” – as well as an English picture dictionary. One of their first activities was to write about themselves in English. They were told that they could get help from the dictionary, from their peers, and from me. The difference between Dennis and Karsten is evident from the ‘About myself’ texts they wrote in their logbooks (Figures 6.1 and 6.2; cf. Chapter 1, pp. 28–30). The differences also emerged from the activity described in the teacher’s logbook on Monday 17 August:

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Figure 6.1 Dennis’s text ‘About myself’

Figure 6.2 Karsten’s text ‘About myself’

Teacher’s logbook Monday, 17th August – 2nd period of English Today the learners were asked to find at least 5 things in their picture dictionary that they would like to learn the English word of. They were asked to write down the words and make drawings of the things in their diaries and show them to their neighbour. Dennis wrote the following words in his logbook: ‘fishing’, ‘fishingrog’ (fishing rod), ‘tank’, ‘hammer’, ‘saw’, ‘sun’, ‘football’. Most of these words would be unlikely to occur in a textbook for beginners, but they reflect Dennis’s interests – fishing, carpentry and football. Karsten’s words, by

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contrast, refer to persons and objects that belong to family life: ‘ball’, ‘dogs’, ‘book’, ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘car’, ‘bike’, ‘brother’. Each set of words fits neatly into the semantic frame established by its author’s ‘About myself’ text and thus continues the process of associating the learning of English with his sense of identity (in this regard it is worth noting that in later life Dennis became a carpenter and set up his own firm). Teacher’s logbook Wednesday, 19th August – 3rd period of English Today we talked about possible things to do at home in order to become better at English. Individual ideas were collected on a poster for the class to choose from. The learners were told that from now on I expected them to decide what to do at home but that I expected them to do something. Dennis and Karsten both noted in their logbooks what they intended to do for homework. Dennis made use of the English he had learnt already: ‘Læse en English Book’ [‘read an English book’], whereas Karsten wrote: ‘Snakke engelsk med min familie og forberede et teaterstykke på engelsk. Se to Amerikanske film uden tekster’ [‘Talk English with my family and prepare a play in English. Watch two American films without subtitles’]. Neither boy fulfilled his plan, however. Dennis showed initiative by borrowing an English book from the school library, but despite managing to understand a few words, he didn’t get through the whole book. Karsten didn’t write a play at this point, although later he wrote several plays in collaboration with other learners, including Dennis. Teacher’s logbook Wednesday, 26th August – 5th period of English Today a new activity was introduced: Picture and text. After having made a joint story about a picture that I had brought along, the learners were asked to find a picture of a person in one of the magazines available and write a similar story in their diaries. Dennis and Karsten adopted the same approach to this activity, finding pictures of attractive young women and writing about them (Figures 6.3 and 6.4, p. 166). Like their ‘About myself’ texts, these two texts differ in length, range of vocabulary, and syntactic ambition. But both learners have used the activity to extend their active vocabulary, Dennis with ‘sex’, Karsten with ‘Amerikan-football and basket’, and both are fully engaged in the activity. The teacher’s logbook entry for 26 August continues as follows: Dennis as well as Karsten read aloud their stories in our “together” session; Dennis’ story was without doubt the most popular one, especially with the boys.

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Figure 6.3 Dennis’s ‘Picture + text’

Figure 6.4 Karsten’s ‘Picture + text’

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On Monday 7 September, after nearly three weeks of English, the teacher wrote this in her logbook: I collected all their diaries today in order to have a closer look at them. The entry “Play Dennis’ word cards” in many of them shows that his word cards obviously are very popular with his peers – or is he, himself, suddenly popular? Dennis’ entries in his diary today [Figure 6.5] indicate that he without doubt feels at ease. He is accepted in a group of “good” girls. Together they are very active. He lives up to the demands for keeping the diary expected from me, i.e. it is easy to follow what he has been doing and with whom, and he has listed new vocabulary used in the activities undertaken.

Figure 6.5 Page from Dennis’s logbook

Two weeks later, on Wednesday 23 September, after five weeks of English, the teacher wrote: Dennis is still engaged in producing and playing word cards and picture lottos. Today he chose a new group to work in, and they played his word cards among other games. Karsten is engaged in producing a play together with Lars and Morten. Together they discuss the story line and then Karsten writes down the lines at home.

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Dennis’s comment on the day’s work (translated from badly spelt Danish) was: ‘It was good because I changed group.’ Karsten’s comments, also translated from Danish, were: ‘It went really well but it was hard today especially making a play. I learned some new words but not many. I think that one should be allowed to go outside the classroom when making a play because the others disturb you when you are working.’ By the end of the first two months Dennis had exhibited none of the classroom behaviour for which he was well known throughout the school; on the contrary, he was fully committed to learning English and was making unmistakable if slow progress. He was clearly comfortable with the demands made of him, in our view because the generic activities introduced by the teacher gave him choice and allowed him to pursue his own interests at his own level of proficiency. His work was valued by his fellow learners as well as the teacher, and the requirement to write his new words in his logbook meant that he could see the progress he had made. He was also allowed to choose who to work with, which was unthinkable in other subjects, where groups were formed by the teacher. Overall it seems reasonable to conclude that Dennis’s first two months of English lessons had a positive effect on his self-esteem. At a later stage, when members of the class were to be interviewed for the LAALE project, Dennis was the first to volunteer, and he was always ready to engage visitors to the classroom in conversation (in English).

Further personal and social development It would be a fairy tale if we could report that this positive experience turned Dennis into a perfect pupil in all subjects and all contexts. But this didn’t happen; he was expelled from school two and a half years later for persistent bad behaviour and bullying. He wasn’t the perfect autonomous learner of English either, although his ups greatly exceeded his downs as our summary of his further personal and social development will show. For the rest of his first year of English, Dennis mostly continued to function as in the first two months. His logbook entries suggest that he was strongly dependent on his peers for motivational and linguistic support. When he felt at ease and supported and at the same time challenged, for example by making a play, his logbook was well maintained, sometimes with help from his peers, who wrote entries at his dictation. What is more, it is clear from his own and his peers’ logbooks that he was active during class and did whatever homework was agreed with the other members of his group. When he didn’t feel supported, on the other hand, his logbook entries were untidily written half-finished sentences and there was no evidence that he was doing any homework. These contrasting behaviours are typical of ADHD. This tendency continued during Dennis’s second and third years of English. Homework was a particular problem: ‘Dennis has not done any homework’ became a regular entry in the logbooks of the students he was

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working with. This may have been due to problems at home. However, by now he had a preferred group of supportive peers – four or five boys and one girl – with whom he collaborated well in pair and group work. These students had come to know that Dennis was not at all bad to work with, especially if they accepted and supported what he brought to their collaboration and did not rely on him to do homework. He was particularly popular when groups he was working with engaged in the creative activity of devising and performing plays, radio and video programmes, and talk shows. The ideas he came up with were distinctive and in demand. At the same time these students let him know that if he failed to meet their expectations more than once they would exclude him from the group. When this happened he had to work on his own until new groups were formed. Dennis’s logbook entries show that being banished in this way made him feel ill at ease and his activity level fell abruptly. He nevertheless accepted his position and never attempted to disturb the rest of the class, probably because the group had made clear what was expected of him. This was not the case in other subjects, where it was the teacher rather than his peers who excluded Dennis from group work. The fact that Dennis enjoyed participating in making and performing plays no doubt had an important impact on his classroom behaviour, selfesteem and personal development as well as on his language learning. When he was first involved in this activity, in his first year of English, he refused to go on stage. In one play he chose to be the radio voice at the office of a taxi company, an important role but one that he could perform from the wings. He thus achieved a great personal victory when in his second year Karsten suggested that the group should make a play entitled ‘Dennis the Menace’, in which Dennis played the leading part, this time on the stage rather than in the wings. This is how one learner evaluated the play in her logbook: See a play call Denis menase. It was a very good play because they have practiced very much. Dennis was very good to play Dennis menase. I have never heard him say so much. They play very well. Apart from the rather limited number of supportive peers that he himself chose, Dennis also worked regularly with the other weak learner in the class, Lasse, mentioned above. Their pair work was not without its problems, however. They found it very difficult to get down to work, and this tried the teacher’s patience almost to breaking point. Like the rest of the class they were required to devise a poster explaining what they had decided to do, why they were doing it, how they intended to do it, and when they expected to present the product to the rest of the class. They were acutely embarrassed when, a month later than promised, they finally presented a one-page story instead of a small book. Their experience of working together nevertheless gave them insight into themselves and each other. Positive and negative aspects of the experience are reflected in the following entry in Dennis’s logbook. Max wrote

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the first four sentences for him (comments on the work with Lasse); the remainder of the entry – contract for March – was written by Dennis himself: Wednesday 15th February. Comments of this period. It wasn’t to good because we was to slow and the group didn’t workt out so we shall not be in same group again. The good was that when we was doing something we were doing a lot. The bad was also that we wasn’t serious enough. [Written by Max] My contract in March: Do My Homework everuday, talk english all the time, I well Not talk so much Danish, New words. [Written by Dennis]

Linguistic development Reading and writing always gave Dennis very great problems. His reading was limited to a handful of simple books that he chose himself, although he continued with his favourite activity, ‘picture + text’. The biggest individual task he undertook was the production of a set of dominoes (Figure 6.6). It was only during his third year of English that his reading and writing improved significantly. At this stage his proficiency in these skills was roughly equivalent to what Karsten’s had been half-way through his first year of English. When expressing himself orally, on the other hand, Dennis’s

Figure 6.6 Dennis’s dominoes

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communicative abilities were good, even though his vocabulary was fairly limited. This is confirmed by the following extract from a peer-to-peer conversation recorded at the end of his second year of English. It shows that by this time Dennis had developed sufficient confidence to take conversational initiatives (Louise was a girl he did not normally work with): Dennis: Louise: Dennis: Louise: Dennis: Louise:

And what should you do tomorrow? I don’t know. Try to think of something Eh, I cannot think about this. Ah. Should you up and ride you horse? No (pause) no

We have already quoted the peer-to-peer talk, recorded at the same time, in which Dennis wished Lars a happy birthday (see Chapter 2, pp. 56–57).

Concluding remarks His expulsion from school notwithstanding, Dennis’s experience of the autonomy classroom may have turned out to be a fairy tale of sorts after all. Our data show that he always needed the support of peers with whom he felt secure, peers who were prepared to help him while expecting something from him in return. The autonomy classroom showed him what it felt like to be accepted and respected and to feel secure. Continuous self-evaluation combined with supportive feedback from peers gave him a confident understanding of what he could and couldn’t do and an awareness of the roles that he himself, his peers and his teacher played in his learning of English. This happened, we believe, because demands and expectations were explicitly stated and the activities typical of the autonomy classroom gave him scope to use his existing knowledge while challenging his creativity. Dennis and his peers enjoyed a well-defined freedom to choose activities, partners and homework; it was clearly understood that they were responsible for the consequences of their choices; and the supportive dynamic of collaborative learning accommodated and exploited individual differences. Our second case study is about a completely different kind of student.

Case Study 2: Susan, a Severely Dyslexic Student Theories of dyslexia and recommended therapies It is generally agreed that dyslexia is a learning disability caused by language-processing difficulties, but there is no agreement regarding its causes. Some researchers argue that it is due to a neurobiological impairment (Stein, 2001, 2008); for others it is a gift (Davis, 1994) that can be explained

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in evolutionary terms, literacy being a fairly recent development in human history; while others again insist that dyslexia doesn’t exist at all and its symptoms are socially constructed (Elliott & Gibbs, 2008; Gibbs & Elliott, 2010). Given this lack of agreement, it is hardly surprising that dyslexia has become a battleground of competing theories, each of which has its own therapy. But because dyslexia is a lifelong disability of (probably) neurological origin, pedagogical measures to support dyslexic learners seem to be somewhat restricted. There is, however, a growing consensus that allocating dyslexic learners to ‘special needs’ courses can no longer be considered appropriate. The answer to the problem should rather be sought in a generally ‘sound pedagogy’, as Richard Whitehead (2010) has argued: As educators, rather than treating the dyslexic pupil as the special needs child with a learning disability, we can start to see them as our educational litmus test, and use their needs and reactions to hone our teaching approach ever further, for the benefit of all our learners. (http://www. dystalk.com/talks/82-dyslexia-disability-or-gift, accessed 5 May 2015) According to this argument, a dyslexic learner is a litmus test for the autonomy classroom’s claim to take account of the needs and interests of all learners.

The role of self-esteem in managing dyslexia One of the biggest problems dyslexics have to cope with is the threat to their self-esteem, which is all too often seriously undermined in the early years of schooling, especially if their difficulties with spelling are mistaken for a cognitive deficit. For this reason, educational psychologists have long argued that enhancing a learner’s self-esteem is the most important way of alleviating learning problems: ‘Restoring a person’s self-esteem is truly the most important part of undoing dyslexia and other learning problems, including ADD [Attention Deficit Disorder] and hyperactivity’ (Davis & Braun, 1995: 1). The promotion of learners’ self-esteem is also a primary objective of the autonomy classroom (cf. Chapter 3). After all, autonomous behaviour in any domain presupposes self-esteem, and the more autonomous and competent learners become in managing their daily affairs, the more their self-esteem and self-efficacy will develop (cf. Deci, 1996). Formulating an educational objective is one thing, of course, and knowing how to achieve it is another. This has been a long-standing concern of psychologists who have developed specific programmes for enhancing self-esteem. A research team led by Tania Lecomte at the University of Montreal, for example, has come up with a programme consisting of five modules which focus on five crucial aspects of a person’s self-esteem (Borras et al., 2009; Lecomte et al., 1999). The modules aim to develop a sense of security (‘I can feel safe’), belonging

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(‘I belong to a group and they support me’), identity (‘I am special’), purpose (‘I know what to do’) and competence (‘I am capable of doing things’). We shall describe how a severely dyslexic learner coped with the challenge of learning English with reference to each of these aspects in turn.

The case of Susan, a severely dyslexic learner Susan started learning English as an 11 year old. In the first two years she had four 45-minute lessons organized as two double periods; in the following three years the number of lessons was reduced to three. Especially in the first grades of learning English, Susan displayed a wide range of problems: • • • • • •

transposition of letters: naem / hvae / form (‘from’) / fram (‘farm’) / shrae / theri … addition and deletion of letters: noe / ther / stry / shae / shar / reade … jumbling of letters with or without deletions/additions: latk (‘talk’) / comnts, comentes / stunts, stutens (‘students’) Raeit a Bat (‘write a bit’) / wridt / esye / sdt (‘should’) difficulties with sound-symbol correspondences: we were pigt up / pigturs / teager (‘teacher’) / gees (‘guess’) unmotivated spacing within words (after 2½ months of English): yester day i warm tude farm tode de hor s. sjis n eam s es match (‘yesterday I was to the farm to the horse. His name’s is match’) replacement of words by similar-looking words: instead of it she writes is

Another conspicuous feature of Susan’s texts is the lack of consistency in her errors. At the end of her first year of English, for example, she wrote the following text describing a picture of a pony, producing three different spellings for ‘years’ in three lines: I am a Little Small Pony i am 1 yrers old i am so happy my mother is 8 yres old my fataer is 9 yers old and my neam’s is Bullen good bye Even though the word ‘Wednesday’ was displayed on a poster, in her first two months of English Susan spelt it in eight different ways: Wednes day (19/8); Wedens day (24/8); Wednes day (26/8, 2/9); Wedensday (9/9); Wends day (16/9); Wedensday (23/9); Wedens day (twice on 30/9); Wednesday (7/10)

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Enhancing Susan’s self-esteem There is no doubt that Susan felt insecure when she started to learn English. For one thing, her parents didn’t speak English, which is unusual in Denmark. Also, she probably suffered from low self-esteem when faced with the challenge of learning a foreign language, and this may have been due in part to the way she had been taught Danish. In any case, her insecurity was evident in her first English lesson: when the teacher said something in English that she didn’t understand, she burst into tears. She was soon consoled, however, when her peers translated what the teacher had said; and when she was asked to write ‘About myself’ (Figure 6.7) she could include her interest in horses, which helped to make her feel at ease. Entries in Susan’s logbook show that, as in the case of Dennis, the autonomy classroom engaged her identity by allowing her to make use of her existing knowledge. This gave her a sense of security and belonging, instilled a sense of purpose in her, and helped her to develop communicative competence in English. In other words, the autonomy classroom enabled her to achieve the objectives of the five Canadian modules referred to above.

Figure 6.7 Susan’s text ‘About myself’

A sense of security It is obvious that a sense of security can only develop in an atmosphere of mutual trust and respect, which means that learners must be accepted as they are by the teacher and their peers: ‘We know that successful learning takes place when the learner is motivated, when she is accepted and respected, when she feels confident and secure’ (Dam & Lentz, 1998). The extent to which this feeling of security developed in Susan can be gauged from her logbook. In Grade 7 (after two years and five months of English) the learners reflect on

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what it means to be a ‘good student’. Susan defines a ‘good student’, but she also emphasizes how important it is that the teacher trusts her students: a good student is: a good student is going to høre efter vad the teacher and the Parents is seing and doing der homework and is lissnig efter vad the is saing

[høre efter: ‘listen to’] [vad: ‘what’] [seing: ‘saying’] [lissnig efter: ‘listening to’; the: ‘they’] and the teacer Skal Stole at the Student [Skal Stole: ‘shall trust’] A further prerequisite for feeling secure is that learners respect and trust their teacher. This certainly holds true in Susan’s case, as is evidenced by the following letter to her teacher, which she wrote in her logbook four months after defining a ‘good student’. Despite Susan’s orthographic difficulties, the text is impressively coherent for a learner in her third year of English. Dear Leni you is a wery good teager and i know at thes you are saye is koregt. And ven we was in poland the polish Boys and girls was going to have in polish words and we was gonig to have it in english and it was good beagause we was ther to lornde some ting and it was kor eagt that we have had one of the best trip en the world and now you now have orl the peapel in our klasse is. Do you know have meny polish peapel? eaer maby is just kasia and shes sister. So god bay see you on Monday Love from Susan

A sense of belonging When it comes to sharing homework, all of Susan’s partners comment positively on her performance, for example when reading aloud to them. This is a clear sign that she is accepted by her peers. Her own strong sense of attachment to her classmates is evident from the following logbook entry, written after four years and three months of English: Dear Leni As you know, has we been away from karlslunde school in four weeks. And I think it is very good to be back, because I have missed my class mates very much, and I have also messed some of the peopel next door [the class next door]

A sense of identity The relevant literature has emphasized repeatedly that getting learners involved in their own learning is the essential first step towards making them autonomous learners. One of the major strategies to achieve this goal is systematically to engage the learners’ identity and intrinsic motivation by allowing them to choose activities that correspond to their interests and

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preferences. We have used Susan’s description of a pony to illustrate features of her dyslexia (p. 173, above), but it is also one of the many texts in which her love of horses comes to the fore. She decorated the cover of her first logbook with pictures of horses and riders and when, after three years and six weeks of English, she writes a name poem (an acrostic based on the learner’s name), her preoccupation with horses is again in evidence: Sometimes I like to be my-self Unhappy when not together with my horses [this line was written by the teacher] Sussi is my fedt dog [fedt: ‘favourite’] Always together with my horse Not so mottes together with fy freds [mottes: ‘much’; fy freds: ‘my friends’]

A sense of purpose When learners are asked to choose a new partner, the reason Susan gives for her choice is ‘because she can help me spelling’. Susan has a very clear idea of who can help her and thus who she wants to work with. This sense of purpose is forcefully expressed in the first of the two letters to her teacher that we quoted above (p. 175); the relevant passage is repeated here for the sake of convenience. Susan is referring to a class trip to Poland when she and her classmates were using English most of the time, whereas the Polish students used their mother tongue: And ven we was in poland the polish Boys and girls was going to have in polish words and we was gonig to have it in english and it was good beagause we was ther to lornde some ting [‘we were there to learn something’] Susan is very aware of her weaknesses and works hard to improve her orthography. The same sense of purpose is present in the learning contract she made after four years and eight months of English: My Personal contract how am i going to Be Better tlk [talk] to my tape recorter read aloud, read more I am going to get Better at speling write more english

A sense of progress and competence Although the causes of her dyslexia cannot be removed, Susan’s spelling gradually develops towards a more correct orthography. The following list of spelling variants of because is chronologically ordered. On the one hand, it shows signs of instability and backsliding; on the other, the deviant forms become more and more interpretable. After three years of learning English the majority of because-attestations are correct, with occasional occurrences of becaus.

