“autonomy” an anatomy and a framework

7/28/2019 AUTONOMY AN ANATOMY AND A FRAMEWORK

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Pergamon Sysr m. Vol . 24, No. 4, pp. 427435, 1996Copyr igh t 0 1996 Elsev ie r Sc ience L tdPII: SO346-251X(96)00039-5 Pr in ted in Grea t Br i ta in . A l l r igh ts reserved0346-251X/96 $15.00 + 0.00

AUTONOMY: AN ANATOMY AND A FRAMEW ORKWILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

D epu r tm en t o f Engl i s h, H ong K ong Po l y t e chn i c U n i v er s i t y , H ung H o rn , K ow l o on .Ho n g Ko n g

This article examines the components that make up autonomy in languagelearning. At the core of the notion of autonomy are the learners ability andwillingn ess to make choices independently. In foreign langua ge learning con-texts, we are concerned mainly w ith helping learners to mak e and carry ou tchoices in three domains: com mun ication, learning an d (by processes of transfer)their personal life. In this article, these com ponents and dom ains of autonomyserve as the basis of a conceptual framew ork for coordinating our strategiesfor helping lea rners to develop autonomy . Since the goal of language teaching(and indeed all education) is to develop independent capacities in relevantdom ains, this framework can also be seen as underlying our overall teachingmethodology. Copyright 0 199 6 Elsevier Science Ltd

INTRODUCTIONFor man y years now , autonom y has been a popular focus for discussion in foreignlanguage teaching (e.g. Brookes and Grundy, 1988; Dam , 1988; Dickinson, 1987; Holec,1981; Little, 1991; Dickinson and Wenden, 1995). This popularity is not surprising, sincethe concept accords w ell with several of our central ped agogical preoccupations, notablyour view that lang uage learning requires the active involvement of learners; ou r attemp tsto introduce learner-centred metho ds; and our goal of helping learners to becomeindepend ent from their teachers in their learning and use of language. It is also sup-ported from outside langu age teaching by a general educa tional concern to help studentsbecome more independent in how they think, learn and behave (cf. Boud, 1988;Hamm ond and Collins, 1991).The concept has served a valuable function in focusing our attention on these issues andencourag ing us to explore them w ith greater rigour. It has also served a valuable purposein linking discussions about language teaching with discussions in the wider educationalcontext. It may be , however, that the use of the term h as now reached the stage which communicative and authentic had reached by the end of the 1980s and which hasrecently been reached by task-b ased and learner-centred: as central articles of lan-guage -teaching faith, few people w ould w ish (or dare) to disagree with them, but theyallow so many differences of interpretation that their value in discussion has diminish ed.

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428 WILLIAM LITTLEWOOD

These remarks are not intended to dimin ish the impo rtant role that the concept ofautonomy has played in bringing these issues more sha rply into focus and moving thelangua ge teaching debate forwards. As with the other terms mentioned, however, it isimportant to stand back from time to time and consider what we mean by it. This iswha t the first part of the present article w ill attemp t to do. It will then look at thedifferent dom ains of activity in which w e, as language teachers, can seek to developdifferent aspec ts of autonomy . The overall conclusion will be that, since the over-archinggoal of all teaching is to help learners act more independently within a chosen range ofdom ains, an appropriate methodology in langua ge teaching is also, by definition, amethodology for furthering autonom y.Here a note about terminology is necessary. In many discu ssions about autonomy inlanguage learning, the term autonomy is understood to refer to one particular kind ofautonomy , namely, learner autonomy . This is the case, for example, in the introduc-tion to Dickinson and Wend en (1995) and several papers in the same collection. The pre-sent paper does not follow this restricted usage . Here the term may refer to a capacityfor thinking and acting independently that may occur in any kind of situation (including,of course, a situation where the focus is on learning).

