Running head: AUTONOMOUS LEARNING 1

Autonomous Learning

Natalie Castillo Z

Institución Universitaria Colombo Americana

AUTONOMOUS LEARNING 2

Abstract

In this paper I am going to write about the importance of promoting autonomous learning,

what is it about and how it can be developed by learners in order to improve their learning

process. Issues such as responsibility, reflection, learning styles, learning strategies become

crucial to change an attitude towards learning. Learning takes place not only in the classroom

but transcends other environments from which the learner takes advantage of. These spaces

can take place in the library, resource center, and classroom. It can also take place working

independently or following the advice of a counselor. Being autonomous takes time, which

means it occurs little by little. It is important to consider that learners become part of a

culture, part of a nation and that political and sociological aspects play a role in this change of

behavior.

Keywords: Autonomous learning, responsibility, learning styles, learning strategies.

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Autonomous Learning

Autonomous learning is an approach that is becoming stronger in education, because it helps

the student to become independent and responsible for his own learning process such as

learning styles, learning strategies it is important to mention that the learners are not alone in

this process they have the guide of a counselor who is offering support when they needed. In

this approach learners establish their own objectives, take action working with meaningful

assignments and see if they have found the appropriate way or if they need to change his

action plan until he finds the way he is looking for to make this learning process feasible. This

type of learning has become popular because students have their own projects, and can work

the time they want.

Autonomy and its Definition

According to Little [ CITATION Lit90 \n \t \l 3082 ], learners become responsible when

they are ready to take their own decisions, take part of their own learning process by being

critical. With respect to what Sinclair declares that [ CITATION Sin01 \n \t \l 3082 ] autonomy

takes place when learners establish their own objectives, select methods and techniques that

work; regulate and monitor their own process and is able to evaluate what he has acquired.

Holec [ CITATION Hol81 \n \t \l 3082 ] states that autonomy is not innate, learners acquire it by

means of a training in “how to learn to learn“ ; in other words learners learn by interacting

culturally and socially. For example if learners are acquiring a language, they apply some

techniques offered by experts; also they use their learning styles.

On the other hand, Benson [ CITATION Ben96 \n \t \l 3082 ] states that teachers and

institutions should enhance autonomy by providing techniques that promotes this learning

process.
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Autonomy and its Principles

Sinclair [ CITATION Sin97 \n \t \l 3082 ] established the principles keys to define autonomy:

1. Autonomy is a concept of capacity. The learner must make decisions about his learning.
2. Learners take responsibilities for their own learning.
3. Complete autonomy is his principal goal. The objective is to make students take more
responsibility, not to take it all.
4. There are degrees of autonomy. The development for autonomy depends on different
factors that can be affective, physiological, psychological or environmental.
5. These degrees are variable.
6. Autonomy is not simply a matter of placing learners in situations where they have to be
independent. This is developed whit psychological and methodological preparation.
7. Developing autonomy requires conscious of the learning process, Students need to know
and use metacognitive strategies to reflect on their learning. Those strategies help to set
goals, to self-assess progress, to evaluate learning activities and to use learning resources.
8. Promoting autonomy is not only teaching strategies. Teaching students learning strategies
and how to use them is a key part in the development of autonomy but it is not the only
aspect that is to be considered.
9. Autonomy can take place both inside and outside the classroom. Students have to consider
the possibility of studying at home with their computers and books and also to do extra
courses online.
10. Autonomy contributes to the construction of community, not only academic, but also to
the construction of country as a community. Sinclair [ CITATION Sin90 \n \t \l 3082 ]
Says “Autonomy is less about ‘personal empowerment’ than about contributing to
society’s economic health by developing the ability to adapt and keep up with the
increasing pace of change and competition faced by that society”.
11. Autonomy is interpreted differently by different cultures. The teachers and learners vary
from culture to culture.

Styles, Strategies and Learner Autonomy

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It should be reiterated that autonomy is not an article of faith, a product ready made for use or
merely a personal quality or trait. Autonomy in learning can be better understood as related
with the concepts of learning strategies and learning strategies.