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beagurs (1 year/3 months) → beakors (1/3) → beagors (1/4) → beagause (1/10) → beacause (2/0) → begause (2/¾) → because (2/3) → because (3/3) → becaus (3/3½) → because (3/9) → becaus (3/9¼) The support of the teacher and her peers had a positive impact on Susan’s self-esteem, and she herself experiences a sense of progress. The following statement is included in another letter to her teacher, written after three years and four months of English: and i think it have Bin a very good year i thinke i have commed a step further A significant example of Susan’s self-confidence and self-esteem can be observed in a video that shows the class preparing for a trip to England (Dam & Lentz, 1998). Susan has chosen to work on the daily life of an English family, whereas her classmate wants to look into fashion. In the following interaction, Susan takes all the initiatives. The insistent questions she addresses to her partner are reminiscent of a teacher getting slightly impatient with a recalcitrant learner. Susan: Michelle: Susan: Michelle: Susan: Michelle: Susan: Michelle: Susan: Michelle:

I have written that we are going to talk about English families and the way they live and their problems, and you would like to talk about fashion yes and (.) and we have to find some materials. I have read about a girl and her problems with her mother and father [4 sec] I’ve just look in some magazines for something about fashion (.) and I also think I will read in my book Yes, what have you done so far? Mhm, just look in some magazines Ok, what have you looked at? Fashion Fashion – what kind of fashion? Eh, clothes, boots

The video was recorded in Grade 9 after four years of English; Susan’s oral performance, with good pronunciation, is clearly above average. In Chapter 1 we emphasized the key role that communicative and reflective writing plays in the development of autonomous learners’ TL proficiency. Despite her dyslexia, this applies to Susan no less than to her classmates: the fluency and correctness of her spoken English are due in part to her continuing struggle to write English. Susan finished her schooling at the end of Grade 10, when she took the state exam in oral English and scored one of the highest marks.

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When she was in Grade 10, after five and a half years of English, Susan wrote the following text, which shows how well her proficiency in writing had developed. Entitled ‘Titanic’, the text is characterized by sometimes deviant syntax, but also displays a varied vocabulary and is highly cohesive and rhetorically persuasive. In our transcription only Susan’s spelling mistakes have been corrected. Titanic I didn’t know what to write about. So I have decided to write about the best film that I have seen, it is called Titanic, and is the most expensive film in history. It have costed 200 million dollars to create, but already when it had been in the movies for a month or so, had it earned over 200 million dollars The film is just fabulous, you just have to see it. When I first heard about the film that were based on the terrible authentic story about Titanic, where over 1500 people lost their lifes. I thought it was impossible to make such a good film on such a bad accident, but it was possible. And Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet are fabulous in the roles as the two young lovers, whose love is forbidden because Rose (Kate) is a overclass girl, and Jack (Leonardo) is a poor guy, and 1914 was that kind of love forbidden. The unedited version of the text (Figure 6.8) makes clear, though, that Susan’s dyslexia remains powerfully in evidence. She could still write ‘dollas’

Figure 6.8 Susan’s text about The Titanic

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and only two lines later ‘dollars’, and bizarre spellings occur now and then (for example, ‘tost’ for ‘lost’). This orthographic weakness, however, should not distract us from the fact that the text is essentially well-formed.

Concluding remarks There have been many answers to the question: How should we support dyslexic learners in institutional environments? Given the current state of research, proposals based on strengthening learners’ self-esteem seem to promise most, as the example of Susan suggests. In the course of five years she developed significant communicative competence in English because she worked in a climate of mutual respect and trust in which she could feel secure. Whatever she did as a learner was rooted in her identity, and the texts she produced were authentic because they were based on her personal experience and made use of her ‘action knowledge’, in Barnes’s (1976) sense. She recognized the benefits of social learning and developed a strong sense of belonging; she also developed a sense of purpose, an awareness of what language learning requires, and a capacity for self-evaluation.

Conclusion Dennis and Susan are two learners who for very different reasons could easily have been left behind in a more traditional classroom. Both of them, however, responded to the challenges of the autonomy classroom, accepting responsibility for their own learning and taking control. Although Dennis’s response was sporadic and often half-hearted, he nevertheless developed an ability to communicate spontaneously in English before he was expelled from school for his persistent bad behaviour. Susan was always conscientious and committed to her learning, and she achieved a high level of proficiency in English; she also came to experience greatly enhanced levels of self-esteem. These two case studies imply that learner autonomy has a positive impact not just on foreign language learning but on personal development more generally. In Part 3, Chapter 7 explores this implication further with reference to the linguistic and social inclusion of adult immigrants and the linguistic and educational inclusion of primary pupils from immigrant families. Chapter 8 then concludes the book by offering some reflections on and suggestions for pre- and in-service language teacher education that in our view also have more general validity.

Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action •

Has the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) been ratified by your country? If it has, what impact has it had on

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education in general and approaches to teaching and learning at school in particular? Think of your most recent language learning experience and make a list of the learning activities your teacher used most frequently. Which of those activities belong in an inclusive pedagogy – i.e. a pedagogy that caters for all learners according to their needs – and why? Although Dennis was eventually expelled from school for bad behaviour, he mostly accepted the discipline that his fellow learners imposed. In your context, what rules of classroom conduct would you most like your learners to follow? The autonomy classroom, like inclusive pedagogy, encourages peer tutoring, and our case studies make clear that this benefited Dennis and Susan greatly. How would you encourage peer tutoring in your context? Look again at the examples we have given of Susan’s writing. She never fully overcomes her dyslexia, but after four years she is able to write fluent and easily comprehensible English. Make a list of the factors that enable her to succeed and put them in order of importance. Low self-esteem can easily undermine learners’ motivation, whether or not they suffer from a disability like dyslexia. In your experience as a language learner and/or language teacher, which factors impact most powerfully on learners’ self-esteem? When students with learning difficulties like ADHD or dyslexia are included in a ‘normal’ classroom, teachers often give them special tasks/ activities. By doing so, they focus on what to learn rather than how to learn (Nind, 2005). But instead of including students with learning difficulties, special tasks/activities exclude them from what the rest of the class is doing. What kind of tasks/activities are offered to students with learning difficulties in the classrooms you are familiar with? What do the activities focus on? If they focus on the what of learning, how could they be changed? Select and read an article about inclusive pedagogy from one of the books listed in our suggestions for further reading. What points of contact can you find between the arguments of your chosen article and the learning dynamic and learning activities described in the first part of this book?

Suggestions for Further Reading Since their publication the two UNESCO documents referred to in the introduction to this chapter – The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (1994) and Guidelines for Inclusion: Ensuring Access to Education for All (2005) – have provided an indispensable point of reference for international discussion of special needs and inclusive

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education. Both documents are available online, as is Inclusion and Pupil Achievement (Dyson et al., 2004), a report on research carried out in mainstream schools in England. Farrell et al. (2007) summarize and discuss the findings in their article ‘SEN inclusion and pupil achievement in English schools’. The following four books contain a wealth of information and ideas on the management of inclusion and pedagogical approaches designed to make it work: Deconstructing Special Education and Constructing Inclusion, by Gary Thomas and Andrew Loxley (2nd edn, 2007); Curriculum and Pedagogy in Inclusive Education, edited by Melanie Nind, Jonathan Rix, Kieron Sheehy and Katy Simmons (2005); Achievement and Inclusion in Schools, by Kristine BlackHawkins, Lani Florian and Martyn Rouse (2007); and What Really Works in Special and Inclusive Education, by David Mitchell (2nd edn, 2014).

Note (1) ‘Studien [zeigen], dass Kinder und Jugendliche mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf – zumindest im Schwerpunkt Lernen – bei inklusiver Unterrichtung deutlich bessere Lernergebnisse erzielen. Auch die Kinder und Jugendlichen ohne Förderbedarf profitieren nachweislich vom gemeinsamen Unterricht – sie können soziale Kompetenzen und Toleranz im täglichen Alltag einüben, ohne in ihren fachbezogenen Schulleistungen nachzulassen.’

Part 3 Language Learner Autonomy: Meeting Future Challenges

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The Linguistic, Social and Educational Inclusion of Immigrants: A New Challenge for Language Learner Autonomy

Introduction In the first two parts of this book we were concerned with foreign language teaching and learning at school. This is an area in which there is still a widely recognized shortfall in learning achievement, despite repeated initiatives at European and national levels (see, for example, European Commission, 2012). The solution we propose is the deliberate exploitation of learner agency and the progressive development of language learner autonomy. In this chapter we argue that in an age of large-scale migration, autonomous learning is also the surest way of providing for the linguistic, social and educational inclusion of immigrants, clearly one of the most urgent tasks facing our societies. After all, if adult immigrants are to manage their own lives, to become ‘social agents’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 9) in the fullest sense of that term, they need to achieve at least functional proficiency in the language of their host community; while immigrant children and adolescents cannot fulfil their educational potential unless they acquire near-native fluency in the language of schooling. The chapter presents two case studies from Ireland, traditionally a country of emigration rather than immigration. In recent years, unprecedented levels of immigration have transformed the linguistic fabric of Irish society and the linguistic profile of the school-going population. In the 1990s, relatively small numbers of refugees were admitted to the country under the terms of the Irish government’s agreements with the United Nations High 185

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Commission for Refugees (UNHCR); the expansion of the economy at the end of the decade attracted asylum seekers in ever-increasing numbers; workers were recruited, chiefly from eastern Europe, to fill gaps in the Irish workforce; and when 10 new countries joined the European Union in 2004, what had started as a trickle became a flood. In 2006 and 2007 annual net migration (the total number of immigrants less the total number of emigrants) was around 70,000. Although this figure decreased significantly with the collapse of the Irish economy in 2008, the 2011 census showed that 17% of the population had been born outside Ireland. In other words, linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity will be a feature of Irish society for the foreseeable future. The first of our case studies concerns Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT),1 a not-for-profit campus company of Trinity College Dublin, which was funded by the Irish government from 2000 to 2008 to provide intensive English language programmes for adult refugees. The second describes the innovative approach to language education developed by Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní) (St Brigid’s School for Girls), a primary school in one of Dublin’s western suburbs. In Chapters 1–4, a central role was assigned to the interests, knowledge and skills the learners brought with them to school. These were used as a hook to engage them, harness their intrinsic motivation and involve them in their own learning. From the beginning, the activities they chose to pursue linked their developing proficiency in the TL to their interests and helped it to become a fully integrated part of what they were; to return to Barnes’s (1976) dichotomy, they used their action knowledge to come to grips with school knowledge. Documentation of learning facilitated the reflective processes of planning, monitoring and evaluating learning; it also helped to establish a powerful symbiosis between listening/speaking and reading/writing. The same processes and procedures play a central role in the two cases we are concerned with here. Many of the learning activities we describe in this chapter are identical to or close relatives of the activities typical of the autonomy classroom. As in the autonomy classroom, IILT and Scoil Bhríde both embedded language learning in more general processes of socialization and inclusion that were designed to enhance learners’ selfesteem and give them a sense of security and belonging.

Adult Refugees Learning the Language of the Host Community Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT) IILT’s students were either ‘programme refugees’, admitted to Ireland under the terms of agreements between the Irish government and UNHCR, or ‘convention refugees’, admitted as asylum seekers and subsequently granted refugee status under the terms of the UN’s 1951 Refugee Convention. Refugee

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status includes all the privileges of citizenship and excludes the requirement to take and pass a language and/or citizenship test. IILT’s courses were provided free of charge to support adult refugees’ integration into Irish society. They comprised 20 class hours per week and 10 hours of self-access learning and homework, a structure that was determined by two considerations. First, before IILT was established, adult refugees had attended courses at private language schools, which typically consisted of 20 class hours per week; and secondly, common sense suggested that a maximally intensive time commitment was in the learners’ best interests. This latter consideration also explains why classes were continuous: the year was divided into four terms of three months each, the school closing only for Christmas and New Year. Classes were usually limited to 15 students, again by analogy with private language schools. In 2007 a total of 906 students attended IILT’s classes, 478 in Dublin and the rest in nine other centres around Ireland. They came from 93 different countries, in eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, so there was a rich mix of mother tongues, ethnic and religious backgrounds, and previous educational experience. The majority of students came to IILT with some knowledge of English. In terms of the CEFR’s proficiency levels, their profile on admission typically spanned the upper end of A1 and the lower end of A2. A small number came with no proficiency in English (and sometimes no literacy skills in their mother tongue), and an equally small number came with good general proficiency in English but a need to develop specific skills in order to access further or higher education. The Department of Education and Science (DES) imposed no limit on the length of time for which an individual student could take courses in IILT; in practice most attended classes for between six months and a year, after which they entered employment, mainstream education or vocational training.

IILT’s courses: Governing principles Learning the language of the host community supports the integration of adult refugees to the extent that it enhances their capacity to act as autonomous agents in their new situation. This general principle explains four defining features of IILT’s courses: never-ending needs analysis to ensure a degree of differentiation commensurate with the diversity of the student population; learning activities based on authentic materials that the learners themselves collected; regular communication between the classroom and the world outside; and the development of autonomous learning skills that students could continue to use after they had left IILT. Since the 1980s it has been commonplace to distinguish between objective and subjective needs (for example, Brindley, 1989; Richterich, 1983). Objective needs, which can be analysed by experts on the basis of information about the learners and their situation relative to the TL, are used to guide course design; subjective needs – the cognitive and affective needs of the individual learner – come into play during course delivery. IILT’s courses

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were not designed in advance, however, so the distinction between objective and subjective needs did not apply. At the beginning of each term students were assigned to classes on the basis of their proficiency in English, and in the first week they worked with their teacher to plan a programme that would meet their needs. As individual needs were identified and clarified, group needs would begin to emerge. Some of these concerned the class as a whole – for example, all students seeking employment need to know how the income tax system works and how to interpret their pay slip; others were more satisfactorily dealt with by dividing the class into sub-groups – for example, not all students were interested in the same domain of employment. When needs were specific to the situation of just one student in the class, they had to be met on an individual basis, but usually as part of the overall programme. Each week’s work was evaluated and, if necessary, adjustments were made to the remaining programme. The unpredictable diversity of individual needs and goals explains why there could be no single set of learning materials (certainly no textbooks) and no fixed pedagogical procedures. Instead, students were encouraged to find ‘real world’ materials relevant to their needs and interests. Three or four students seeking employment in the same sector, for example, would work together to source relevant job advertisements, analyse stated requirements, and draft letters of application. Employment was not the students’ only concern, of course. Those with young children needed to equip themselves for visits to the doctor and dentist and meetings with their children’s teachers. This entailed learning the words for common symptoms and illnesses and the sometimes recondite terminology of the Irish education system. We saw in Chapter 5 that when Danish teenagers focused on their interests they learnt words that are not among the most frequent and are thus unlikely to occur in a textbook. The same thing happened when IILT’s refugee students focused on the language they needed for everyday life in Ireland. If language learning is to promote social inclusion it has to reach beyond the classroom. That is why IILT’s courses always included visits to places of practical and cultural interest – libraries, service providers of various kinds, museums, galleries, theatres, and historical sites. Students also visited national and local educational and career planning events – college open days and information sessions, and education and employment fairs. There was a regular flow of visitors from the outside world, especially representatives of local services and organizations like the police and the fire brigade (given their experience in other places, for many students drinking a cup of tea with the Garda Siochána’s community liaison officer was a novel and piquant experience). Crucially, all of these activities were the focus of learner-directed learning activities before and after the event. IILT’s approach to needs analysis and course design meant that from the beginning students were engaged in planning, monitoring and evaluating their own learning. However, the teachers quickly discovered that refugee

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language learners were no more skilled at managing these reflective processes than language learners in any other domain; it was necessary to mediate the processes via a combination of examples and discourse modelling. At an early stage the European Language Portfolio (ELP) was adopted as a means of documenting learning, supporting reflection, and focusing on the development of explicit language learning skills.

The European Language Portfolio The ELP was conceived as a way of mediating to language learners the ethos and action-oriented approach of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001). Accordingly, the ELP’s declared pedagogical function is to foster learner autonomy and the development of intercultural awareness and plurilingualism (Council of Europe, 2011). The ELP has three obligatory components: a language passport, which summarizes the owner’s experience of learning and using L2s; a language biography, which provides a reflective accompaniment to L2 learning and use; and a dossier, in which the owner keeps work in progress and/ or texts that illustrate his or her L2 proficiency. It is thus designed to serve closely similar functions to the logbooks and portfolios that were central to the learning process described in Chapters 1–4. The Council of Europe did not itself develop versions of the ELP for different age groups or contexts of learning. Instead, it issued Principles and Guidelines (Council of Europe, 2011) that define the structure, content and purpose of the ELP, and established a Validation Committee whose function was to receive ELPs from member states, establish whether or not they complied with the Principles and Guidelines and, if they did, give them an accreditation number. In the ELP the self-assessment grid (Council of Europe, 2001: 26–27) provides the overall scale against which communicative proficiency is recorded in the language passport, while the CEFR’s illustrative scales yield checklists of ‘I can’ descriptors, usually to be found in the language biography, which support goal setting and self-assessment. For example, in the self-assessment grid, SPOKEN INTERACTION at A2 level is summarized like this: I can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar topics and activities. I can handle very short social exchanges, even though I can’t usually understand enough to keep the conversation going myself. (Council of Europe, 2001: 26) And in the Swiss ELP for adolescent and adult learners (accreditation number 1.2000; bmlv, 2000) the checklist for A2 SPOKEN INTERACTION looks like this: • •

I can make simple transactions in shops, post offices or banks I can use public transport: buses, trains, and taxis, ask for basic information and buy tickets

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• • • • • • • • • •

I can get simple information about travel I can order something to eat or drink I can make simple purchases by stating what I want and asking the price I can ask for and give directions referring to a map or plan I can ask how people are and react to news I can make and respond to invitations I can make and accept apologies I can say what I like and dislike I can discuss with other people what to do, where to go and make arrangements to meet I can ask people questions about what they do at work and in free time, and answer such questions addressed to me