COMPONENTS OF AUTONOMYWe can define an autonomous person as one who has an independent capacity to makeand carry o ut the choices w hich govern his or her actions. This capacity depen ds on twomain components: ability an d willingness. Thus, a person may have the ability to makeindepend ent choices but feel no willingne ss to do so (e.g. because such behaviour is notperceived as appropriate to his or her role in a particular situation). Conversely, a personmay be willing to exercise independen t choices bu t not have the necessary ability to do so.Ability and willingness can themselves each be divided into two com ponents. Abilitydepends on possessing both knowledge about the alternatives from which choices have tobe made and the necessary skills for carrying out whatever choices seem most appropri-ate. Willingness depends on having both the motivation and the confidence to takeresponsibility for the choices required. If a person is to be successful in acting auto-nomo usly, all of these four components need to be present together. For example, a per-son may feel highly motivated to learn outside class but lack the necessary know ledge orskills to organise his or her time effectively; a person may have am ple oppo rtunities todevelop know ledge and skills for organising learning, but not wish to do so because heor she sees this as the teachers role (as for exam ple in the case described in Riley, 1988 );a student who is accustom ed to a high degree of teacher control and suppo rt may lackthe confidence to carry out whateve r skills he or she is taught.In order to develop a strategy for developing autonomy, it is useful to distingu ish thesecomp onents. In practice, however, they are closely linked. Thus, the more know ledgeand s kills the students posses s, the more confident they are likely to feel when aske d toperform independen tly; the more confident they feel, the more they are likely to be ableto mob ilise their knowledge and skills in order to perform effectively; and so on.


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AUTONOMY IN LANGUAGE LEARNlNG 429

GENERAL AND TASK-SPECIFIC ASPECTS OF AUTONOM YIn studying the influence of self-esteem and anxiety on language learning, researcherssom etimes distinguish between learners gen eral level of self-esteem (or anxiety) and theirself-esteem (or anxiety) with regard to specific tasks (cf. Allwright and Bailey, 1991;Skehan, 1989). A similar distinction is useful in discussing the nature of autonomy. Wemay look at a persons g eneral capacity for independen ce across the range of situationswhich he or she encounters. Alternatively, we may look at an individuals capacity to actautonom ously in performing specific tasks, e.g. a profession or learning activity. Withregard to education, Candy (1988) captures this distinction through the terms autonomousindividuals and autonomous students. He argues that one of the superordinate goalsof education is to produce autonom ous individuals ; it is by producing autono mou sstudents within its own specific dom ain that each subject contributes to this overallgoal.In foreign languag e teach ing, the central dom ain of task-specific autonomy that concernsus is comm unication through language, i.e. autonomy as a comm unicator. This washighlighted by Rivers (1975) in her use of the term autonomous comm unication todescribe the goal of foreign langu age teaching. A further dom ain, which has receivedincreasing attention in recent years (e.g. Ellis and Sinclair, 1989 ; Cotterall, 1995 ;Dickinson and Wenden, 1995), is the process of l e a r n i n g how to use language for com-mu nication, i.e. autonomy as a learner. Since the abilities to com mun icate and learnindependently are major factors in enabling a person to make choices in life, they alsocontribute to each learners autonomy as an individual.

LEVELS OF AUTONOMYTo comp lete this analysis of wh at we mean by autonom y, we need to consider onefurther factor, namely, the level of behaviour at which a person makes indepen dentchoices.The choices which govern a persons behaviour operate within a hierarchy of differentlevels. This corresponds to the sam e hierarchy that governs all aspects of skilledbehaviour (cf. Levelt, 1 978; Littlewood, 1992 ). At the bottom of the hierarchy are low-level choices w hich control the specific operations through which the activity is carriedout. At the top are high-level choices which control the overall activity - whethe r toperform it at all, its overall direction, and so on. In between , we can distinguish anynum ber of levels, depend ing on how detailed w e want our description to be. For exam -ple, increasing autonomy in using and learning language could involve a progressionsuch as the following:. learners are able to make their own choices in gram mar and vocabulary (e.g. in

controlled role-plays and simp le tasks involving informa tion exchange ). This is theinitial step towards autonomous comm unication;. learners choose the meanings they want to express and the comm unication strate-gies they will use in order to achieve their comm unicative goals;


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. learners are able to make m ore far-reaching decisions about goals, meanings andstrategies (e.g. in creative role-playing, problem-solving and discussion);. learners begin to choose and sh ape their ow n learning contexts, e.g. in self-directedlearning and project work;

. learners become able to make decisions in domains which have traditionallybelonged to the teacher, e .g. about ma terials and learning task s;. learners pa rticipate in determining the nature and progression of their own syllabus(cf. Budd and W right, 1992);. learners a re able to use language (for com mun ication and learning) independentlyin situations of their choice outside the classroom .

W e can manipulate this progression systematically so that learners gradually increase thescope of their independ ent choices.