Learning strategies: Are mental steps or operations that learners use to learn a new language
and to regulate their efforts to do so. To greater or lesser degree, the strategies and learning
styles that someone adopts may partly reflect personal preference rather than innate
endowment Skehan[ CITATION Ske981 \l 3082 ] . A strategy can be taught overtly or covertly.
They are more procedural -related to direct experience than to knowledge about them.

-Cognitive strategies: Operate directly on incoming information, manipulating it in ways that

enhance learning [ CITATION OMa90 \l 3082 ].

Learning may use any of all the following according to (Cook 1993:114-115):

 Repetition, when imitating others’ speech;

 Resources e.g., dictionaries and other materials
 Translation ( using their mother tongue as basis for understanding and/or producing
the target language;
 Note-taking; deduction or conscious application of L2 rules;
 Contextualization, when embedding a word or phrase in a meaningful sequence;
 Transfer -using knowledge acquired in L1 to remember to understand facts and
sequences in L2;
 Inference, when matching an unfamiliar word against valuable information ( a new
word etc);
 Question for clarification, when asking the teacher to explain, etc.

-Metacognitive strategies: are skills used for planning, monitoring and evaluating their
learning activity; they are strategies about learning rather than learning strategies themselves.
Some of these strategies are (Cook, 1993:114-115):

 Directed attention, when deciding in advance to concentrate on general aspects of a

task
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 Selective attention, paying attention to specific aspects of a task;

 Self-monitoring, checking one’s performance as one speaks;
 Self-evaluation, appraising one’s performance in relation to one’s on standards
 Self-reinforcement, rewarding oneself for success.

In this metacognitive process learners evaluate and assess themselves in terms of the outcome
of their attempt to use certain strategies, examining and judging their own performance.

Learning styles. In addition to the strategies, in autonomous learning, learning styles play an
important role. They refer to the particular way in which a learner tries to acquire something.
[ CITATION Ric96 \l 3082 ] proposes for language learning, four cognitive styles that correspond
to four different types of students: auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic, and affective (which
includes: introvert, extrovert, intuitive, thoughtful, emotional, judge, perceptual, rightist,
leftist etc). Shows the relationship between strategies, styles and multiple intelligences.

Learner autonomy is not easy to achieve, and for that reason alone it poses a very great

challenge to educators

. It is through autonomy that our learners may better fulfill the communicative aims of

their foreign language curricula. Professors and teachers need to plan curricula and

classes keeping in mind the potentialities of the learner and by stressing guidance in the

process and somehow give less emphasis to content. To do the above educators must

always pursue an inquiry into who their learners are, how they learn, and what they expect

from learning.
AUTONOMOUS LEARNING 7

Learners learn best under the umbrella of autonomy. The responsibility of learning is

given back to the learner. The tasks can be better assessed depending on the processes

they promote and the outcomes expected.

Teachers enrich their class with investigation they have the possibility to encourage their

partners to think about the exercises done in the classroom. When they evaluate their

process and the goals they have the introduction of new methodology and evaluation

contributes to the learning in students and institutions.

Having in your mind new styles of learning, learners will have more advantages in the

program of their course. It also helps you to identify this style, as a natural tendency for

the ones who learn and orientate the teacher to use a lot of new techniques for their

teaching that will improve all the tendencies for learning.

Autonomous learning can be described as the process in which the students learn using

their own style, is the activity that students use as a complement for his learning process.

This is possible when the teacher guides his student, using his knowledge as a condition

for the process of learning.

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Bibliography

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Press.

Chamot, O. M. (1990). Learning Strategies in Second Language Acquisition. . Cambridge.

Holec. (1981). Autonomy and foreign language learning.Pergamon.

Little. (1990). Autonomy in language learning. England: CILT, Blackhorn Press.

P, S. (19998). A cognitive Approach to Language Learning . Oxford University Press.

P., S. (1998). A cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford University Press.

Richard. (1996). Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics. London: Longman.

Sinclair. (1990). Learning to Learn English. Cambridge: CUP .

Sinclair. (2001). Learner autonomy, teacher autonomy.

Sinclair. (1997). Learner Autonomy: the Cross-cultural Question. In IATEFL Newsletter , Issue 139.
Pages 12-13.

V, C. (1993). “Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. University Press.