To begin with, IILT developed separate ELP models for learners working at three levels: Reception 1 (learners newly arrived in Ireland; A1→B1), Reception 2 (learners who had been living in Ireland for some time before beginning their course; A2→B1), and Pre-vocational/Fast track (learners moving towards work or mainstream vocational training; B1→B2). All three models had the same very simple language passport, which allowed learners to record their proficiency in English and other second/foreign languages and to briefly note important intercultural experiences. All three models also had a dossier section that included LEARNING DIARY and LEARNING TARGETS pages that were used to support regular reflection and ensure that each learner’s record of his or her learning had a precise chronological dimension with clear narrative implications. The three models differed from one another chiefly in the checklists. These were arranged by communicative context and reflected the different proficiency levels learners in the three categories were aiming at. The Reception 1 ELP had checklists for THE BEGINNING (such preliminary tasks as read aloud the letters of the alphabet, write my name and address, find my name in a list), PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION, LEARNING TO LEARN, EVERYDAY LIFE, DEALING WITH OFFICIALS, USING THE TELEPHONE; to these the Reception 2 ELP added checklists for THE MEDIA, CORRESPONDENCE, CONVERSATION; and the Prevocational/Fast track ELP had checklists for SETTING COURSE OBJECTIVES, PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION, LEARNING TO LEARN, THE WORKPLACE, CULTURAL AWARENESS, CAREER PLANNING, THE MEDIA, CV PREPARATION. From their first introduction as pilot versions in 2000 it was clear that these ELPs provided significant support for teachers as well as learners. They quickly became central to IILT’s autonomy-oriented pedagogical culture and provided an obvious focus for the Milestone Project. The Milestone Project (2000–2004) was funded as part of the European Union’s Socrates–Comenius 2.1 Programme. It had partners in Finland, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden, and the Milestone ELP was developed collaboratively as a means of exchanging ideas and experience and developing a common portfolio approach to language teaching for refugees

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and other immigrants. It had three principal distinguishing features. First, the three components were presented in the order: language biography, dossier, language passport. This was done to encourage students and teachers to focus first on the reflective pages of the language biography, perhaps reserving the language passport for a final stock-taking at the end of an individual student’s programme of study. Secondly, the language biography was divided into two parts. Part 1 focused on the owner’s previous language learning and intercultural experience, important life events, and his or her proficiency in the language of the host community at the beginning of the course. Part 2 was concerned with current language learning and designed to help learners to become more aware of their attitudes, expectations and learning styles. The checklists of ‘I can’ descriptors were used to set personal learning goals and regularly self-assess learning outcomes. The language biography was designed in this way in order to exploit the ELP’s potential to develop as a personal narrative, a genuinely autobiographical document. Thirdly, the dossier included details of the owner’s language course and a page for recording his or her attendance; it also accommodated work in progress as well as samples of finished work.2 As soon as the Milestone ELP had been validated by the Council of Europe’s ELP Validation Committee, IILT began to use it instead of the three models that had inspired its development. Previously students had progressed from one ELP to the next; now they worked with the Milestone ELP throughout their time with IILT. The Milestone ELP was more substantial than the earlier models and it made no concession to lower proficiency levels. This meant that teachers had to find ways of mediating it to learners whose English was still in the early stages of development. For example, a teacher working with learners at low Reception 1 level (A1) would introduce the ELP using a picture story of a man who went to a job centre and used his ELP to show what he could do in English. The implications of the story were explored through a series of simple comprehension questions, and students’ answers led into an exploration of the ELP itself, its different sections and their functions. The teacher then used the ELP as a springboard for negotiating course content. Working with students at a somewhat higher level, another teacher began each term by negotiating course content with her learners on the basis of their individual needs. They kept the agreed course outline in the dossier section of their ELP and used it gradually to explore other parts of the ELP. Weekly learning targets were drawn from the checklists in the language biography, which were also used to review learning at the end of each week. In deciding how to use the ELP teachers drew on their pedagogical experience and skills, but they also sought advice and ideas from their colleagues. In this way IILT developed an ELP culture that was shaped by the principles outlined above but was flexible enough to accommodate learners’ different proficiency levels on the one hand and teachers’ individual preferences on the other.

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Figure 7.1 Adult refugee’s expectations of his English course

Figure 7.1 shows what one student expected from his course, his teacher and himself. Figure 7.2 shows one learner’s personal dictionary page for one week of his course – his learning had focused on health, culture and how to manage his own learning. These examples reflect the ELP’s potential to record individual learning in a way that has clear autobiographical resonance.

The role of reading and writing in the development of learners’ second language identity Clearly, the ELP supported the development of students’ literacy skills in English because it required them to maintain a written record of their

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Figure 7.2 Adult refugee’s vocabulary list for one week

learning. It is important to emphasize, however, that IILT was concerned with much more than functional literacy. Students were encouraged to use writing to express their emerging English-language identity to themselves and their fellow students, and in time some of them revealed genuine literary talent. Three examples illustrate something of the range of students’ writing activity. In the first example, writing arose out of a class reading activity.3 The teacher was concerned that, although her students were reasonably proficient in listening and speaking, they mostly had poor writing skills. She knew from talking to them that they were not in the habit of reading extensively in English, and she believed that if she could persuade them to read more their writing would improve. She established a small lending library of Penguin Readers (abbreviated and simplified versions of literary classics), and encouraged her students to read regularly outside class. After 10 weeks, every student in the class had read at least one or two books, some had read six or seven, and a few had read as many as 12. The teacher noticed a significant improvement in students’ writing skills and a correlation between the quality of their work and the number of books they had read. When asked directly what effect reading books had had on their English, students reported that their vocabulary had improved significantly. Some of them also reported enhanced self-confidence: they had never imagined they would be able to read a book in English. In order to help her students to recognize what they had achieved, the teacher asked them to choose their favourite story and write a book review using a template she provided. All the reviews were displayed in a corridor of the school to make learning visible and encourage

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Figure 7.3 Adult refugee’s report on reading a simplified version of Orwell’s 1984

other students to engage in out-of-class reading (Figure 7.3). Note that students began to read not on their own initiative, but because their teacher prompted them to do so; left to their own devices they might well have remained for the most part non-readers. But note also that the reading scheme succeeded only when students were given the freedom to choose what and how much to read – in other words, when reading could become part of their autonomous learning behaviour. Like the scheme itself, the Book Review Form came from the teacher rather than the students, but it also served to extend the scope of students’ autonomy as they used it to reflect on how reading had opened new horizons for them while helping to improve their English as well. The second example is a text that was produced collaboratively by a group of learners. From time to time IILT arranged for past students to come and talk about their language learning experience and the shape that their life had taken in Ireland since they completed their course in IILT. Figure 7.4 shows the account of such a visit that one class wrote collaboratively with help from their teacher and posted on the IILT website. The third example (Figure 7.5) is the winning entry in IILT’s 2005 poetry competition.4 It shows how one student was able to use English to express and reflect on traumatic experiences and at the same time establish an autonomous creative identity in a second language.

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On 31st January 2006, Kira, an ex-student, came to visit our R2Upper class in IILT. This is our report. Kira is from Khazakstan. She came to Ireland in 1999 at age 17. She didn’t study English at school and she didn’t speak English at all. She studied English for three months in IILT. At IILT she talked to her teacher about her future plans. Her long term plan was to work in the legal area, but first she needed to get a general education. With her teacher in IILT she decided to study for the Leaving Cert. Kira found information about colleges and filled in an application form for Liberties College. She studied for the Leaving Cert in Liberties College for two years. During that time she met a lot of obstacles, but she worked hard. She speaks English fluently now, because her classmates were native speakers and she learned a lot on her own. Kira studied seven subjects. She passed the Leaving Cert. successfully. After the Leaving Cert she got some information about Rathmines College in FAS. Then she did a Legal Studies course in Rathmines College. She was very happy with that. Kira is now working in a solicitor's office in Dublin. She applied for this job through her tutor and passed an interview. She is also studying criminology by distance learning. Kira has big plans for future. She has always wanted to work in the legal area and now she is on her way. Her advice for us is: 1. Study English without a bilingual dictionary. 2. Do what you want to do and don’t give up. 3. Follow your dreams.

Figure 7.4 Students’ report on a former student’s visit to their class

Figure 7.5 Prize-winning entry in IILT’s poetry competition

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Figure 7.5 (Continued)

External assessment that validated autonomous learning The Council of Europe conceived the ELP partly in order to provide language learners with an internationally recognizable means of recording and presenting their experience of learning and using languages other than their mother tongue. The ELP Principles and Guidelines (Council of Europe, 2011) insist that the ELP is the property of the learner, which explains the central role that it assigns to self-assessment. In the context of autonomous learning, the validity of self-assessment is beyond dispute provided it can be shown to be reliable; as we argued in Chapter 4, if it is firmly embedded in the reflective procedures that govern autonomous learning, there is no reason why self-assessment should not be reliable (see also Chapter 5). When

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IILT’s students and their teachers planned their courses with reference to the communicative activities assigned to, say, level A2 of the CEFR, and the students gradually assembled evidence that confirmed their growing mastery of those activities, there was no reason to doubt the general reliability of students’ self-assessment. So to begin with, the only confirmation of their learning achievement that IILT’s students took away with them was their ELP (often quite bulky by the end of their course). They were always encouraged to take their ELPs to interviews for educational placements or jobs, and informal feedback from placement officers and prospective employers suggested that a well-maintained ELP helped to persuade them that the students were more proficient in English than they might otherwise have supposed. Nevertheless, from time to time Department of Education officials suggested informally that IILT’s students should perhaps take a standardized English language test as a way of demonstrating the effectiveness of IILT’s courses and confirming that the Irish state was getting value for money. IILT resisted this suggestion for two reasons. First, tests designed for more or less homogeneous populations of learners following internationally similar programmes of English language instruction were unlikely to be appropriate for an infinitely diverse population of adult refugees. And secondly, the need to prepare students for a test inevitably narrows the focus of teaching and learning towards the tasks and linguistic content of the test in question. Such teaching would be diametrically opposed to IILT’s ethos and aims. With the establishment of the Further Education and Training Awards Council (FETAC) in 2001, however, the possibility of a very different kind of external assessment presented itself. From 2001 to 20125 FETAC was the national awarding body for the further education and training sector in Ireland; it accredited a vast range of programmes across the first six levels of the 10-level National Framework of Qualifications. Of particular interest to IILT was the fact that FETAC assessment was based on student portfolios, which FETAC monitored regularly to ensure that stated standards were achieved. Students were individually responsible for maintaining their own portfolios, which must include: a learning plan and learning targets; a diary in which reflections, plans and decisions were recorded; for each module, proofs that learning targets had been met; and regular self-assessment. These were precisely the requirements that the Milestone ELP imposed on students. IILT integrated work on FETAC modules with language learning based on the Milestone ELP by explicitly linking items in the Milestone ELP checklists to descriptors for FETAC Specific Learning Outcomes. IILT offered its students three FETAC modules: English as a Second Language (Levels 3, 4 and 5), Preparation for Work (Level 3) and Computer Literacy (Level 3). Level 3 was equivalent to the Junior Certificate (the examination taken at the end of the first three years of post-primary education),

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Level 4 to the first year of the two-year Leaving Certificate (school-leaving examination) programme, and Level 5 to the Leaving Certificate. English was, of course, the medium through which learners engaged with learning and assessment tasks, expressed their life skills and previous knowledge, and presented evidence. However, the linguistic demands made of learners were always limited to the particular requirements of a Specific Learning Outcome. FETAC awarded credits for modules of learning, eight credits at a particular level earning a certificate. Credits could be gained over shorter or longer periods, in one or more further education and training contexts. With the exception of the modules in English as a Second Language, IILT’s students took the same FETAC modules as Irish learners, and they could leave IILT with their ELPs but also with FETAC certificates, which had a value within the national system of further education and training. This added significantly to the integration value of IILT’s programmes. In 2007, 642 of IILT’s 906 students submitted portfolios for FETAC assessment. All of them were successful at Levels 3 and 4, and 98% were successful at Level 5. This approach to assessment is a long way removed from the language tests that immigrants are increasingly obliged to take in their host countries (Pulinx et al., 2014).

Concluding remarks For the eight years of IILT’s existence (funding was withdrawn in 2008, for complex reasons; see Little & Lazenby Simpson, 2009: 121–122), Ireland had a national provider of English language programmes for adult refugees whose approach to learning and teaching was closely modelled on the approach described in the first part of this book. One of the strengths of the approach is that formal language learning is continuously absorbed into the learner’s action knowledge, gradually adding a new dimension to his or her identity. This is clearly a matter of acute importance for refugees and other immigrants facing the challenge of becoming effective social agents in a new society. An informal measure of IILT’s success is provided by the written testimonies that students provided when they came to the end of their courses or had begun to achieve their life goals as members of Irish society. We conclude this part of the chapter with four (unedited) examples (IILT, 2008).

Example 1 I want to learn to help my children and also for my future. I always missed medical appointment because I couldn’t understand the receptionist when he was speaking to me. But now my English is very good. And my experience now is speaking good English with people and say many thing in English. My experience now is to help my children do their homework and I can write English in letters. Now, when I send my girls to school I can speak to their teacher and when I go to the GP I can speak and understand very well.

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Example 2 I am from Uzbekistan. I am a student on an IILT English language course in Balbriggan. I started this course last year in October. The first time I came it was very difficult but very interesting. Every day I have learnt new words, new rules and many different things as well. The first time I didn’t understand my teacher because she spoke very quickly but now it’s very helpful for me. My English improved every week and I’m feeling more confident. Before I couldn’t go to the GP, the shop or many other places because I couldn’t understand any words when Irish people asked me and I couldn’t speak properly as well. But now I can go to any place and I am not afraid that I don’t understand. I am very happy that I came to this course. Now I can read, write, speak and even think in English. I hope that in the future I will speak more fluently and I can choose and go to any college that I want.

Example 3 My hopes were to find appropriate job to my qualification and integration in Irish system. My tries in finding a position as Food technologist (or similar position) were unsuccessful, although my degree was recognised in Ireland. I had some English, spoken and written, but did not have enough confidence. I heard from some friends, who attended English course at IILT, that it would be very helpful. My plan was improving my vocabulary and grammar as well as writing. I attended the course and found that I did not just improve my English, but learnt many other things about Irish society and system. The course was a source of information and place were people meet and socialise. I think this is very important for foreign people because many of them do not have family and friends here in Ireland. This course at IILT is their first step in connecting to Irish society. Here is their opportunity for meeting people and making friends besides learning English. During the course I changed my mind and enrolled in one-year course at NUI [National University of Ireland], Galway. This information I got also at IILT. The course was Higher Diploma in Applied Science (Analytical Biochemistry and Chemistry). I finished the course successfully and have graduation in October 2007. Now I am doing a placement component of the course in Department of Biochemistry at NUI, Galway. Also I am offered to stay there as Research assistant from December 2007.

Example 4 I’ve lived in Ireland for one year and half. When I came here I spoke a little English, it was difficult to understand people and their culture. When you are able to speak you can open yourself to people. I was also a bit lost and worried about socialising with people.

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I remember all my first steps and first lessons. I was so quiet, I will never forget the atmosphere. I started to feel more confident because of the people who surrounded me. They were friendly and they helped each other. We learned from each other so much. Different cultures, languages and people from different countries. We were all there to learn English, to get some experience and to make friends. The teachers were so supportive. They encouraged us so much. I feel so lucky that I’ve been there. It’s like you sometimes feel that you can’t cope with it and then you look at people and they give you a smile and you feel really good. I made many mistakes and I’ve learned that it’s the only way to learn the language by making them. The teachers helped us to socialise with each other. They told us so much about this country and culture. Every day was like a new white page of the book that I’ve filled with new information. Every day I learned something new. Now when I have some chats with Irish people I’m able to speak with them and they can understand me. They tell (me that I have good English. I smile and tell them about this school which helped me a lot. From this school I find out about GTI [Galway Technical Institute]. My next step was to get there for my future job and education. I was worried about how I’ll cope with the interview. My English teacher prepared me for it. And eventually I could do it. I was so happy. When the time came to leave the school I was sad, but I know that the door will always be open for me like my teacher said. I appreciate everything. The important thing is to start, to begin something even if it’s a small step. It’s the way to achieve anything you really want. It’s the lesson which I’ve learned from my school. My memories of the school are my treasure.

Linguistic Inclusion and Learner Autonomy in the Primary School Linguistic inclusion: A long-standing challenge Educational underachievement by children and adolescents from immigrant families has been a concern of governments in the developed world for at least half a century and the focus of significant theoretical and empirical research in applied linguistics since the 1970s. But the continuing failure of education systems to find ways of effectively including pupils from immigrant families has been brought into particularly sharp focus by the results of the OECD’s PISA surveys (see, for example, Cummins, 2014). There are two focuses of concern. The first, strongly emphasized by the Council of Europe (Little, 2010), has to do with human rights: children and adolescents

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from immigrant families have the same right to education as the rest of the school-going population. The second has to do with economic efficiency: educational failure entails a waste of human resources, and it is in any country’s interest to ensure that its educational outcomes are as economically advantageous as possible.

Proficiency in the language of schooling Clearly, the educational success of pupils from immigrant families depends on their acquiring a high level of proficiency in the language of schooling, and this prompts educational systems to adopt special measures. The OECD (2006) has identified three basic approaches. The first educates minority-language pupils separately until their proficiency in the language of schooling is deemed adequate for participation in the mainstream; the second assigns them to an age-appropriate mainstream class but withdraws them regularly for special language classes; and the third delivers support in the educational mainstream. All three approaches can easily encourage the view that immigrant pupils’ lack of proficiency in the language of schooling is a deficit that must be remedied before they can benefit fully from mainstream education. Such a view coincides with an ideology of integration rather than inclusion in the sense given to these terms in Chapter 6 (cf. pp. 159–160). Note, however, that the Council of Europe uses the term ‘integration’ in much the same sense as we use ‘inclusion’ and in contrast to ‘assimilation’.

The role of immigrant pupils’ home languages Schools in many countries make the common sense assumption that immigrant pupils need to spend as much time as possible speaking the language of schooling. This sometimes leads them to ban the use of pupils’ home languages not only in the classroom but also in the school yard and to encourage parents to use the language of schooling at home. The fallacy of this assumption becomes clear if we return yet again to the distinction between ‘action knowledge’ and ‘school knowledge’. Children starting school bring with them a complex of knowledge, experience and skills that they have acquired informally and incidentally (cf. the quotation from Salmon [1985] at the beginning of Chapter 1, p. 21). When their home language is a variety of the language of schooling, the challenge faced by teachers of non-language subjects is to present and process curriculum content in ways that are accessible to pupils from the perspective of their ‘action knowledge’. The pupils’ learning task is to develop literacy skills and gradually master the academic language that defines the different curriculum subjects. And the overarching educational goal is progressively to achieve the conversion of ‘school knowledge’ into ‘action knowledge’. Barnes offers the following example of this latter process:

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Imagine two children who have been learning about animals’ diet and teeth. One child, if asked the right question, can tell you that some animals eat meat, some vegetable foods, and some both, and that this matches differences in their teeth. The other child has learnt that wild cats eat meat, knows that his own cat at home has a mixed diet, and wonders what effect this will have on his teeth. The first child in one sense ‘knows’ about diet and teeth but can only use it in the classroom; it is still ‘school knowledge’. The other child is beginning to incorporate the information into the inner map of reality on which his actions are based, his ‘action knowledge’. (Barnes, 1976: 79–80) Consider now the challenge that confronts children from immigrant homes when they start school. In order to succeed educationally they must develop literate and in due course advanced proficiency in the language of schooling, yet they have acquired their ‘action knowledge’ in another language. That other language is the medium of their self-concept, their self-awareness, their consciousness, their discursive thinking, and their agency. It is central to their identity and fundamental to their capacity for autonomous behaviour, so encouraging them to use it as a tool for learning is a necessary first step in helping them to become autonomous learners.