SUMM ARY: COMPONENTS, DOMA INS A ND LEVELS OF AUTONOM YThe main components and domains of autonomy with which we are concerned in foreignlanguage learning can now be summ arised in the diagram in Fig. 1.At the centre of the diagram are the basic com ponents of autonomy (ability and willing-ness to make choices) an d the two broad types of autonomy (task-specific and general).

MOTIVATION,CONFIDENCE ( >

I/WILLINGNESS

TO

KNOWLEDGE,

\LABILITY

MAKE AND CARRY OUT CHOICESIN

SPECIFIC TASKS < > LIFE IN GENERAL

AUT ONOMY AUT ONOMY AUT ONOMYAS AS AS

COMMUNI CAT ORS LEARNERS PERSONS

Fig. 1. Compon ents and dom ains of autonomy in foreign language learning.


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AUTONOMY IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 431

The boxes at the top of the diagram show the more specific elements that m ake up will-ingness (= motivation and confidence) and ability (= knowledge and skills). The boxesat the bottom show the three dom ains in which we aim to develop autonomy in andthrough foreign language learning, with varying empha sis depending on our situation:com mun ication, learning and (by transfer) other dom ains of life. The arrows linking the boxesindicate the high degree of interdependence between the dom ains. For exam ple, as a studentdevelops m ore autonomy as a comm unicator, so he or she can make better use of learningopportunities which arise inside and outside the classroom ; a students general autonomyas a person will affect the specific dom ains of com mun ication and learning; and so on.The feature of autonomy that the diagram does not illustrate is that the choices that con-stitute it can be mad e at different levels and that, consequently, there are different leve lsof autonomy within each dom ain. One of our tasks as langua ge educators is to developstrategies for helping learners to make choices at ever higher levels in the dom ains ofcom mun ication, learning and personal life. Taken together, these strategies will consti-tute our methodology for developing autonomy in and through foreign language learn-ing. It is to this aspect of the topic that we now turn.

A FRAMEW ORK FOR DEVELOPING AUTONOM Y IN AND THROUGHFOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING

As a basis for developing practical strategies, the three broad d om ains of autonomy canusefully be broken dow n further into more specific areas:. au t o nom y a s a comm un i c a t o r depends on (a) the ability to use the language cre-

atively; and (b) the ability to use appropriate strategies for com mu nicating mean-ings in specific situations;. au t onom y as a lea rne r depen ds on (a) the ability to engage in independ ent work(e.g. self-directed learning); and (b) the ability to use appropriate learning strate-gies, both inside and outside the classroom;. au t onom y as a person depen ds (in the foreign lang uage learning context) on (a) theability to express persona l meanings ; and (b) the ability to create persona l learningcontexts, e.g through interacting outside the classroom .

In Fig. 2, I have represented the three main dom ains of autonomy (comm unication,learning and personal life) as linked areas around a circle. I have included the morespecific areas w ithin the sam e circle by placing each one next to the dom ain with which itis mo st closely associated. At the centre of the circle I have p laced the four m ain com po-nents of autonomy: motivation, confidence, kn owledg e and skills.The circular layout of Fig. 2 illustrates how the dom ains and areas of autonomy overlap.For example:. linguistic creativity is mo st obviously associated with a persons autonom y as a

com mun icator. However, since it facilitates the expression of personal meaning s, italso contributes directly to his or her autonomy as a person;


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Communication n Learningstrategies

/

strategies

1.Autonomy Autonomyas a as aCommunicator Learner

/ 1

\MotivationConfidenceLinguistic Knowledge Independentcreativity Skills work

Expression ofpersonal meanings Creation of personallearning contexts

I Person IFig. 2. A framework for developing autonomy in foreign language learning

. com mun ication strategies, too, are most obviously associated with a persons auto-nomy as a comm unicator. However, since they enable a student to deal moreindependently with texts and social situations, they also contribute to his or herautonomy as a learner;

. learning strategies a re mo st obviously associated with a persons autonom y as alearner. H owever, since they enable learners to extend their com municative reper-toire, they also contribute to their autonomy as com mu nicators;

. independ ent work includes the creation of personal learning contexts, e.g. obtain-ing foreign new spape rs or joining groups of native-speak ers, and thus contributesto a students autonomy as a person.

A COORDINATED STRATEGY FOR DEVELOPING AUTONOM YWe can now take the six areas of autonomy which are placed around the circle in Fig. 2and consider teaching metho ds for helping learners to develop autonom y within each ofthem. Any particular method may focus on one of these areas bu t, because they are alllinked in the ways just described, will also have a spill-over effect on the other areas.


