This presentation was given on Methodology Day on 21 February 2014 by Alina Brooks. "Perhaps the most often-quoted proverb among teachers is "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". However, perhaps our duty as a teacher is not just to "give" material to the students, but also to teach them to learn? By developing the students' learning skills and strategies and by giving them options we empower and motivate the students."

1. Learner Autonomy
Looking Behind the BUZZ word

2. How do we view our students?

Resisters

Receptacles

Raw material

Clients

Partners

Individual explorers

Social, democratic explorers

5. 

How do you want the learners to
feel about the process of
learning in your classroom?
How do you want the learners to
feel about the content of
learning in your classroom?

6. 

Do you know how they actually
feel?
How much of it is under your
control?

7. 
How much opportunity do the
learners have to exercise the
following in your classroom:
− Critical
− Decision
reflection
making
− Independent
action

8. Learner autonomy is “essentially
a matter of the learner's
psychological relation to the
process and content of learning
– a capacity for <...> critical
reflection, decision-making and
independent learning” (D.
Little).

9. Learner autonomy involves helping learners
understand the _____ of learning both inside
and outside the classroom. They begin to
______ that they have a large role to play in
their own learning. It also allows learners to
understand what their _____ are and to set
______ for themselves. Part of the process
involves finding out about specific _____ that
help them to learn. As a result they can, to
some extent, decide _____ they should learn
and _____ they should learn it.

12. 
Pension

Brandy

Shops

Sobriety

Slippers

Sausages

Children

Friends

The papers

13. When I'm an old woman I
shall wear
___________.
And I shall spend my
pension on _________
and _________.

14. How to encourage Learner
Autonomy?

15. How to encourage Learner
Autonomy?

Explain WHY things are being done (in this way)

Homework
−
−

a) exciting and moreish;
b) accountability
Delegating tasks and decisions in and before lessons (but:
INFORMED choices)

Tutorials: help learners to set goals and monitor achievements

Practical training in Dictionary Use

Practical Info on Sites they can use – with Specific tasks!!!

Encouraging self-assessment


Encouraging feedback to the teacher; What would you like more
or less of?
Compromising and meeting them halfway