Bilingual education Bilingual education, which delivers the curriculum partly in the pupils’ home language and partly in the dominant language of schooling, is one way of responding to the challenge posed by bilingual pupils. When curriculum content is communicated in the home language, the relation between school knowledge and action knowledge is the same as for pupils in mainstream education. And when curriculum content is communicated in the dominant language of schooling, the possibility of interaction between school knowledge and pupils’ action knowledge is explained by Cummins’s linguistic interdependence hypothesis. Cummins (1981: 29) states the hypothesis thus: To the extent that instruction in Lx is effective in promoting proficiency in Lx, transfer of this proficiency to Ly will occur provided there is adequate exposure to Ly (either in school or environment) and adequate motivation to learn Ly. (Cummins, 1981: 29) He offers the following concrete example: [In] a Spanish-English bilingual program in the United States, Spanish instruction that develops Spanish reading and writing skills is not just

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developing Spanish skills, it is also developing a deeper conceptual and linguistic proficiency that is strongly related to the development of literacy in the majority language (English). In other words, although the surface aspects […] of different languages are clearly separate, there is an underlying conceptual proficiency or knowledge base that is common across languages. This common underlying proficiency makes possible the transfer of concepts, literacy skills, and learning strategies from one language to another. (Cummins, 2008: 52) The linguistic interdependence hypothesis is supported by a significant body of empirical research (see, for example, August & Shanahan, 2006; Genesee et al., 2006); in other words, there is convincing evidence that whatever benefits accrue from education in a ‘minority’ language need not be bought at the cost of underachievement in the ‘majority’ language. The model of bilingual education in Cummins’s example, however, presupposes the existence of a community whose members all speak the same minority language. Such communities certainly exist in many countries – speakers of Spanish in the USA, Turkish in Germany, Portuguese in Luxembourg, Italian in Belgium, to name just four examples. But, increasingly, immigrant populations are ‘super-diverse’ (Vertovec, 2007) and schools are called upon to educate large numbers of pupils who between them speak not just one but many minority home languages. In these circumstances the effective inclusion of immigrant pupils requires us to find new ways of exploiting their home languages so that they benefit linguistically and cognitively from linguistic interdependence. One Irish primary school has achieved high levels of success by adopting an approach that respects and seeks to develop the autonomy of its pupils, which it recognizes is rooted in their home language.

Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní), Blanchardstown: A school with a ‘super-diverse’ population6 Because immigrants are not dispersed evenly across Ireland, some schools have few or no pupils from immigrant families, while others have many. Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní) (St Brigid’s School for Girls), situated in one of Dublin’s western suburbs, belongs to the latter category. In the school year 2014–2015 it had 322 pupils, almost 80% of whom were not native speakers of English or Irish. Altogether there were 49 home languages in addition to English and Irish. Some of these languages were spoken by a number of pupils, while others were spoken by just one. It is impossible to say how much contact pupils from immigrant families have with English prior to starting school, to what extent English is used in their homes, to what extent their out-of-school lives involve contact with English-speaking friends, and to what extent their family has contact with other speakers of their home language. But the number of pupils

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and languages involved implies the possibility of great variation. Nevertheless, when they start school the great majority of pupils from immigrant homes lack fluency in English and for some it is a completely new language. Primary schooling in Ireland starts at the age of four and a half and comprises eight years divided into four bands: Junior and Senior Infants (equivalent to pre-school in some other countries); First and Second Class; Third and Fourth Class; and Fifth and Sixth Class. There are seven areas of curriculum content: language (Irish and English – Scoil Bhríde also teaches French in Fifth and Sixth Class); mathematics; social, environmental and scientific education (history, geography, science); arts education (visual arts, music, drama); physical education; social, personal and health education; and religious or ethical education. The Irish government provides schools with additional financial support to help them develop immigrant pupils’ proficiency in English as the language of schooling. The number of such pupils attending Scoil Bhríde meant that in 2014–2015 it had three teachers dedicated to providing English language support. Apart from the linguistic diversity of its pupil cohort, however, there is nothing unusual about Scoil Bhríde: it has no special resources, and it delivers the same curriculum as all other primary schools. It is, however, unusual to the extent that it provides English language support classes for all pupils, including native speakers of English, recognizing that they too are often challenged by the language used at school.

An inclusive language education policy Scoil Bhríde’s language education policy is one of inclusion in the sense in which we used the term in Chapter 6. It seeks to ensure that pupils from immigrant homes gain full access to education, which means helping them to become fully proficient in English, but it also aims to exploit linguistic diversity to the benefit of all pupils, including those who are native speakers of English. Policy and practice are shaped by four principles: inclusivity, linguistic freedom, integrated multilingual communication, and plurilingual literacy.

Inclusivity The Irish primary curriculum aims to enable each pupil ‘to realize his or her potential as a unique individual’ (Government of Ireland, 1999: 7). This aim can be fulfilled only if the school positively welcomes ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity. Scoil Bhríde gives visual expression to the diversity of its pupil population in classrooms and corridors, and from the beginning teachers encourage pupils to make links between what is happening in school and their life at home – to draw on their action knowledge in coming to terms with school knowledge. This immediately brings home languages into play. In the Infant classes, for example, lessons about healthy eating are supported by displays comprising photos of individual pupils and the names

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of their favourite healthy foods, written in English and their home language (the parents of very young pupils help with the latter). An inclusive ethos is clearly a prerequisite for the achievement of another curriculum aim, ‘to enable the child to develop as a social being through living and co-operating with others’ (Government of Ireland, 1999: 7). Scoil Bhríde seeks to provide pupils with three of the five prerequisites for the development of self-esteem that are fundamental to the programme devised by Lecomte and her colleagues (1999) and discussed in Chapter 6 with reference to dyslexia: a sense of security, a sense of belonging, and a sense of having a unique identity. In doing so it lays the foundations of an approach to teaching and learning that exploits and further develops the autonomy of each pupil.

Linguistic freedom Scoil Bhríde places no restrictions on pupils’ use of their home languages in the classroom and outside. This principle recognizes that the language of the home plays a central role in each pupil’s life and is inseparable from her identity. Linguistic freedom in this sense is clearly essential if the educational process is to exploit the power of linguistic interdependence.

Integrated multilingual communication Primary schools in Ireland are expected to create specific timetable slots for English and Irish (4 and 2.5 hours per week respectively in the Infant classes; 5 and 3.5 hours per week thereafter). In Fifth and Sixth Class Scoil Bhríde also includes a timetable slot of approximately one hour per week for French. English is the dominant language of instruction, but every effort is made to ensure that pupils develop the ability to use Irish spontaneously – teachers frequently use Irish to communicate with one another and with pupils outside the classroom. The curriculum expects schools to create links between the various subjects taught; Scoil Bhríde does this by integrating English, Irish, home languages and French in classroom activities. Classroom projects frequently entail oral and written use of English, Irish, pupils’ home languages, and (again in Fifth and Sixth Class) French. This part of the policy is a response to two of the fundamental principles on which the primary curriculum rests: ‘the child is an active agent in his or her learning’, and ‘the child’s existing knowledge and experience form the basis for learning’ (Government of Ireland, 1999: 8). It should not be necessary to labour the link between these principles and the general approach to learning that characterizes the autonomy classroom. The involvement of home languages in classroom learning begins in Junior Infants, for example when pupils are learning to count. In a typical activity the teacher distributes large cut-outs of the numbers from 1 to 5 among five pupils, who come to the front of the class and arrange themselves in the correct order. A sixth pupil is invited to read off the numbers in English. The teacher then asks whether any pupils know other ways of

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saying the numbers and the process is repeated for as many home languages as are present in the class. This is fundamental to pupils’ learning of English as well as basic maths: their home language draws them into classroom interaction and confirms to them their involvement in the learning process. At the same time, it is important to recognize that there is a limit to what very young immigrant pupils can express in their home languages, and that there are many concepts that all pupils first encounter when they start school. For example, immigrant pupils may well learn the days of the week and the months of the year in their home language only when they tell their parents that they have been learning them at school in English and Irish. In the Infant classes pupils play classroom games in pairs, and here too home languages are brought into play. For example, one of the pupils calls out an action – foot to foot, elbow to elbow, etc. – in English or Irish, her partner repeats the word or phrase in her home language, and both pupils perform the action. Pupils also learn songs and rhymes, translating the chorus or key words into a variety of home languages. Initially, the speakers of those languages lead the new chorus, but with practice everyone in the class, including the teacher, learns new ways of expressing familiar content. In this way, hearing and using several languages in the classroom quickly becomes the norm. Inviting pupils to translate words, phrases and concepts into their home languages is a pedagogical technique that is used throughout the school. It ensures that pupils are fully engaged in classroom interaction, provides English-speaking pupils with a rich experience of linguistic diversity, and encourages pupils from immigrant families to view curriculum content through the prism of their action knowledge.

Plurilingual literacy Scoil Bhríde places great emphasis on the development of pupils’ literacy skills not only in English as the language of schooling but also in Irish, home languages, and (in Fifth and Sixth Class) French. In this, pupils’ parents play an essential role, because only they can provide direct support for the development of literacy in the language of the home. This gives added significance to the primary curriculum’s acknowledgement that ‘parents are the child’s primary educators, and the life of the home is the most potent factor in his or her development during the primary school years’ (Government of Ireland, 1999: 24). Some pupils from immigrant families also benefit from community initiatives to help them to become literate in their home language, but such support is by no means universally available. Although linguistic diversity is exploited in most lessons, languages are always treated as discrete: the goal is not to develop pupils’ skills in codemixing or code-switching, but to enable them to develop the highest possible level of age-appropriate proficiency in writing English, Irish, their home language and, in due course, French. At all levels of the school pupils learn to

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express the same content in the different languages available to them. In Senior Infants, when pupils are still developing basic writing skills, what they produce is very simple, like Karolina’s identity text (Figure 7.6). Gradually their texts become more complex, and the presence of large numbers of plurilingual pupils begins to influence children from English-speaking homes: not to be outdone, they decide that their ‘home’ language is Irish, and this frequently has a transformative impact on their motivation to learn the language.

Figure 7.6 Karolina’s bilingual identity text

Scoil Bhríde places the same emphasis on writing as the autonomy classroom described in the first part of the book, and pupils engage in many of the same activities. Writing texts with the same content in English, Irish and the language of the home is a key learning activity throughout the school. Already in Second Class pupils are beginning to produce longer and more fluent dual-language texts, as shown by the English and Polish examples in Figure 7.7. The three versions of the same story in English, Irish and Hungarian in Figure 7.8 were written by a pupil in Third Class. In Fifth and Sixth Class, French also enters the picture. In the summer term of 2014 Sixth Class pupils devised a multilingual fashion show in which they were the models and all the languages present in the class were used. Each pupil was then required to invent a fictitious model and write a brief profile of her in English, Irish, French and her home language; in the example shown in Figure 7.9 the home language is again Hungarian.

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Figure 7.7 Parallel English and Polish texts about ‘My school’

Figure 7.8 Parallel English, Irish and Hungarian texts: ‘An accident’

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Figure 7.9 Portrait of the fictitious model Zöe in English, Irish, French and Hungarian

The impact of Scoil Bhríde’s language education policy on pupils The Irish educational system does not require immigrant pupils to take special English language tests. Standardized tests in English and maths are, however, available for schools to use with all pupils. From First to Sixth Class, Scoil Bhríde administers these tests each year. One measure of the school’s success is that its pupils regularly perform above the national average in both subjects; analysis of the test results shows that by the time they move on to secondary school, immigrant pupils’ proficiency in the language of schooling is indistinguishable from that of their native-speaker peers. But Scoil Bhríde’s approach also brings two significant added values that benefit pupils from English-speaking homes as well as their plurilingual peers: a high level of language awareness and a steady growth in learner autonomy.

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Language awareness Two distinct but complementary senses have been given to the term ‘language awareness’: explicit knowledge about language, usually taught at school (e.g. Hawkins, 1984) and ‘the “awareness” that learners have of language, independently of conscious reflection on language’ (Nicholas, 1991: 78, italics in original), which is an essential part of their capacity for autonomous language use. Language learners need to develop both kinds of language awareness. This implies an approach to L2 teaching that insists on the TL as the preferred medium of teaching and learning and at the same time encourages reflection on the TL both as medium of communication and as rulegoverned system: essentially the approach we have described in Chapters 1–4. As we have repeatedly emphasized, writing creates the all-important interface between explicit processes of language learning and implicit processes of spontaneous language use. The language awareness displayed by Scoil Bhríde’s pupils seems to support this argument. Already in First Class there is evidence that pupils are beginning to analyse the languages they speak, using their ‘unconscious awareness’ in Nicholas’s (1991) sense, to develop explicit analytical awareness of linguistic structure. For example, a six-year-old pupil whose home language is Mandarin recognized the word welcome in that language on a poster in the principal’s office. Claiming to be able to read Mandarin, she correctly recognized a number of words in a children’s publication in Mandarin that happened to be on the principal’s desk, but translated gate as door. When asked about this she explained that in Chinese (her word), door is used to describe a means of entry both indoors and outdoors, while in English two different words are needed to take account of the different locations. By the time they reach Fourth Class pupils are so used to drawing comparisons between languages that discussions like the following are quite common: When the class was asked to write the sentence ‘Hippopotamus means “river horse”’ as part of a handwriting exercise, an ESL [English as a second language] learner (age 9) commented that in Romanian, ‘hippopotamus’ was ‘hipopotam’. She elaborated by saying that although the word is written with a final ‘m’ it is actually pronounced ‘n’. She also stated that as double letters are not used in Romanian, there is only one ‘p’ in the initial part of the word. ‘Hippopotab’ was contributed by another ESL learner as the corresponding word in Urdu. A Polish child took up the discussion and explained that, while the word sounded the same in her language, it was written as ‘hipopotamm’ with the final ‘mm’ being pronounced as ‘n’. She added that double consonants are used only occasionally in Polish. Another child took the analysis a step further when she provided the Lithuanian word ‘begemotas’ for the actual animal, adding ‘but we say “hippopotamas” for a thing’, i.e. a representation of the animal. She then

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went on to explain that if she had a pencil case in the shape of a hippopotamus she would say ‘hipopotamo’ (adjective) and that was because it was the pencil case of the hippopotamus. The use of the genitive case in the Lithuanian language was being discussed with interest by children in Fourth Class. (Kirwan, 2013: 197) By the time pupils are in Sixth Class they are capable of unusually sophisticated analysis. In one lesson Sixth Class pupils were discussing the sounds represented by letters and combinations of letters in different languages. They noted that the letter c is not used in Tagalog, and that in Romanian the letter a stands for three different sounds, each of which is pronounced when reciting the Romanian alphabet. When one pupil drew attention to the sz combination of letters in Hungarian, a German-speaking pupil explained how this affects pronunciation: ‘… it’s the same in German, where you have ch but you say sch … and do you remember when we were doing the homophones and we had the same words like I said with the three words cherry, church and kitchen, you have Kirsche, Kirche and Küche’. It is unlikely that many other Sixth Classes in Ireland engage in this kind of (not entirely accurate) metalinguistic talk.

Autonomous learning These instances of language awareness are also examples of learner autonomy: pupils contribute spontaneously to class discussion from a store of knowledge and experience that is uniquely their own, drawing on a metalinguistic awareness that becomes increasingly explicit. The metacognitive confidence that this generates is no doubt responsible, at least in part, for pupils’ growing readiness to undertake learning initiatives of their own. On 26 September each year Scoil Bhríde celebrates the European Day of Languages. In 2014 a Second Class teacher used the Disney song ‘It’s a small world after all’ as a way of focusing on linguistic diversity. This prompted the pupils to come up with the idea of translating the chorus into all the languages present in the class. Some pupils were able to provide an immediate translation, others got help from home. They taught one another the different versions of the chorus during playtime in the school yard, and after a week the whole class could sing the chorus in 11 different languages. Although pleased with their achievement, some pupils were disappointed because three children were absent from school due to illness, so three languages were missing from their repertoire. When the principal subsequently visited the class, the pupils were able spontaneously to sing the Italian version of the chorus for her. There are many other instances of pupils taking initiatives that are prompted by their interest in languages. In Third Class, for example, a Filipino pupil began keeping a diary about the exploits of her dog, Oliver, and wrote it entirely in Irish. A Sixth Class pupil set herself the challenge of

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writing a story in English that includes as many French words as possible without ceasing to be English (Figure 7.10). And two other Sixth Class pupils improvised a shopping role-play to illustrate the lexical similarities between their respective home languages, Ukrainian and Polish. Interestingly, they improvised, rehearsed and performed the sketch with the help of two other pupils, one from an English-speaking and the other from a Romanianspeaking home, who inevitably learned from their involvement.

Figure 7.10 An English text containing as many French words as possible

Sometimes pupils decide to learn a new language on their own. A Sixth Class teacher gave her pupils a multilingual worksheet on making a pasta dish. She provided terms in English, Irish and French and asked the pupils to add a fourth language. A pupil of Nigerian origin opted for Korean, which she got from the internet. When Déirdre Kirwan retired in May 2015, all the pupils in the school wrote her a letter in more than one language. Another pupil of Nigerian origin wrote in English and Spanish, which she

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had taught herself. She explained that she started with two Spanish textbooks that she found in the school library, then graduated to the internet. Asked whether she used Google Translate, she said that she preferred to compose her own text first and then see whether Google Translate could get it right.

Concluding remarks In Chapters 1–4 we described an approach to L2 education that requires learners to share responsibility for planning, monitoring, implementing and evaluating their learning. All these reflective processes are mediated as far as possible in the TL. The teacher scaffolds her learners’ contributions to classroom interaction, and the learners engage in activities in which they collaboratively construct proficiency in the TL. Among other things, the approach is founded on the belief that learners bring with them a capacity for autonomous behaviour. Scoil Bhríde is concerned with the development of pupils’ literate proficiency in English as language of schooling, Irish as the second curriculum language, French (in Fifth and Sixth Class), and their home language. The school’s policy and practice focus on the same factors as the autonomy classroom we described in Chapters 1–4 – learner engagement, reflection (especially on how languages work), and TL use – and place the same strong emphasis on the use of writing. Pupils’ capacity for autonomous behaviour is necessarily rooted in their home language, which is their default tool of cognition and learning. As linguistic interdependence does its work, pupils become increasingly proficient in the various languages of their plurilingual repertoires. Their growing plurilingual proficiency is nourished by but also nourishes their developing language awareness, understood in the two senses elaborated, respectively, by Hawkins (1984) and Nicholas (1991). And perhaps most important of all, pupils, including the English-speaking minority, are so engaged in the educational process that they are eager to take initiatives that carry their learning forward in ways that are important to them, so that the school knowledge of the curriculum becomes increasingly integrated with their action knowledge.

Conclusion In this chapter our argument has come full circle. We explained in the Introduction that our version of the autonomy classroom had its origin in the challenge of differentiation: the need to find a way of responding to the very different interests and abilities of learners in mixed ability classes. We acknowledged a particular debt to the work of Douglas Barnes, and especially to his view that educational success should be measured in terms of

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the extent to which school knowledge is absorbed into and enhances learners’ action knowledge. The remainder of our argument, in the Introduction but also in Chapters 1–4, was largely concerned with the ways in which we can achieve this goal in the L2 classroom. IILT’s intensive English language programmes were designed according to the same principles and achieved closely comparable outcomes. But in empowering its students to take control of their own learning, IILT was also empowering them to take control of their lives as autonomous members of Irish society. Scoil Bhríde’s distinctive language education policy and practice similarly empower pupils to take control of their learning in ways that will help them to fulfil their educational potential. IILT and Scoil Bhríde offer radical responses to the challenge of linguistic inclusion. In doing so they remind us that autonomous learning is a great deal more than a methodological option: it is an educational, political and moral value. This consideration is fundamental to the argument of Chapter 8, which is concerned with language teacher education for language learner autonomy but also has more general implications.

Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action •

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IILT’s courses for adult refugees stressed the importance of carrying language learning into the community and drawing the community back into the classroom; they also ensured that the learners themselves were actively involved in planning out-of-class activities. Make a list of out-ofclass activities that would be available to learners in your context. How could they best exploit them? The European Language Portfolio played a key role in IILT’s intensive English language courses. Although 118 ELPs were validated and accredited by the Council of Europe between 2000 and 2010, few of them seem to be widely used. What are the arguments in favour of using a version of the ELP in your context? (You can find out more about the ELP and examine a variety of models on the Council of Europe’s extensive ELP website at http://www.coe.int/portfolio.) What are the advantages of portfolio assessment of the kind IILT made use of? What are the arguments for and against replacing traditional exams by portfolio assessment in other educational domains? Read Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972; frequently reprinted). What are the similarities and differences between Freire’s view of teaching and learning and the one elaborated in this book? How do the schools you are familiar with provide for the inclusion of immigrant pupils whose home language is not a version of the language of schooling? What role, if any, do home languages play in immigrant pupils’ education?

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Suppose you have in your class one or more immigrant pupils who have learned to read and write in a language that uses a non-alphabetic writing system. How could you exploit this fact to promote all your learners’ awareness of the relation between speech and writing? We have suggested that Scoil Bhríde’s approach to the linguistic and educational inclusion of immigrant pupils succeeds because it shares many features in common with the autonomy classroom. Which of the features discussed and illustrated in Chapters 1–4 are in your view likely to be most important in classrooms with immigrant pupils? Make a list in descending order of importance and explain your choice. Scoil Bhríde’s pupils frequently spend a lot of their free time on learning projects they devise themselves. On the basis of the information provided in this chapter, why do you think this happens?

Further Reading The Council of Europe has published two concept papers that are relevant to the concerns of this chapter: The Role of Languages in Policies for the Integration of Adult Migrants (Beacco, 2008) and The Linguistic and Educational Integration of Children and Adolescents from Migrant Backgrounds (Little, 2010). Both papers should be read in conjunction with the Council of Europe’s White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue (2008). David Little and Radka Perclová’s European Language Portfolio: A Guide for Teachers and Teacher Trainers (2000) explains how to use the ELP to promote autonomous learning, while David Little’s paper ‘The European Language Portfolio: Where pedagogy and assessment meet’ (2009b) explores the innovative approach to assessment implied by the CEFR and embodied in the ELP. Approaches to the design and delivery of language courses for adult immigrants that emphasize learner participation and empowerment have been inspired by Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1972). Two books by Elsa Auerbach reflect US work in this vein: Making Meaning, Making Change: Participatory Curriculum Development for Adult ESL Literacy (1992) and Adult ESL/Literacy from the Community to the Community: A Guidebook for Participatory Literacy Training (1996, reprinted 2009). In ‘Language and identity in multilingual schools: Constructing evidencebased instructional policies’, Jim Cummins (2014) explores the implications of research evidence for policy and recommends a pedagogical approach to the inclusion of immigrant pupils and students that is closely related to the one we elaborate in this book. ‘Language diversity in education: Evolving from multilingual education to functional multilingual learning’, by Sven Sierens and Piet Van Avermaet (2014), provides a compact history of multilingual education and proposes ‘functional multilingual learning’ as a response to the extreme linguistic diversity of many school-going populations.

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Notes (1) David Little was non-stipendiary director of Integrate Ireland Language and Training from 2000 to 2008. (2) A revised version of the Milestone ELP is available in English, French and Italian on the Council of Europe’s Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants website: http:// www.coe.int/lang-migrants → Instruments and resources. (3) We are grateful to Davnet Cotter for providing us with this example and the accompanying student text. (4) We are grateful to the anonymous author for permission to quote his poem here. (5) In 2012 FETAC was dissolved and its functions were passed to Quality and Qualifications Ireland. (6) We are grateful to Déirdre Kirwan, formerly principal of Scoil Bhríde, for providing us with detailed information about the school, its language policy and classroom practice, and for allowing us to reproduce examples of pupils’ work to illustrate the argument. For more on the school’s innovative practices, see Little and Kirwan, forthcoming 2018 (a) and (b).

8

Teacher Education for Language Learner Autonomy: Some Reflections and Proposals

Introduction We begin this chapter by revisiting the classroom dynamic that fosters the development of language learner autonomy and by drawing attention to the political foundations on which it rests. We then describe the closely related communicative and metacognitive dynamic that we believe should underpin teacher education for learner autonomy, arguing that language teacher education should use tools and techniques closely similar to those that shape the autonomy classroom, including TL use. After that we elaborate procedures that can be used to address two dimensions of L2 education that are often thought to work against learner autonomy: the curriculum and the textbook. These procedures can be used to design modules for preand in-service teacher education; they can also be used by individual teachers to support their planning. Finally, we briefly address the issue of assessment. Throughout the chapter our underlying assumption is that all aspects of teacher education should be closely linked to the participants’ own pedagogical contexts. Theory should lead to practice, and the evaluation of practice should lead to the revision and/or extension of theory. We agree with Kohonen (2003: 156) when he writes: ‘Teacher learning … needs to be connected with actual teaching, supported by ongoing theory building.’ This implies a role for action research in teacher education that can be carried over into continuing classroom practice, where the learners are co-researchers.

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Language Learner Autonomy and Classroom Discourse Dialogic teaching and learning Traditionally, classroom discourse has been shaped by the recursive enactment of a two-stage process: teachers first present the material to be learnt and then use a question-and-answer routine to confirm that their learners have grasped the material in its essentials. Teachers’ oral presentation may be supplemented by texts in print and other media, and a potentially infinite range of oral and written activities can be devised to help learners digest and remember the material presented. But the roles of teachers and learners remain those defined by the question-and-answer routine: teachers transmit and learners receive. Although this tradition has been subjected to sustained criticism for more than half a century, it remains remarkably durable, comfortably surviving successive shifts in pedagogical fashion. In 1976 Barnes argued that one of the reasons for this was the insistence that teachers maintain a strict control of their classrooms and their pupils’ learning (Barnes, 1976: 178). Learner autonomy, however, is never a matter of abandoning learners to their own devices, and the teacher in an autonomy classroom is no less responsible for maintaining control than teachers in traditional classrooms. But the focus and manner of her control are different. She begins by making her learners aware of curriculum requirements and introducing the tools and procedures they will use to manage and document their learning. Having done this, her primary pedagogical concern is to draw them into a multilayered and never-ending dialogue in which they increasingly perform initiating as well as responding roles. The nature and extent of their participation in the dialogue is a measure of their autonomy as both learners and users of the TL. In order to secure this participation, the teacher must know how to communicate with beginners in the TL and how to scaffold their attempts to use it, in writing as well as in speech. She must repeatedly model communicative and metacognitive processes for them; propose learning activities that are calculated to engage their interests and identity and exploit their intrinsic motivation; challenge them to think about what they are doing; persuade them never to be satisfied with second best; and involve them in interactive processes of evaluation that will gradually develop their metacognitive capacity in the TL as well as their self-assessment skills. The first part of this book has provided a detailed description, explanation and practical illustration of these procedures, of which the teacher never loses control. In Chapter 1 we argued that, if language learning is to be rooted in TL use, that language use must be spontaneous and authentic, arising from the learners’ interests and present needs. Accordingly, the dialogue that constitutes the autonomy classroom cannot be based on a script that the teacher

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prepares in advance. It must always arise from the here-and-now of the classroom because it derives its authenticity from the never-ending effort of teacher and learners to understand where they are now in terms of their immediate and longer-term goals. In the Introduction (p. 14) we suggested that the development of language learner autonomy depends on the operationalization of three interdependent principles, of learner involvement, reflection and appropriately agentive TL use. These principles offer three closely related perspectives on one holistic phenomenon, the web of pedagogical dialogue that is woven partly in interaction between the participants in the process and partly in each participant’s head. Provided the teacher remains fully engaged, as open to challenge and change as her learners, the sustained pursuit of the three principles produces a learning community in which there is harmony between the quantitative dimension of learning (how much is learnt) and the qualitative dimension (the value that learners attach to what is learnt) and no way of distinguishing between ‘teaching and learning language’ and ‘doing autonomy’. In such a community, teaching is learning, learning involves teaching, and language learning is inseparable from language use. In order to manage an autonomy classroom successfully, the teacher herself needs at all times to mirror the autonomous behaviour she expects of her learners.

The political dimension of learner autonomy: Education for democracy In 1976 Douglas Barnes argued that the question-and-answer tradition is rooted in ‘ideological complexes, including beliefs about knowledge, about learning, and about people’: To understand why classroom communication is as it is we would finally have to go outside the classroom, beyond teachers’ beliefs about knowledge and learning, to consider some of the functions performed by school knowledge in our society, especially in the selection of children for different courses, for different schools, and for different life-chances. (Barnes, 1976: 176) In other words, the question-and-answer tradition has its origins in the hierarchical organization of our societies, and the responding role that it assigns to learners implies the subordination of a passive majority. The promotion of autonomous learning is a political act because it challenges entrenched tradition, notwithstanding the fact that national curricula routinely include many of the features of autonomous learning among their goals – critical thinking, reflective learning, sometimes even learner autonomy itself. Programmes designed to help teachers establish autonomy classrooms must be clear about their political implications.

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At this point it is appropriate to recall that the concepts of learner autonomy and autonomous learning were first introduced to language education by the Council of Europe via Henri Holec’s report Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning (Holec, 1981, first published 1979). In the Introduction we pointed out that Holec’s account focuses on the individual learner and is predominantly cognitive-organizational in its orientation. The broader context for which his report was written, however, recognized the social dimension of learning and sought to exploit it in new ways. In the 1970s the Council of Europe’s modern languages projects focused on adult language learning and were carried out under the aegis of its Committee for Out-ofSchool Education. The final report on its major adult education project, Organisation, Content and Methods of Adult Education (Janne, 1977), argued that adult education could no longer be seen simply as a way of filling in the gaps left by compulsory schooling. Rather, it should be ‘an integral part of the process of economic, political and cultural democratisation’, an instrument for arousing an increasing sense of awareness and liberation in man and, in some cases, an instrument for changing the environment itself. From the idea of man ‘product of his society’, one moves to the idea of man ‘producer of his society’. (Janne, 1977: 15) By implication, these sentences align adult education with two of the Council of Europe’s foundational values, democratic governance and human rights. Vieira (2011: 150) has complained that ‘most proposals in the autonomy literature are so de-politicized that we run the risk of seeing pedagogy for autonomy merely as one methodological trend among others, rather than a value-laden choice’. We agree. There is a widespread assumption that learner autonomy can be developed simply by adding elements of choice and learner control to traditional teaching approaches. For us, on the other hand, the pursuit of learner autonomy and the pursuit of democracy in education are one and the same.

Language Teacher Education for Learner Autonomy The dynamic of learning It is clearly unreasonable to expect teachers to foster the growth of autonomy in their learners if they themselves do not know what it is to be an autonomous learner. In particular, we cannot expect them to apply to their teaching the same skills of reflection and self-management that we want them to develop in their learners if their professional formation has not required them to take responsibility for their learning, work collaboratively with their peers, reflect on the process and content of their learning, and

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regularly evaluate outcomes. Autonomous language learning as we have described it in this book depends on a complex interplay between individualcognitive and social-interactive processes, each dimension implying but also depending on the other. In our view language teacher education for learner autonomy should be similarly configured. Central theoretical issues and the findings of relevant research have an essential role to play, but they should be presented and digested in accordance with an Interpretation rather than a Transmission view of education: A culture which reduces pupils to passive receivers of knowledge is likely to reduce teachers to passive receivers of curricula, and to deny them the time and resources that would enable them to take active responsibility. Thus an Interpretation view of school learning properly implies an Interpretation view of in-service education for teachers; this means an emphasis not upon packages and ready-made answers, but upon devising ways of encouraging teachers to solve their own problems, and of supporting them in this. (Barnes, 1976: 188) Our essential goal, in other words, should be to provide teachers with the skills to overcome the limitations of the question-and-answer tradition while working in contexts that are still shaped by that tradition. In order to achieve this goal, we need to organize pre- and in-service programmes according to the criteria that shape the autonomy classroom (cf. Chapter 3). We must begin by making clear the aims, working methods and expected outcomes of the programme as a whole and each of its constituent modules. We must also establish an atmosphere of openness and trust in every working group, however large or small. In doing so, it is essential to recognize that in any group there will be different kinds of learner. Some students who enrol in pre-service programmes have always wanted to be teachers, while others may be there by accident, or because teaching seems to offer regular long-term employment. By the same token, teachers participating in an in-service course are likely to have different motivations and different perspectives. Some may be bored with their teaching and hope to be able to make a fresh start; others may have heard about learner autonomy and would like to learn more and perhaps try it for themselves; there may be some hardened sceptics who want to challenge the idea of learner autonomy; and some participants may be there simply because their school principal has sent them or they need to accumulate credits in order to qualify for a higher rate of pay. The approach we are advocating implies that the physical setting and working procedures should closely resemble the autonomy classroom as we have described it in Chapter 3. Participants should be seated in groups; logbooks, posters and portfolios should be used to shape and document learning; and, in accordance with the ‘Interpretation’ view of education (Barnes, 1976;

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cf. Introduction, p. 8), learning should proceed on the basis of negotiated aims and plans, and should regularly be evaluated using questions similar to those used in the autonomy classroom (cf. Chapter 4, p. 101): • • • •

What did we focus on? Why? What did we expect to gain from working on this issue? How did we work? How successful were we? What problems did we encounter on the way? With what results?

These questions can be used to structure a poster and/or an oral report that summarizes the work for the rest of the class. In the introduction to this chapter we emphasized the importance of linking the different elements of the programme to classroom practice. Here too a simple sequence of questions can be used to draw up contracts for classroom experiments and report on outcomes, for example: • • • • •

What am I going to develop/try out/change in my classroom? Why am I going to do it? What results do I expect? How am I going to do it? What kind of data will I bring back to share with my colleagues?

These questions can serve to introduce teachers and student teachers to the procedures and techniques of action research (Burns, 1999/2010, 2009; Hopkins, 2008) and Exploratory Practice (Allwright, 2003; Hanks, 2017). In all of this, L2 use should play a central role. We began our account of the autonomy classroom by focusing on TL use, arguing that it should be spontaneous and authentic, arising from the here-and-now of the teacher and her learners, relevant to learners’ interests and needs. The European Commission’s (2012) survey of foreign language competences achieved by the end of compulsory schooling in 14 EU member states found that teachers and learners differed in their perception of how often the TL was used in the classroom. On average, teachers reported that they ‘usually’ used the TL during their lessons, but learner estimates were slightly lower; and on average, teachers reported that their learners used the TL ‘now and then’, but learner estimates were again slightly lower (European Commission, 2012: 59–60). These responses tell us nothing about the kind of TL discourse teachers sought to implement, but it’s clear that the norm is very far removed from the kind of TL discourse that constitutes our version of the autonomy classroom. This implies that pre- and in-service teacher education concerned with promoting the development of language learner autonomy should assign a central role to use of the language that participants are preparing to teach or perhaps have already been teaching for many years. Wherever possible,

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courses should be taught in that language, which should also be the language in which logbooks and posters are written and portfolios are compiled; each module should include among its aims the development of participants’ capacity to manage the communicative and metacognitive processes of their own learning in the TL. It may also be possible to give participants, especially in pre-service programmes, an experience of ab initio language learning following autonomy principles. We now turn to the challenges that curricula and textbooks pose, or appear to pose, to the development of language learner autonomy.

Learner Autonomy and the Curriculum Many teachers seem to derive their knowledge of the curriculum from the textbooks they use and the external exams for which they prepare their learners. In the autonomy classroom, however, direct engagement with the curriculum is essential. The teacher makes curricular demands clear to her learners, requires them to keep a copy or summary in their logbooks, and regularly refers to them when reviewing progress. Teachers working with very general curricular guidelines or a syllabus that defines learning progression in terms of grammar and vocabulary will need a communicative interpretation of the official document. It is unreasonable to expect them to arrive at such an interpretation entirely on their own, and for this reason the curriculum that teachers are expected to follow should occupy a central place in language teacher education for learner autonomy. In pre- and in-service programmes, teachers should work collaboratively and under guidance to explore the curriculum, and where necessary expand its aims into detailed communicative objectives. An essential part of this exploration should concern progression in learning, because it is important that teachers and learners have some idea of the path they are expected to follow. The Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR; Council of Europe, 2001) provides us with the means to do this in a way that is harmonious with the goals of the autonomy classroom.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Language proficiency defined in terms of language use The Council of Europe’s educational projects have always sought to enhance the capacity of the individual citizen to contribute with maximum effectiveness to the democratic process. The same concern with individual agency is characteristic of the organization’s language education projects, which since the 1970s have been concerned with the learning and teaching of languages for purposes of communication and exchange: language learning is seen as having the potential to extend the individual’s social, cultural,

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political, intellectual/academic and vocational/professional range. That is why the CEFR adopts what it calls an ‘action-oriented approach’ to the description of language proficiency: ‘it views users and learners of a language primarily as “social agents”, i.e. members of society who have tasks (not exclusively language related) to accomplish in a given set of circumstances, in a specific environment and within a particular field of action’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 9). At the beginning of Chapter 2 the action-oriented approach is summarized like this: Language use, embracing language learning, comprises the actions performed by persons who as individuals and as social agents develop a range of competences, both general and in particular communicative language competences. They draw on the competences at their disposal in various contexts under various conditions and under various constraints to engage in language activities involving language processes to produce and/or receive texts in relation to themes in specific domains, activating those strategies which seem most appropriate for carrying out the tasks to be accomplished. The monitoring of these actions by the participants leads to the reinforcement or modification of their competences. (Council of Europe, 2001: 9, emphasis in original) The words and phrases printed in italics, to which ‘contexts’ in the second sentence should be added, refer to the main concerns of Chapter 4 (‘Language Use and the Language User/Learner’) and Chapter 5 (‘The User/Learner’s Competences’). This summary assumes that communicative proficiency develops when the user/learner brings his or her existing competences to bear on a communicative agenda within a particular context or set of contexts. In other words, according to the CEFR language learning is inseparable from language use, underlying competence is inseparable from behavioural repertoire, and communicative language proficiency is infinitely variable but always uniquely personal. Chapter 4 of the CEFR identifies four modes of language use: reception (listening and reading), production (speaking and writing), interaction (spoken and written), and mediation (translating and interpreting). This is a clear departure from the traditional ‘four skills’ approach, and it brings interaction into central focus as a principal driver of language learning in the classroom (cf. Chapter 2 above). The best-known part of Chapter 4 is the section entitled ‘Communicative language activities and strategies’, which contains 33 illustrative scales for reception, production and interaction, and seven strategy scales. But in order to grasp the full implication of the scales and their descriptors, it is necessary to read and re-read them in the light of the other sections of the chapter, which provide discursive and taxonomic descriptions of contexts of language use (domains, situations, conditions and constraints, the mental context of the user/learner and his/her interlocutors), communication themes,

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communicative tasks and purposes, communicative language processes, and texts (this last section also contains two illustrative scales). Chapter 5 describes the competences that are called into play by communicative language use – ‘the sum of knowledge, skills and characteristics that allow a person to perform actions’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 9). Because communication ‘calls upon the whole human being’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 1), the CEFR describes general as well as communicative language competences. General competences comprise declarative knowledge, skills and know-how, existential competence (‘selfhood factors’; Council of Europe, 2001: 105), and ability to learn, while communicative language competences comprise linguistic (lexical, grammatical, semantic, phonological, orthographic and orthoepic [pronunciation]), sociolinguistic, and pragmatic competences. The chapter provides 13 illustrative scales, for general linguistic range, vocabulary range, vocabulary control, grammatical accuracy, phonological control, orthographic control, sociolinguistic appropriateness, flexibility, turn-taking, thematic development, coherence and cohesion, spoken fluency and propositional precision.

