1 Learner Autonomy

Hi Everyone,

This week we discussed about learner autonomy, characteristics of autonomous learners, how to make our students autonomous, teachers’ role in fostering autonomy, and how technology might help us to make autonomous learners. All my course mates came up with interesting and useful points. I learned many things from them when I read their comments. It is clear that it is not easy for teachers to foster autonomy in the blink of an eye. This is a very long process starting from early education and certain conditions should be met such as the methodology of the teacher used, appropriate materials that are to be used in teaching, teacher’s professional knowledge, and the curricula which encourages learner autonomy. There should be more self-access facilities, computer assisted learning technologies, and materials designed to foster learner autonomy. Additionally, teachers should be encouraged more to participate in professional development activities, which help them take on more autonomy supportive roles in their classrooms.

We also designed one computer classroom lesson plan. I’d like to thank Jeff Magota for his valuable comments and feedback. His ideas of schema building and building up mini dialogues with interesting situations were quite useful on my part.

This week I also sent Zlatka first draft of my project work. I tried to answer the project template questions but some of the questions in the template were so close to each other that I think I blended them. Also, it seems to me that I couldn’t refrain from making repetitions. But this is the first draft and I am sure that I will improve it by Zlatka’s valuable comments.

Thanks,
Gülsen