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AUTONOMY IN LANGUAGE LEARNING 433

The crucial com ponents of autonomy in each domain are placed a t the centre of the cir-cle. W e may some times focus on just one or two of the components placed in the centreof the circle, as when we concentrate on the knowledge and s kills involved in carryingout a particular learning strategy. At other times we may focus globally on all four ele-ments, as when a sequence of role-plays aims to maintain and enhance learnersconfidence and motivation by starting w ith familiar controlled work and mov ing bygradu al steps towards the skills involved in more creative expression. Here are furtherexam ples from the six areas placed a round the circle in Fig. 2:

In the area of i n d ependen t w o r k , w e may wish to increase students ability andwillingn ess to engage in self-directed work. A mo ngst other th ings, we need toconsider:(a) students m otivation for such work, e.g. by clarifying its relationship to their

own needs and objectives;(b) their confidence, e.g. by beginn ing w ith limited, structured tasks and gradu-

ally raising the level at which s tudents need to make choices;(c) a systematic approach to familiarising students with the knowledge and skillsinvolved in controlling their own learning (cf. Dickinso n, 1987 ).In the area of comm un ica t i on s t ra t eg ies , w e may wish to develop students willing-ness and ability to focus on com mun ication rather than accuracy. We need toexplore:(a) ways of encourag ing learners to be ready to take risks and mak e errors in

com mun ication, e.g. by creating a non-threatening atmosp here and involvingthem in small-group interactions;(b) ways of increasing students confidence in their ability to com mun icate suc-cessfully even with their present linguistic know ledge, e.g. by giving positive

feedback which makes them aware of their successes rather than their fail-ures;

(c) ways of making studen ts aware of specific strategies for com pensating forgap s in their linguistic know ledge; techniques for creating situations (e.g. infor-mation exchange) in which students can practise using these strategies.

The gradual and planned developm ent of students ability to use their individuall ea rn ing s t ra teg ies has formed the basis for detailed practical handb ooks such asthose of Ellis and Sinclair (19 89) or Oxford (1990).The students willingness and ability to create pe rsona l l ea rn ing con tex t s may befostered in class through the use of various forms of experiential learning, notablyproject work (cf. Legutke and Thomas, 1991; Ribe and Vidal, 1993) or, outsideclass, through the systematic use of the wider comm unity as a context for learning.In helping stud ents to express persona l m ean i ngs , w e are well served by the tech-niques that have been developed for person alising controlled langua ge practiceby relating it to studen ts own concerns (e.g. Harm er, 1983) and gradually creatingcontexts in which students can engage their own personalities and express theirown meanings (e.g. Cam pbell and Kryszewska, 1992).


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6. Finally, techniques for furthering learners ability to use la nguage crea t iv el y for thecomm unication of meanings have been a prominent component in most of theapproaches to language teaching which have been recommended to teachers inrecent decades (cf. Harm er, 1983 ; Littlewood, 1981).

In this way the framewo rk presented in Fig. 2 can form the basis of a coordinated strat-egy for providing students with opportunities to develop the motivation, confidence,knowledge and skills for autonomy in relevant domains and thus helping them to becomeincreasingly independent as comm unicators, learners and individuals.

CONCLUSIONAt the beginn ing of the article I referred to terms such as communicative and ta sk-based , w hich have all served useful focusing and integrating functions but, largelythrough the multiplicity of their usage, have lost much of the clarity of their mean ing.One could say, indeed, that the very process of analysis w hich they have encouraged hasrevealed their complexity and amb iguity.The notion of autonomy has served similarly impo rtant functions. It has focused atten-tion on a key dimension which pe rmeates all aspects of our work. By doing this, it canalso help us to link and integ rate these aspects a nd thus increase the coherence of pur-pose with which we approach our work.Since the goal of all education is to help people to think, act and learn independently inrelevant areas of their lives, our methodology for developing autonomy (in its variousaspects) is indistinguish able, in the last resort, from o ur general teaching methodology.The framewo rk presented in Fig. 2 could therefore be viewed not only as a frameworkfor developing autonomy but also as a framework for langua ge teaching. In this respect,a strategy for developing autonomy serves the ma in aim s of all aspects of our lan-guage teaching, nam ely, to increase studen ts compe tence as com mu nicators, learnersand individuals.

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