The CEFR and progression in language learning The empirical research that produced the CEFR’s illustrative scales yielded nine levels (Council of Europe, 2001: 31). The CEFR presents these as six ‘criterion levels’ arranged in three bands (A1 and A2; B1 and B2; C1 and C2) and three intermediate ‘plus levels’ (A2+ , B1+ , B2+). The defining features of the nine levels, increasingly broad bands of proficiency, are summarized in Table 8.1 (based on Council of Europe, 2001: 33–36). It is important to note three features of the CEFR’s proficiency levels. First, each level constitutes a behavioural and linguistic repertoire that enables the user/learner to achieve a given range of goals in authentic communication. Secondly, progression in learning is not a straightforward matter of steady vertical ascent; it also entails a quasi-horizontal dimension as the user/learner moves backwards and forwards within the level, gradually mastering the tasks, routines or more general communicative activities characteristic of the level. And thirdly, the purposes of language use change as the user/learner moves up the proficiency scale: A1 is primarily concerned with self-identification and physical and social survival; A2 and B1 encompass a growing capacity for transactional and interactional communication; while from mid-B1 upwards proficiency is increasingly related to academic and/or professional activity. In other words, a significant transition begins in B1 that is somewhat akin to the transition from BICS (basic interpersonal communication skills) to CALP (cognitive academic language proficiency) proposed by Cummins (e.g. 1981, 1991). Also, the further we move up through the CEFR’s levels, the more attention we must pay to its foundational proposition, that language learning is a variety of language use. For example,

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Table 8.1 A summary of the CEFR’s proficiency levels Not intended to imply native-speaker or near native-speaker competence but to characterise the degree of precision, appropriateness and ease with the target language that typifies the speech of those who have been highly successful learners Good access to a broad range of language, which allows fluent, spontaneous communication. The discourse skills characterising B2 continue to be evident, with an emphasis on more fluency The focus on argument, effective social discourse and language awareness continues. A new degree of discourse competence shows itself in conversational management (cooperating strategies) and in relation to coherence/cohesion. There is also a concentration of items on negotiating As far above B1 as A2 is below it. At the lower end of the band there is a focus on effective argument. Running right through the level there are two new focuses: being able to more than hold your own in social discourse, and a new degree of language awareness The two main features of B1 continue to be present, with the addition of a number of descriptors which focus on the exchange of quantities of information The ability to maintain interaction and get across what you want to in a range of contexts, and the ability to cope flexibly with problems in everyday life More active participation in conversation, given some assistance and allowing certain limitations, and significantly more ability to sustain monologue Descriptors stating social functions as well as descriptors on getting out and about: the simplified cut-down version of the full set of transactional specifications in The Threshold Level for adults living abroad The lowest level of generative language use: the point at which the learner can interact in a simple way rather than relying purely on a very finite rehearsed, lexically organised repertoire of situation-specific phrases

C2

C1

B2+

B2

B1+

B1

A2+ A2

A1

among the descriptors for, respectively, B2 listening, reading and writing, we find the following: •

• •

Can understand the main ideas of propositionally and linguistically complex speech on both concrete and abstract topics delivered in a standard dialect, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialization. (Council of Europe, 2001: 66) Can understand lengthy, complex instructions in his field, including details on conditions and warnings, provided he/she can reread difficult sections. (Council of Europe, 2001: 71) Can write clear, detailed texts on a variety of subjects related to his/her field of interest, synthesizing and evaluating information and arguments from a number of sources (Council of Europe, 2001: 61)

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The ability to perform these and related tasks spontaneously is not something that teachers can transmit to their learners in so many hours of instruction; rather, it develops gradually over time as learners repeatedly engage with the tasks in question.

The CEFR and language learner autonomy As we have seen, the CEFR is concerned with the language user/learner as an individual and as a social agent. Its ‘can do’ descriptors define in positive terms the limits of the user/learner’s communicative capacities at each level, the underlying assumption being that we learn languages in order to extend the range of our autonomous behaviour. The CEFR is not a language teaching manual but a ‘framework of reference’; its purpose is to describe proficiency and set out pedagogical alternatives, not to advocate one particular approach. At the same time, its discussion of language teaching and learning (Chapter 6), acknowledges that success in language learning is achieved by learners rather than teachers: Learners are, of course, the persons ultimately concerned with language acquisition and learning processes. It is they who have to develop the competences and strategies […] and carry out the tasks, activities and processes needed to participate effectively in communicative events. However, relatively few learn proactively, taking initiatives to plan, structure and execute their own learning processes. Most learn reactively, following the instructions and carrying out the activities prescribed for them by teachers and by textbooks. (Council of Europe, 2001: 141) The first two sentences of this quotation might be used to justify the approach we have presented in Chapters 1–4, especially if they are read in conjunction with the final sentence of the CEFR’s summary of its action-oriented approach: ‘The monitoring of these actions [communicative language activities] by the participants leads to the reinforcement or modification of their competences’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 9; cf. the full quotation on p. 224), which adds the reflective dimension that is fundamental to our own approach.

Using the CEFR to interpret and amplify curriculum goals and explore the language learning process Most language curricula seem to be designed on the assumption that a language must be learnt before it can be used, and that TL use in the classroom is a matter of putting into communicative practice what has first been presented and learnt. Within this tradition it may seem obvious that a curriculum designed with reference to the CEFR should begin by specifying targets that correspond to A1 descriptors, then move on to A2, and so on up the scale. Throughout this book, however, we have argued that communicative

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language use is prior to learning in the sense that it provides the soil in which proficiency grows. This implies a rather different role for the CEFR, whose descriptors generally refer to communication outside the classroom. For example, the B1 descriptor for overall spoken interaction reads as follows: Can exploit a wide range of simple language to deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling. Can enter unprepared into conversation on familiar topics, express personal opinions and exchange information on topics that are familiar, of personal interest or pertinent to everyday life (e.g. family, hobbies, work, travel and current events). (Council of Europe, 2001: 74) At first sight this descriptor may seem to bear little relation to the discourse of the autonomy classroom. But with a little adaptation it reflects the discourse into which the teacher aims to draw her learners. Her talk ‘exploits a wide range of simple language’ to deal with most situations likely to arise in the classroom. The spontaneity of talk in the autonomy classroom is reflected in the fact that she ‘enters unprepared’ into the discourse of each lesson. Her concern to exploit her learners’ interests and thus their intrinsic motivation means that she focuses on familiar topics, while the expression of personal opinions is the beginning of reflective evaluation. This is not to say that the teacher’s proficiency is itself at level B1; it needs to be significantly higher than that. But it is to say that B1 is the level at which she pitches the interaction that supports her learners’ first steps as users of the TL. To begin with, their capacity to participate in such discourse is very limited and can be described using A1 descriptors; then, as they learn to use the TL to interact with one another in pair and group work, they begin to move into level A2, and so on. We suggest, then, that the descriptive apparatus of the CEFR should be used in teacher education to explore the classroom discourse that promotes learning and learners’ gradually developing capacity to participate in such discourse. The aim is not to constrain the spontaneity and flexibility of classroom discourse, but to investigate its nature and its relation to developing proficiency. At the same time, we suggest that descriptors at the successive levels should be rephrased so that they conform to the communicative reality of the autonomy classroom. We can explain what we mean in more concrete terms by referring to the English Language Proficiency Benchmarks for NonEnglish-speaking Pupils at Primary Level (IILT, 2003), which were developed in Ireland to support the teaching of English as language of schooling to pupils from immigrant families. The Irish government’s policy response to the large number of immigrant pupils and students who began to enrol in primary schools in the late 1990s was to assign them to age-appropriate mainstream classes and to fund two years of English language support, usually delivered to small groups of pupils withdrawn from mainstream lessons for the purpose. The Benchmarks assumed that pupils who were immersed in English throughout the school day should

Can identify basic words and phrases in a new piece of text.

Can recognize and understand basic words on labels or posters in the classroom.

Can use the alphabet to find particular items in lists (e.g. a name in a telephone book).

Can recognize the letters of the alphabet.

Global benchmarks

Can recognize and understand basic signs and simple notices in the school and on the way to school.

I can understand texts that consist mainly of high frequency everyday or job-related language. I can understand the description of events, feelings and wishes in personal letters.

I can read very short, simple texts. I can find specific, predictable information in simple everyday material such as advertisements, prospectuses, menus and timetables and I can understand short simple personal letters. Can read and understand very short and simple texts that contain a high proportion of previously learnt vocabulary on familiar subjects (e.g. class texts, familiar stories).

I can understand familiar names, words and very simple sentences, for example on notices and posters or in catalogues.

Self-assessment grid, CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001: 26)

(Continued)

Can follow clearly written instructions (for carrying out a classroom task, assembling or using an object, following directions, etc.).

Can use key words, diagrams and illustrations to support reading comprehension.

Can use comprehension questions to find specific answers in a piece of text.

Can read and understand descriptions of events, feelings and wishes.

Can read and understand the main points in texts encountered in the mainstream class, provided the thematic area and key vocabulary are already familiar.

B1

A2

A1

Table 8.2 Descriptors for reading

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Benchmarks ‘My school’

Table 8.2 (Continued)

Can find his/her name on a list.

Can recognize and understand words and numbers on posters and drawings in the classroom (days of the week, months of the year, etc.).

Can recognize and understand signs in the school (Fire, Exit, No running, etc.).

Can recognize and understand labels on doors in different parts of the school (Hall, Secretary, Staff Room, etc.).

A1

B1 Can read and understand texts on school subjects provided that difficult key words and/or concepts are introduced beforehand.

A2 Can read and understand texts about school that use a high frequency of words already familiar or recently learnt.

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Global benchmarks (IILT, 2003)

Selfassessment grid, CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001: 26)

Can make basic requests in the classroom or playground (e.g. for the loan of a pencil) and respond appropriately to the basic requests of others.

Can give simple answers to basic questions when given time to reply and the other person is prepared to help.

Can respond non-verbally to basic directions to a place in the school when the other person supplements speech with signs or gestures.

Can express personal feelings in a simple way.

Can generally sustain a conversational exchange with a peer in the classroom when carrying out a collaborative learning activity (making or drawing something, preparing a role-play, presenting a puppet show, etc.).

Can respond with confidence to familiar questions clearly expressed about family, friends, school work, hobbies, holidays, etc., but is not always able to keep the conversation going.

(Continued)

Can repeat what has been said and convey the information to another person.

Can keep a conversation going, though he/she may have some difficulty making him/herself understood from time to time.

Can engage with other pupils in discussing a topic of common interest (songs, football, pop stars, etc.) or in preparing a collaborative classroom activity.

I can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. I can enter unprepared into conversation on topics that are familiar, of personal interest or pertinent to everyday life (e.g. family, hobbies, work, travel and current events). Can speak with fluency about familiar topics such as school, family, daily routine, likes and dislikes.

I can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar topics and activities. I can handle very short social exchanges, even though I can’t usually understand enough to keep the conversation going myself. Can ask for attention in class.

I can interact in a simple way provided the other person is prepared to repeat or rephrase things at a slower rate of speech and help me formulate what I’m trying to say. I can ask and answer simple questions in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics. Can greet, say please and thank you, and ask for directions to another place in the school. Can greet, take leave, request and thank appropriately.

B1

A2

A1

Table 8.3 Descriptors for spoken interaction

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Benchmarks ‘People who help us’

Can ask and answer questions about different jobs and responsibilities.

Can ask and answer questions about what people in familiar roles do in their jobs. Can talk with the teacher or another pupil about personal experiences with people in roles of responsibility (e.g. visit to doctor, parent is a nurse/doctor, school traffic warden, postman).

Can use gestures, key words and simple phrases/sentences to ask for help (e.g. in Stay Safe role-plays).

Can reply using key words and simple phrases/sentences to basic questions about the jobs of people who can help (e.g. Where do we find a …?, What does he/she do?).

Can answer typical questions that may be asked by a person in responsibility (e.g. in role-plays involving emergencies, danger, etc.).

Can ask questions of a speaker who has been invited to the school to talk about his/her job.

B1

A2

A1

Table 8.3 (Continued)

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Benchmarks ‘Transport and travel’ (IILT, 2003)

Selfassessment grid, CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001: 26) Global benchmarks (IILT, 2003)

Can copy from the board short sentences to do with transport (e.g. I come to school each day by bus).

Can label a picture or poster that depicts different modes of transport.

Can spell his/her name and address, and the name of the school. Can copy or write key words relating to transport.

Can copy short sentences from the board.

Can copy or write labels on a picture.

Can write sentences that describe a familiar journey (e.g. from home to school).

Can write short texts about different forms of transport, using a textbook for support if necessary.

Can write a short message (e.g. a postcard) to a friend.

Can write ‘news’ about an incident that occurred when travelling to school.

Can write a short dialogue to be performed by puppets. Can write a short letter describing to another person how he/she travels to school.

Can write an account of his/her feelings or reactions to an event or situation.

Can write a brief summary of a book or film.

Can write a short letter describing an event or a situation.

Can write a diary or news account with accuracy and coherence.

Can enter newly learnt terms in a personal or topic-based dictionary, possibly including sample sentences. Can write short texts on specific or familiar topics (e.g. what I like to do when I’m at home).

I can write simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. I can write personal letters describing experiences and impressions.

I can write short, simple notes and messages. I can write a very simple personal letter, for example thanking someone for something.

I can write a short, simple postcard, for example sending holiday greetings. I can fill in forms with personal details, for example entering my name, nationality and address on a hotel registration form. Can copy or write his/her name.

Can copy or write words and short phrases that are being learnt in class.

B1

A2

A1

Table 8.4 Descriptors for writing

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be at level B1 by the end of their two years of English language support (the validity of this assumption was subsequently confirmed by empirical research; Ćatibušić & Little, 2014). At B1 the learner is defined as an independent user of the TL; there is still a great deal of room for further proficiency development, but at this level immigrant pupils should be able to participate fully (and independently) in the discourse of the mainstream classroom. The CEFR’s so-called self-assessment grid (Council of Europe, 2001: 26–27) summarizes the six proficiency levels for the activities of listening, reading, spoken interaction, spoken production, and writing. The English Language Proficiency Benchmarks follow this model, but for levels A1, A2 and B1 only. On the basis of classroom observation, consultation with teachers, and a close study of the CEFR’s illustrative scales, the descriptors of the selfassessment grid were rewritten to summarize age-appropriate and contextspecific global proficiency at each level. These ‘global benchmarks’ were then recast in relation to 13 recurrent curriculum themes. Tables 8.2–8.4 illustrate the results of this process for reading, spoken interaction and writing.

Developing Learner Autonomy when Using a Textbook There was no textbook in the classroom we described in Chapters 1–4. The learners’ proficiency developed out of their efforts to use the TL for a variety of communicative and metacognitive purposes that they themselves determined. When they needed to learn ‘bits’ of the language, especially vocabulary, they created their own learning materials, and they mostly found their own input texts, which they selected according to their interests. All the activities they engaged in arose from and fed back into the dialogic dynamic on which their learning depended. The absence of a textbook was never felt as a lack; on the contrary, it was a liberation that helped to ensure the spontaneity and authenticity of classroom discourse. But although our own experience tends to confirm that autonomous learning is much easier to achieve without a textbook, we recognize that many teachers are obliged to use a textbook which in some cases is chosen not by themselves but by the school authorities. So how to use a textbook to support autonomous learning should be a key element in programmes of pre- and in-service teacher education that aim to promote learner autonomy. Textbooks are structured according to their authors’ notion of progression in language learning; their content reflects curricular requirements (in some countries textbooks can be used only after they have passed official scrutiny in this regard); they provide teachers and learners with input materials (these days textbooks are often supplemented by a multimedia website); and they engage learners in activities designed to help them digest those input materials and gradually develop proficiency in the TL. There is no

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doubt that for all these reasons textbooks offer teachers and their learners a sense of security. Unfortunately, they also pose a serious temptation: to reduce the complex, fuzzy, indeterminate and ultimately mysterious process of language learning to a routine in which the teacher leads her learners through a succession of units, all of them constructed according to the same template. In the worst cases, teaching only ever focuses on fragments of language: words and phrases that instantiate atomistic communicative functions or illustrate decontextualized grammatical rules; words and phrases that are never joined up, however hesitantly, in the kind of discourse on which the development of communicative proficiency depends. Textbooks are inauthentic in two separate but complementary senses. First, they are designed for the ‘average’ learner; they presuppose an ‘average’ learning trajectory that is nourished by ‘average’ assumptions about learners’ interests and their social and cultural knowledge. In other words, they are designed for no-one in particular. Secondly, the way in which they are used all too often assumes that languages can be learnt by engaging in inauthentic linguistic behaviour. As Tranter (2016) has recently pointed out, a language classroom is the only place where 30 people read the same text at the same time, sometimes without knowing why. It is also a place where, whether you want to or not, you may be expected to talk on a topic you haven’t chosen yourself, perhaps know very little about, and have no interest in. What is more, you are expected to do this in front of 15 or more people who have the same lack of interest as yourself, and you know that the one person who is listening is doing so only in order to correct your mistakes. The challenge facing the teacher who wants to promote autonomous learning while using a textbook is to find ways of avoiding these traps. This is essentially a matter of embedding the materials and activities the textbook presents in the kind of classroom discourse we described at the beginning of this chapter. Programmes of pre- and in-service teacher education should explore in detail how to do this, with close reference to an actual textbook, perhaps one of those that serving teachers already use or student teachers will be expected to use in the future. Alternatively, and if time permits, it may be possible for teachers to learn a new language using a textbook but embedding that textbook firmly in the procedures of the autonomy classroom.

Preparing to use a textbook to support autonomous learning A teacher education module that is concerned with using a textbook to promote autonomous language learning should begin by revisiting basic principles: (1) From the very beginning the TL should be the preferred medium of classroom communication. This is much easier to achieve when everything in the textbook, including instructions, is in the TL.

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(2) Curricular demands and expectations, both in general and for specific phases of learning, should be made explicit and visible to the learners. As we pointed out above, this often entails interpretation, and simplification for younger learners. (3) Each student’s learning and the learning of the class as a whole – process as well as outcomes – should be documented, as far as possible in the TL. This means using logbooks, portfolios and posters. (4) The work of the classroom should follow a structure that is clear to the learners and explicitly allows them room to exercise their agency: to make choices, take decisions and act on them. (5) Reflection and evaluation should be an obligatory part of each learning cycle. (6) Learning activities should (a) take into account the learners’ identity, interests and previous knowledge; (b) support authentic interaction and communication in the TL; (c) encourage cooperation and peer tutoring; (d) allow for differentiated contributions and differentiated outcomes, following the principle that there are no ‘average’ learners: each is unique, and each can contribute but also benefit according to his or her abilities and interests; (e) ensure that whatever the learners produce has an audience and is used by their peers. With these principles in mind, and assuming that they have already prepared a summary of curriculum requirements, teachers should work in groups to familiarize themselves with the textbook and answer the following questions: • • • • • • • • • •

In what ways can the textbook help learners to meet the aims of the curriculum? Do the units of the textbook all follow the same structure? If not, in what ways do they vary? How should each unit be introduced to the learners? Which route(s) can learners follow through each unit, and why? How will learners be required to document their learning? What will they be expected to write in their logbooks and put in their portfolios? Which activities in each unit should be obligatory, and why? Which activities in each unit should be optional, and why? What possibilities do the textbook activities offer for pair and group work? Does the textbook contain evaluation activities? If yes, how could they be used to stimulate more general reflection on learning? If no, how should evaluation be introduced as a regular classroom activity? What activities could be proposed as alternatives to those in the textbook?

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What additional activities would usefully complement those in the textbook?

Answers to these questions can be used to draw up some general guidelines that learners can follow when making their own way through the units of the textbook. The remainder of this part of the chapter concerns classroom practice: things that teachers can explore in their classroom and in due course subject to analysis and evaluation with their peers.

Documenting autonomous learning: Using logbooks, portfolios and posters with a textbook Logbooks enable learners to keep track of their learning independently of the textbook and its underlying assumptions. We cannot repeat often enough that from the very beginning what learners write in their logbooks should be as far as possible in the TL. It is essential that when logbooks are first introduced, the teacher makes clear how they are to be laid out, with regular margins, numbered pages, a new page for each lesson, and so on. She must also establish a regular routine for collecting and reading logbooks, not in order to correct or grade them but to inform herself of individual learners’ progress. Such a routine gives her an opportunity to communicate in writing with individual learners on a regular basis (for examples, see Figures 4.1, 4.2 and 4.4, pp. 110, 111 and 113). Portfolios are used to store the longer texts that learners produce, sometimes individually and sometimes working in groups, so portfolios come into play when learners are no longer beginners. It is important to let them determine the design of their portfolios and to involve them in deciding where portfolios should be stored, when and how they should be shared with the class as a whole, for how long they should be retained, and whether texts thought to be no longer useful should be discarded or archived so that they are available for research purposes. A textbook gives general support as regards input, learning activities, vocabulary and grammar; posters provide the teacher with a means of reorienting these elements to the specific needs and interests of her learners. Posters can also be used to capture the results of brainstorming – for example, on the characteristics of good group work, a good conversation or a good presentation. And they can help to make visible the structure of classroom work – for example, plans for lessons, plans for group work (who does what), and a summary of the role of helpers (learners who have volunteered to help other learners if and when needed).

Introducing the textbook Because the goal is to embed the textbook in a learning conversation that is shaped by learners’ needs and interests and documented in their logbooks,

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it is important to introduce logbooks before the textbook. The teacher can introduce posters at the same time, using them, for example, to list her requirements regarding the layout of logbooks. She does this in the TL, and the learners copy the requirements into their logbooks. Once learners have been given their logbooks and shown how to use them, they can begin to familiarize themselves with the textbook. Time should be set aside for them to look through the textbook, preferably in pairs or small groups. They can then make notes in their logbooks under the following headings: • • • •

Things we liked about the textbook (content, layout, types of activities, etc.) Topics that we found interesting and would like to work with Things we didn’t like Things that we find useful when learning a language (dictionary, grammar, useful phrases, etc.)

Beginners will have to do this in their L1 or the language of schooling; in some circumstances it may be appropriate to allow learners from immigrant families to use their home languages (cf. Chapter 7). During the follow-up plenary with the teacher, learners’ opinions are collected on posters, and translated into the TL, under headings like: • •

Good things about the textbook Things that interest us in the textbook

This type of follow-up activity shows respect for the learners’ views and opinions, gives the teacher an insight into their likes and dislikes, and launches the essential process of giving them ownership of the textbook. It also begins to involve them in authentic use of the TL. It is probably a good idea to conclude this initial familiarization phase by distributing guidelines for working with the textbook, presented in a format that allows them to be attached to logbooks for easy reference.

Structuring the work of the classroom If the textbook is to be subordinate to the dialogic discourse of the autonomy classroom, teaching and learning must be given a structure that is independent of the structure of textbook units and creates the space in which learners can take over responsibility for part or all of their learning. Only thus is it possible to achieve differentiation within each unit as regards what is learnt and how, by learners working individually and in groups. We recommend that teachers who use a textbook adopt the three-part structure that we described in Chapter 3: (1) Teacher’s time – preparing learning (2) Learners’ time – learners managing their own learning (3) Together time – joint class activities

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Teacher’s time In general, teacher’s time is used to prepare learners to work on their own, whether individually or in groups. The teacher is responsible for ensuring that her learners have the information they need in order to make appropriate choices. Thus, at the beginning of each textbook unit she should draw their attention to the different activities contained in the unit and their relevance to curricular aims, and she should use a poster to explain how she expects her learners to make notes about the different activities in their logbooks: what kind of learning they support, whether they are better done individually or in groups, and so on. A special part of the logbook should be reserved for this task, which needs to be done only once for each activity, although room should be left for second thoughts to be added. In this way the learners are increasingly equipped to find their own way through the textbook. The teacher may also suggest ways of adapting the activities to the working methods of an autonomy classroom and the specific needs of her learners. Teacher’s time is also used to introduce regular classroom activities not connected to any specific unit, such as ‘Two minutes’ talk’ (learners talk in pairs about a topic of their own choice for two minutes or longer; see Chapter 2) and ‘Share homework’ (a paired activity in which learners share and discuss what they have done at home). Most textbook units fill a number of lessons, in each of which teacher’s time is used to catch up with unfinished business from together time at the end of the previous lesson, to pass on information the learners need to be aware of, perhaps concerning forthcoming tests or external exams, and to deal with questions from the learners (for examples, see Dam & Lentz, 1998).

Learners’ time This is the part of a lesson when the learners work on their own, individually, in pairs or in small groups, within the framework established by the teacher. As we explained in Chapter 3, seating them in groups facilitates activities like ‘Share homework’ and ‘Two minutes’ talk’ and encourages peer tutoring. In addition to guidelines for working through a unit, the teacher may give her learners an agenda for their work in groups, written on a poster and copied into their logbooks: • • • • •

Share homework Two minutes’ talk Work with textbook activities individually, in pairs, or in groups, following the guidelines given. Remember to write in your logbook what you do in each lesson and with whom. Evaluate the work done – make individual notes in your logbook, e.g. your achievements: What do I know now that I didn’t know before the lesson? Decide on homework, individually and/or with partners.

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When they can work confidently in this way, learners may be inspired to undertake group projects based on material in the textbook. Legutke (1997) describes two projects of this kind. In the first, ‘Small Town Talk’, third-year learners of German in a US high school created a small German town and populated it with people who had different jobs and interests, people who loved and hated each other. First the students invented these people, giving them names and identities, decided on their relationships, and located their imaginary town on a map of Germany. This was followed by a phase of intensive letter writing, which in turn was followed by research in small groups using (among other resources) the three textbooks in the Deutsch Konkret series. Legutke’s second example, ‘Transatlantic connections via the information super highway’, was based on a unit in Green Line (the textbook used by some of the German students involved in the LAALE project; see Chapter 5). Concerned with modern technology, the unit in question presents a science fiction short story by Isaac Asimov, ‘All the fun they had’. This provided the basis for a five-week project that involved schools in Germany, New York and Sweden. In the first week all the classes got in touch with one another and read the Asimov short story; in the second week students created their utopian school, exchanging texts by email; in the third week they exchanged information on what schools looked like at present; in the fourth week they concentrated on realistic changes; and in the fifth week each group selected the most interesting texts from the projects and turned them into a booklet. Both Legutke’s examples turned the foreign language classroom into a training ground for the mastery of immediate and future language use; an observatory from which teachers and learners explore aspects of the target culture by means of different media; a laboratory in which teachers carry out experiments and research; a studio for text production; and a communication centre. (Legutke, 1997: 40, emphasis in original) This is another way of describing our version of the autonomy classroom.

Together time This is when learners come together to report to the teacher and one another on what they have been doing individually or in groups. They will not all have worked on the same activities in the textbook, so their reports serve to inform their peers and perhaps inspire them to try out activities they have not yet used. Together time is also when evaluation takes place, whether of a lesson or a whole textbook unit (again, for an example, see Dam & Lentz, 1998). As we explained in Chapter 4, evaluation that is carried out interactively and as early as possible in the TL generates authentic communication that helps learners to develop ‘metacognitive muscle’ in the TL. In together time learners can also present their work – stories, plays, surveys, magazines, etc. – to the rest of the class. In keeping with the principle of authenticity,

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it is important not to waste learners’ time with presentations that simply check up on work done. Last but not least, together time can be used to have a good time together, for example, watching one of the films that sometimes accompany textbooks or dividing the class into teams to answer a learnerproduced quiz. The possibilities are endless, but one thing is certain: after a successful together session the learners will leave the classroom with a smile on their face and in a good mood.

Evaluation and Assessment As well as the curriculum and textbook, teachers often cite formal assessment, especially public examinations, as a major obstacle to autonomous learning. As we pointed out in Chapter 4, in most educational traditions there is a disjunction between teaching and learning on the one hand and external assessment on the other. Teaching and learning are felt to be a known quantity because they are based on a curriculum and follow a textbook, whereas public examinations are unknowable in advance, at least in their detail, and are thus the source of much anxiety. This helps to explain the widespread practice of ‘teaching for the exam’, which is usually a matter of focusing exclusively on the tasks the exam requires students to perform. In the autonomy classroom learning is driven forward by reflective evaluation, which establishes a continuum from self-assessment through peer and teacher assessment to external examinations. In other words, evaluation and assessment are fully integrated with teaching and learning. There is no need to repeat here the argument we developed in Chapter 4, but it is worth making three brief points. First, if it makes sense for the teacher to give her learners tests based on the tasks they will encounter in the external examination, it also makes sense for learners to create their own versions of those tasks to assess themselves and one another as part of the ongoing practice of self- and peer-assessment. This turns ‘teaching for the exam’ into ‘learning for the exam’. Secondly, providing teachers and student teachers with an autonomous language learning experience will introduce them to self- and peer-assessment from the learner’s side – something they are unlikely to have met in the course of their own schooling. And thirdly, programmes of teacher education that seek to develop the skills teachers need in order to foster learner autonomy should themselves be embedded in a dynamic of evaluative reflection and employ modes of assessment that mirror those of the autonomy classroom.

Conclusion The pedagogical dialogue that frames autonomous language learning cannot be learned in advance and conducted by rote; it must be invented,

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elaborated and explored anew with each class of learners. This is at once bad news and good news: bad news because it means that we can never achieve the educational goals implicit in the notion of learner autonomy by teacher education alone; good news because that in turn means that teachers control their own professional development once they accept the challenge of entering into an exploratory partnership with their learners. Fostering learner autonomy means empowering learners, but it also presupposes teacher empowerment. If our understanding as teachers fails to grow along with that of our learners, that is a sure sign that we are going through the motions rather than engaging with our teaching in the way that we demand that our learners should engage with their learning. Here is a checklist of questions that we recommend teachers who want to promote autonomous learning should repeatedly ask themselves. With minor adaptation the same questions apply to those of us responsible for designing and delivering programmes of teacher education whose aim is to help teachers foster learner autonomy: • • • •

• • • • • •

Have I made the official demands and aims clear to the learners? Do they know what is expected of them? Have I made my demands/expectations clear? Have I helped the learners to identify their individual goals/aims/ objectives? Have I given my learners genuine choice as regards: – What to do (type and content of activity)? – Who to work with? – How to do it, including homework? Have I prepared my learners to make these choices? Have I made sure that my learners are familiar with different activity types, different ways of organizing their work, different tools for keeping track of the work undertaken? Have I introduced useful tools for raising learners’ awareness of their own learning as well as documenting and evaluating the learning process (posters, logbooks, portfolios)? Have I provided space and time to evaluate the learning process? Have I made sure that the learners’ experience, reflections and evaluations have an impact on further work, for them individually and for the class as a whole? Have I engaged my learners in a dialogue that enhances rather than hinders their autonomy?

Points for Reflection, Discussion and Possible Action •

Think of the programme of teacher education you participated in most recently. What assumptions did it make about teaching and learning?

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•

•

•

•

•

•

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List the ways in which its dynamic was (1) similar to and (2) different from the dynamic we have argued for in this chapter. The autonomy classroom sets out to exploit and extend the learners’ ‘action knowledge’. How would you describe the ‘action knowledge’ that you bring with you as a participant in programmes of language teacher education? We have argued that teacher education programmes that are concerned with the development of language learner autonomy should give participants the experience of learning a new language according to autonomy principles. How would you set up such a language course? And how would you integrate it with the rest of the programme? Carry out an analysis of the curriculum/curricular guidelines that you (or your teachers) currently use or will use in the future. If the document mentions learner autonomy, does it say anything about how you should try to develop it? If it doesn’t, to what extent are the intended learning outcomes compatible with learner autonomy? If you do not already possess a copy, download the CEFR from the Council of Europe’s website (http://www.coe.int/lang). Read Chapter 6, paying particular attention to what the authors have to say about autonomous learning. How does what they write differ from the view we have elaborated in this book? We have given two examples of ways in which the textbook can be used as a quarry (p. 240 above). Select one of the textbooks used in your context, explore the content, and make a list of all the ways in which it could be used as a quarry by autonomous learners. Action research is strongly recommended as a catalyst for professional development. Which classroom problems occur to you as being worth investigating in your own context? How would you go about it? Make an action plan for the first steps, perhaps consulting one or more of the readings suggested at the end of Chapter 5. John Hattie’s book Visible Learning (2009) claims to be the most extensive ever summary of evidence-based research into what actually works in schools to improve learning. How many of the practices that we have advocated in this book can you identify among Hattie’s findings?

Suggestions for Further Reading ‘The evolution of a teacher training programme’ (1989), by Michael Breen, Chris Candlin, Leni Dam and Gerd Gabrielsen, reports on a project that provided many of the ideas on which this chapter is founded. ‘Student autonomy and teachers’ professional growth’ by Viljo Kohonen (2003) stresses the importance of developing a collegial ethos in language teacher education, while Flavia Vieira’s ‘Developing professional autonomy

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as … writing with a broken pencil’ (2011) highlights the inescapable political implications of learner autonomy. Linda Darling-Hammond’s more general ‘Constructing 21st-century teacher education’ (2006) emphasizes the importance of integrating theory and practice. In ‘The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: A research agenda’ (2011a), David Little outlines a number of small-scale projects that teachers might undertake to promote a closer interaction between curriculum, teaching/learning and assessment. In two further articles he considers how the CEFR and the ELP might be used to promote learner autonomy in language courses at university: ‘The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, the European Language Portfolio, and language learning in higher education’ (2011b) and ‘The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the European Language Portfolio: Some history, a view of language learner autonomy, and some implications for language learning in higher education’ (2012). Finally, we recommend that readers consider our arguments, the teaching/learning activities we have described and the research evidence we have presented in the light of more general reviews of educational method like John Hattie’s Visible Learning (2009) and Howard Gardner’s The Unschooled Mind (1993).

Conclusion

Since the publication of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages in 2001, plurilingualism – the ability to communicate in two or more languages – has played an increasingly central role in the language education projects of the Council of Europe. The CEFR defines plurilingualism as ‘a communicative competence to which all knowledge and experience of language contributes and in which languages interrelate and interact’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 4). This definition is a close relative of the concept of linguistic multi-competence, originally defined by Vivian Cook as ‘the compound state of a mind with two grammars’ (Cook, 1991: 112). According to the CEFR, a plurilingual repertoire develops ‘as an individual person’s experience of language in its cultural contexts expands, from the language of the home to that of society at large and then to the languages of other peoples (whether learnt at school or college, or by direct experience)’ (Council of Europe, 2001: 4). This assumes that all language learning has the same result in qualitative if not in quantitative terms – that although the proficiency an individual develops in a foreign language may be more limited in scope than his or her L1 proficiency, the two proficiencies are closely related cognitively and comparable in terms of their availability for use. Ofelia García has recently argued against this assumption, however, offering the following two examples as evidence: Born in France to educated middle-class parents, Christine has spoken French since birth. In school she learned English, and then Spanish. Now 36, she considers French her L1, English her L2, and Spanish her L3. She is secure in her identity as a francophone and uses French personally and professionally in her daily life. She seldom uses English, although she often reads reports in English for work; she says that she likes Spanish better than English, but uses it only to sing songs she loves. Christine considers only French as her own language. The others are simply ‘gifts’ which she borrows. In contrast, Carlos was born and grew up in Peru and is now 43. In the home where he was raised, he spoke Spanish and Quechua. However, at school only Spanish was taught, although Quechua was frequently used. Carlos is a talented musician, and in Peru he was part 245

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of a bilingual musical group that sang songs in Quechua and Spanish. He considered himself a bilingual Peruvian, with neither language identified as L1 or L2. At the age of 38, because of economic hardship, Carlos migrated to Germany. When he first arrived, he took a German language ‘integration’ course. Two years ago, he married a Germanspeaking woman. He is required to use German as his everyday lived language, both at home and at the Peruvian restaurant where he works and sings in Spanish and Quechua. German is not his L2 or L3; it has become his own (although not his sole) everyday lived language. (García, 2017: 18, emphasis in original) García distinguishes between Christine as ‘a “second” language learner’ and Carlos as ‘a migrant who must live every day by using new language features’ (García, 2017: 18). Her descriptions imply that there is a qualitative difference between Christine’s proficiency in French on the one hand and English and Spanish on the other, but not between Carlos’s proficiency in Spanish, Quechua and German. In terms of the CEFR’s definition, Carlos is plurilingual whereas Christine is not. Cook similarly distinguishes between those who learn a language and those who use it: ‘The term L2 learners can […] be reserved for people who are learning another language but are not using it, […] say Chinese children learning English in Shanghai’ (Cook, 2016: 4). He concedes that some L2 learners go on to become L2 users in later life and some use their TL for realworld functions when they step outside the classroom, but the strong implication of his argument is that authentic TL use can play no role in classroom language learning. The classrooms we have described in this book, however, firmly contradict this view. Our Danish teenagers, adult refugees and primary pupils from immigrant families learned L2 English because they used it autonomously, as a channel for their agency in pursuit of goals that arose from their interests and their immediate needs. In their very different contexts, English was an ‘everyday lived language’, and their gradual acquisition of new language features was directly attributable to their TL use. Grounded as it is in dialogic language use, the learner autonomy approach comes to meet the so-called ‘social turn’ in second language acquisition research. Two decades ago Firth and Wagner (1997) published an article arguing for a reconceptualization of SLA theory; in particular, they emphasized the need to achieve a balance between traditional cognitive concerns and social and contextual dimensions. Ten years later Swain and Deters (2007) reviewed the progress that had been made, summarizing the impact on SLA theory of four distinct if related areas: sociocultural theory, situated learning, post-structuralism and dialogism. Our version of the autonomy classroom draws explicitly on the first, second and fourth of these areas. In the conclusion of their article, Swain and Deters (2007: 827) describe language learning as ‘a highly complex activity in which human cognition and human agency

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develop and multiple identities are co-constructed through interaction with others, the self, and the cultural artefacts of our environments’. A little later they write: ‘A challenge to the field is whether the issues raised by the broadening of our understanding of L2 acquisition will find their way into current models of communicative performance […] that affect L2 learning through pedagogy, teacher education, and assessment of proficiency’ (Swain & Deters, 2007: 828). The autonomy classroom as we have described it in this book is based on just such an understanding of L2 acquisition, and it offers itself as a research site for Dynamic Systems Theory (Larsen-Freeman, 2011; Verspoor et al., 2011), sociocognitive approaches (Batstone, 2010) and ecological approaches (Kramsch, 2002; van Lier, 2000, 2004). In other words, the autonomy classroom invites a new kind of partnership between L2 teaching and learning and theoretical and empirical research into L2 acquisition. Our own priority, however, remains pedagogical: our overarching purpose in this book has been to share our conviction that the autonomy classroom secures optimal language learning outcomes and to encourage teachers at all levels of education, including teacher educators, to promote autonomous learning in their classrooms. The book will have served its purpose if some of our readers adopt the principles it elaborates and the practices it describes, creating a version of the autonomy classroom appropriate to the needs of their particular context. This seems to us the best way of achieving those improvements in L2 learning outcomes that governments around the world never cease to call for and of making plurilingualism part of learners’ lived reality.

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Index

Ackermann, E. 27 action research 156, 217, 222, 243 agency 10, 12, 49, 71, 72, 73, 161, 185, 202, 223, 236, 246 Alexander, R. 48, 68 Alias, A. 5 Allwright, D. 222 assessment 74 and evaluation 95–96 and learner autonomy 99–100 and official grades 113–114 formative 97 summative 97 traditional views of 96 See also evaluation, peer assessment/ evaluation and self-assessment/ evaluation Assessment for Learning (AfL) 97–99 and learner autonomy 98–99 and self-assessment 98–99 Assessment Reform Group (ARG) 97 Atkinson, D. 14, 43, 74, 156 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) 162, 168, 180 audio-lingual method 25, 46 August, D. 203 Ausubel, D.P. 11 autonomy as cultural value 71 as educational, political and moral value 214 as human need, drive, capacity 10–11, 21 cognitive 10, 11 emotional 10 See also learner autonomy autonomy classroom defining characteristics 1–4, 15–16 Avci-Werning, M. 162 awareness raising 23, 25, 28, 102–110, 151

Bakhtin, M. 47, 48–49, 53, 64, 68 Bandura, A. 74 Barnes, D. 6–9, 10, 11, 21, 46–47, 68, 72, 74, 161, 179, 186, 201–202, 213, 218, 219, 221 Batstone, R. 247 Beile, W. 122, 131, 141, 143 Benson, P. 5, 10 BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills) 225 Black, P. 97, 98 Black-Hawkins, K. 160, 161 Bleyhl, W. 138 Block, D. 74 bmlv 189 Borras, L. 172 Braun, E.M. 172 Breen, M.P. 9–10, 28 Brindley, G. 187 Bronson, M.B. 99 Brown, R. 24 Bruner, J. 13, 14, 73, 99, 100 Bryant, P. 100 Burns, A. 222 CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) 225 case studies a student with behavioural problems 162–171 a student with severe dyslexia 171–179 English language courses for adult refugees admitted to Ireland. See Integrate Ireland Language and Training educational inclusion of primary pupils from immigrant families. See Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní) Ćatibušić, B. 234 Chan, V. 5 260

Inde x

Clark, A. 27 classroom discourse for learner autonomy 218, 234, 235 in the target language 9 learners’ role 76 teacher’s role 218 traditional structure 218, 221 classroom dynamic 217 collaborative learning 3, 13, 27, 37, 42, 47, 49, 53–68, 69, 72, 76, 81, 95, 98, 121, 131, 169, 171, 190, 194, 213, 220, 223 examples 37–41, 49–51, 88–91, 195 Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) 187, 189, 197 role in teacher education for language learner autonomy 223–234 definition of L2 proficiency 223–225 action-oriented approach 224 communicative language activities 224 competences 225 progression in L2 learning 225–227 and language learner autonomy 227 used to explore curriculum goals 227–228 adapted to support primary learning of English as an Additional Language 228–234 communicative language teaching 9–10, 25, 26, 46, 145 community of practice 13 autonomy classroom as 51–53, 68 Cook, V.J. 245, 246 cooperative learning 12, 48, 162 Corbett, J. 161 Corder, S.P. 43 Cotterall, S. 5 Council of Europe 4, 185, 189, 191, 196, 200, 201, 214, 220, 223, 243, 245 See also Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and European Language Portfolio Cummins, J. 200, 202–203, 225 curriculum 6, 9, 14, 23, 26, 74, 96, 97–98, 99, 161, 201, 202 and autonomous learning 2, 16, 35, 44, 45, 58, 59, 61, 75, 78–79, 80, 83, 88, 92, 93, 95, 112, 205, 217, 218, 223–234, 236, 241, 243 Cuseo, J. 48

261

Dam, L. 82, 92, 108, 115, 121, 174, 177, 239, 240 Davis, R.D. 171, 172 Dechert, H. 138, 142 Deci, E.L. 11, 12, 71, 73, 75, 100, 172 Deters, P. 246–247 Dewey, J. 72–73 dialogic teaching 68, 218–219 dialogism 49, 246 dialogue Bakhtin’s concept of 48–49, 68 in textbooks 142, learning through 8, 45–53, 55, 61, 154, 218–219, 241–242 See also collaborative learning differentiation 6, 29, 32, 158, 161, 162, 187, 213, 238 documentation of learning 3, 26–27, 76, 83–92, 93, 156, 186, 189, 218, 221, 236, 237, 242 dyslexia 162, 171–173 theories of 171–172 recommended therapies 171–172 and self-esteem 172–173 Dyson, A. 159 Earl, L.M. 115 Edmondson, W. 146 education adult 220 bilingual 202–203 inclusive 158–162 compared with autonomous learning 160–162 special needs 158–159 Elliott, J.G. 172 Ellis, N.C. 14 Ellis, R. 24, 149 Engels, L.K. 124 English Language Proficiency Benchmarks 228–234 errors 3, 42, 46, 135, 173 European Commission 25, 185, 222 European Language Portfolio (ELP) 189–192 pedagogical function 189 components 189 compared with logbooks and portfolios 189 ELPs developed by IILT 190 Milestone ELP 190–191, 197 mediated to refugee learners 190 and assessment 196–197

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evaluation 3, 15, 17, 26, 27, 72, 81, 82, 86, 87, 115, 116, 218, 236, 237, 240, 242 criteria 70 and assessment 95, 241 and reflection 95, 228, 236 as language learning activity 100 introducing learners to 101–102 developing learners’ evaluation skills 102–108 examples 103–108 and developing L2 proficiency 108–113 See also assessment, peer assessment/ evaluation, self-assessment/ evaluation exams (external/public) 58, 74, 75, 79, 96, 214, 223, 239 teaching for 96, 116, 241 Exploratory Practice 222 exploratory talk 7, 12, 46–47, 72 Felix, W.F. 138 FETAC (Further Education and Training Awards Council, Ireland) 197–198, 216 first language (L1) acquisition of 23, 24, 25, 47 role in L2 learning 1, 2, 3, 25, 28, 35, 42, 44, 46, 55, 64, 77, 81, 100, 102, 238 role in evaluation/assessment 103–108 Firth, A. 246 Florian, L. 160, 161 four skills 25, 26, 224 Freire, P. 214 García, O. 245–246 Gass, S. 14, 149 Genesee, F. 203 Gibbs, S. 172 Gipps, C.V. 99 Goswami, U. 100 grammar teaching 23–25, 42 See also under LAALE project grammar/translation method 8, 25, 45–46 Green, M. 72 Green, P. 24, 138 Grice, H.P. 139–144, 157 Grotjahn, R. 157 group work 3, 7, 12, 34, 36, 45, 47, 48, 51, 53, 57, 58, 68, 69, 72, 74, 75, 77, 79, 80–81, 83, 93,

108–109, 115, 116, 161, 162, 163, 167–168, 169–170, 173, 188, 194, 221, 228, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240 See also collaborative learning and language learning activities groups forming 37, 48, 82–83 sitting in 77, 80–81 Hahn, A. 138 Hall, J. 144–145 Halliday, M.A.K. 26 Hattie, J. 243 Hawkins, E.W. 210, 213 Hecht, K. 24, 138 Hinz, A. 160 Hodgkinson, S. 69 Holec, H. 4–5, 6, 7, 15, 74, 92, 220 home language 201, 202, 203, 204–212 development of pupils’ literacy in 206–209 homework 3, 27, 34, 36, 38, 40–41, 58, 63, 66, 80, 81, 83, 85, 88–91, 103, 106, 109, 112, 165, 168, 169, 170, 171, 175, 187, 198 Hopkins, D. 222 House, J. 146, 151 human rights 200, 220 inclusion 32, 158–162, 186 compared with integration 159–160, 201 impact on attainment 159 of adult refugees 17, 185, 188 of primary pupils from immigrant families 17, 185, 200–215 pedagogy for 160–162 input 12, 14, 28, 82, 145, 234, 237 Integrate Ireland Language and Training (IILT) 186 organization of courses for adult refugees 187 profile of students 187 principles of course design 187–189 use of European Language Portfolio 189–192 reading scheme 193–194 poetry competition 194–196 external assessment 196–198 integration value of courses 198 student testimonies 198–200

Inde x

interaction 1, 4, 12, 14, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 59, 64, 68, 82, 95, 138, 143, 145, 147, 148, 149, 151, 206, 219, 224 and language learning 23, 45, 72, 92, 228, 236, 247 See also collaborative learning, dialogue James, M. 98, 115 Janne, H. 220 Johnson, D.W. 162 Johnson, R.T. 162 Joiner, E. 152 Jones, J. 100 Kagan, S. 48 Kasper, G. 138–139, 144, 151 Kelly, G. 11 Kirwan, D. 211, 212, 216 Klemm, K. 159 knowledge ‘action’ 6–7, 21–22, 29, 31, 35, 41, 47, 74, 161, 179, 186, 198, 201–202, 204, 206, 213, 214, 243 collaborative construction of 11–12, 38, 49–51, 64, 68, 121 ‘old’ 1, 72 procedural 24 school 6–7, 47, 74, 186, 201–202, 204, 213, 214, 219 Kohonen, V. 217 Kramsch, C. 247 Krashen, S. 24 LAALE project (Language Acquisition in an Autonomous Learning Environment) 115, 121–155, 158, 162, 168, 240 participants 121–122 generalizability of findings 122 vocabulary learning 122–130 vocabulary learners were exposed to 122–123 semantic fields 123–124 frequency values of words learnt 124–125 parts of speech 125–126 elicitation instruments 126, 128–129 number of words learnt 126–128, 129–130 grammar 130–138 instruments 131

263

research questions 131–132 tense forms 132–135 do-support questions 135–136 structures not yet taught to control group 136–138 pragmatic competence 138–151 instruments 139 Grice’s maxims 139–42 impact of coping strategies on grammaticality 142–144 emergence and development of 144–145 shared information 145–146 gambits 146–147 metalinguistic comments and awareness 147–149 interactive moves 149 reliability of self-assessment 151–155 involving learners in assessment 152–154 self-assessment correlated with teacher assessment and external assessment 154–155 Lamb, T. 5 language as cognitive tool 12, 55 of education/schooling 13, 42, 46, 49, 69, 185, 201, 202, 204, 206, 209, 213, 214, 228, 238 language awareness 209, 210–211, 213 language learning activities ‘About myself ’ 28–29, 32, 36, 44, 163, 165, 174 examples 29, 30, 164, 174 board games 62–66 examples 64, 65, 66–67 dominoes 29, 33–34, 35, 42, 44, 45, 57, 62, 72, 79, 125, 170 examples 33, 170 making a magazine 39–41 making discussion points for a text 58 picture lotto 29, 34–35, 42, 44, 45, 57, 62, 72, 79, 125, 131, 167 examples 34–35 picture + text 36, 42, 170 examples 36, 166 plays 3, 59–61, 68, 82, 83, 107, 163, 165, 169, 177, 240 examples 60–61, 62, 63 radio and video programmes 169 small books 36–37, 42, 88 examples 37, 38

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language learning activities (continued) stories and poems 37–38 example 39 talking in groups 57 talk shows 169 two minutes’ talk/peer-to-peer talk 55, 57, 68, 81, 83, 102, 131, 132, 133, 139, 140, 144, 145, 148, 163, 171, 239 examples 55, 56–57, 150, 171, 177 word cards 27, 29, 31–32 examples 31, 32 language learning tools learning contracts 79, 110–112, 176 examples 79, 110–111, 176 logbooks 2–3, 27, 28, 29, 32, 41, 42, 45, 52, 54, 55, 72, 77, 79, 81, 82, 83–86, 87, 88–91, 93, 102, 103, 123, 163, 164–165, 168, 169, 174, 189, 221, 223, 236, 237, 238, 239, 242 examples 37–38, 40–41, 54, 59, 61, 84, 85, 88–91, 103–114, 164–165, 167, 175, 176 portfolios 3, 81, 83, 87–88, 93, 189, 197, 221, 223, 236, 237 See also European Language Portfolio posters 3, 27–28, 29, 32, 33, 35, 41, 42, 45, 52, 54, 55, 56, 72, 77, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 93, 104, 107, 123, 131, 165, 169, 173, 221, 222, 223, 236, 237, 238, 239, 242 examples 28, 33, 56, 81, 82 language support for immigrant pupils 204, 228, 234 Lanphen, J. 162 Larsen-Freeman, D. 149, 247 Lave, J. 13, 52, 53, 68 Lazenby Simpson, B. 198 learner choice 2, 4, 5, 72, 75, 79–80, 85, 92, 161, 168, 171, 176, 220, 236, 239, 242 control 3, 4, 5, 7–8, 16, 17, 72–92, 93, 98, 179, 214, 220 identity 22, 29, 41, 71, 72–73, 151, 161, 165, 173, 174, 175–176, 179, 192–196, 198, 202, 205, 207, 218, 236 involvement 14, 15, 73, 76, 97, 206, 213, 219 reflection 2, 3, 14, 15, 27, 72, 75, 95, 99, 112, 189, 190, 197, 210, 213, 219, 220, 236, 241, 242

responsibility 2, 4, 7, 52, 72, 74, 75, 76, 161, 179, 213, 220, 238 roles 2, 9–10, 26, 45, 98, 218 self-esteem 74, 97, 108, 154, 158, 168, 172–173, 174–179, 180, 205 programmes for enhancing 172–173 role in managing dyslexia 172–173 self-management 72, 75, 88–92, 115, 220 learner autonomy as collective capacity 15 as pedagogical imperative 15 and democracy in education 220 and evaluation/assessment 99–101 and migrant learners 185–216 impact on learning outcomes 122–155, 162–171, 173–179, 185 political implications of 4, 214, 217, 219–220 See also autonomy learning and communication 6, 7–9, 13, 45–46, 47, 49, 72 communal 13, 33, 37, 41, 45 incidental 22–23, 25–26, 71, 201 individual-cognitive 45, 48, 221 intentional 2, 22–23, 26, 41, 44–45, 46, 51, 62, 71, 100 self-access 5, 187 self-directed 4, 5 situated 13, 23, 52, 246 social-interactive 15, 45, 48, 221 See also collaborative learning Lecomte, T. 172, 205 Leech, G. 151 Legenhausen, L. 24, 121, 149, 151 Legutke, M. 240 Lentz, J. 82, 108, 174, 177, 239, 240 lesson structure 76, 80–82, 83, 92, 93, 238–241 learners’ time 80–81, 238, 239–240 teacher’s time 80, 238, 239 together time 45, 80, 81–82, 87, 93, 238, 239, 240–241 linguistic interdepence hypothesis 202–203, 205, 213 linguistic multi-competence 245 Little, D. 198, 200, 216, 234 logbook. See language learning tools Long, M.H. 149 Meierkord, C. 140 Meijer, C.J.W. 161

Inde x

metacognition 13, 15, 99–100 See also under target language use Ming, T.S. 5 Mitchell, D. 159 Mitchell, R. 149 motivation 97, 98, 168, 180, 202, 207 and autonomy 11 and identity 72–73 intrinsic 73, 75, 92, 175, 186, 218, 228 external 73–74 needs analysis 187–188 Nicholas, H. 210, 213 Nind, M. 160, 161, 162 Norwich, B. 161 noticing hypothesis 24–25 Nüßgen, F. 1 OECD 200, 201 Olson, D.R. 27 Opie, I. 22 output 14, 22, 52 Ouvry, C. 160 Oxford, R. 152 pair work 3, 12, 34, 45, 51, 53, 54, 55, 63, 72, 74, 75, 103, 104, 106, 145, 162, 169–170, 206, 228, 236, 238, 239 Palmberg, R. 1 parents 10, 11, 12, 62, 76, 88, 201, 205, 206 Pedder, D. 98, 115 peer assessment/evaluation 61, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 106, 107, 112, 114, 115, 116, 241 examples 106, 107, 111, 169 peer tutoring 35, 77, 83, 162, 180, 236, 239 Pienemann, M. 24, 133 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) 200 plurilingualism as educational goal 189, 245, 247 Porter, P. 145 portfolio. See under language learning tools and European Language Portfolio post-structuralism 246 poster. See under language learning tools

265

Prabhu, N. 138 procedural skills 22 psychology of personal constructs 11–12 Pulinx, R. 198 relatedness 11, 12, 27 research findings. See under case studies and LAALE project Richards, J.C. 124 Richterich, R. 187 Rogoff, B. 53 Rose, K.R. 138, 151 Ryan, R.M. 71, 73, 75, 100 Salmon, P. 10, 12, 21, 201 Saunders, S. 160 scaffolding 2, 44, 51, 81, 213, 218 Schmidt, R.W. 25, 138, 139 Schwarz, H. 122, 139 Scoil Bhríde (Cailíní) 186, 203–213 pupil cohort 203–204 inclusivity 204–205 linguistic freedom 205 integrated multilingual communication 205–206 plurilingual literacy 206–207 examples 207–209 language awareness 210–211, 213 autonomous learning 211–213 Scriven, M. 97 second language acquisition 125, 137 Dynamic Systems Theory 247 ecological approaches 247 ‘social turn’ 74, 246 sociocognitive approaches 247 sociocultural theory 246 self-assessment/evaluation 54, 97– 99, 101–113, 114, 115, 116, 121, 151–155, 171, 179, 189, 191, 196–197, 218, 241 examples 54, 101–113, 177 self-determination theory 11, 73, 75, 92, 100 self-efficacy 74, 172 Seliger, H. 24, 138 Shanahan, T. 203 Sharwood Smith, M. 24, 25 Skehan, P. 59 Stein, J. 171 Swain, M. 14, 22, 52, 246–247

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target language use authentic 1, 22, 23, 25, 26, 29, 36, 41, 42, 44, 47, 49, 53, 55–57, 58, 61, 68, 82, 100, 130, 134, 138, 147, 148, 151, 158, 179, 218, 219, 222, 225, 234, 236, 238, 240, 246 automaticity of 22 metacognitive 2, 15, 48, 72, 99–100, 158, 217, 218, 223, 234, 240 metalinguistic 2, 10, 15, 147–149, 211 spontaneous 9, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 44, 47, 49, 55, 130–131, 136, 138, 139, 158, 179, 205, 210, 211, 218, 222 teacher education for language learner autonomy 217–244 relation of theory and practice 217 dialogic teaching and learning 218–219 political dimension of learner autonomy 219–220 dynamic of learning 220–223 focus on the curriculum 223–234 focus on the textbook 234–241 evaluation and assessment 241 teacher’s logbook 3, 86–87, 163 examples 86, 163–167 teaching styles Transmission 8–9, 47, 68, 221 Interpretation 8, 47, 68, 221 Terrell, T.D. 24, 138 textbooks and autonomous learning 234–241 preparing to use the textbook 235–237 using logbooks and portfolios 237 introducing the textbook to learners 237–238 structuring classroom work 238–241 as substitute for curriculum 79, 96 limitations of 24, 32, 46, 123, 134, 235 Tranter, G. 235

Trim, J.L.M. 4 Truscott, J. 24, 25 UNESCO 158–160 United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) 185–186 Ushioda, E. 74, 75 van Lier, L. 73, 151, 247 Varonis, E. 149 Verspoor, M.H. 247 Vertovec, S. 203 Vieira, F. 220 Vygotsky, L.S. 12–13, 47–48, 49, 68, 69 Wagner, J. 246 Wells, G. 49 Wenger, E. 13, 52, 53, 68 West, M. 124 Whitehead, R. 172 Wildner-Bassett, M. 146 Wiliam, D. 97, 98, 100 Wode, H. 125 writing and focus on linguistic form 23, 61, 76 and reflection 27 as metalinguistic activity 27 collaborative 23, 59 examples 49, 60–61, 62, 63 role in autonomous L2 learning 26–27, 44, 210 role in developing L2 identity 192–196 See also documentation of learning Zone of Proximal Development 12–13, 48, 52, 68 Zuckerman, G. 13, 48 Zull, J.E. 36