This book discusses the importance of autonomy, agency, and identity in teaching and learning English as a foreign language, all of which are central themes in the educational domain. By linking theory with practice to appeal to researchers as well as classroom practitioners, it provides an overview of the theoretical constructs of autonomy, agency, and identity along with empirical studies that explore these constructs through life stories as told by English teachers and students. Key features include: • New ideas to inspire professionals involved in foreign language education. • Up-to-date information to showcase for English language educators how autonomy, agency, and identity can be conceptualized across various institutional, sociocultural, and political contexts.• A concise yet comprehensive review of the theoretical and practical issues characterizing English foreign language education today.

This book offers readers a basic grounding in autonomy and related concepts of agency and identity in foreign language education. The ethnographic study explores how autonomy develops within the long-term process of EFL and TEFL learning in a Chinese social and institutional context. Through examining the general characteristics and patterns within the long-term development of autonomy among the students, the enquiry puts under close scrutiny a number of fundamental issues in autonomy research and practice, such as reactive autonomy in relation to proactive autonomy, personal autonomy in relation to learner autonomy, other-control in relation to self-control in the «multi-control model» of autonomy, and also issues of autonomy in the transition from foreign language learning to foreign language teaching. The study presents the more «describable» concepts of identity and agency to investigate the development of autonomy in foreign language learning and teaching and explores their complex interrelationships. The book finally highlights major contributions and limitations of the investigation, and provides implications and suggestions for theory, pedagogy and research.

This dissertation, "Autonomy, Agency and Identity in Foreign Language Learning and Teaching" by Jing, Huang, 黃景, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. DOI: 10.5353/th_b4175798 Subjects: Learner autonomy English language - Study and teaching (Higher) - China English language - Study and teaching (Higher) - Chinese speakers English teachers - Training of - China

In this volume researchers from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North and South America employ a variety of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches in their exploration of the links between identity, motivation, and autonomy in language learning. On a conceptual level the authors explore issues related to agency, metacognition, imagination, beliefs, and self. The book also addresses practice in classroom, self-access, and distance education contexts, considering topics such as teachers’ views on motivation, plurilingual learning, sustaining motivation in distance education, pop culture and gaming, study abroad, and the role of agency and identity in the motivation of pre-service teachers. The book concludes with a discussion of how an approach which sees identity, motivation, and autonomy as interrelated constructs has the potential to inform theory, practice and future research directions in the field of language teaching and learning.

This book aims to challenge established teaching cultures to promote teacher autonomy and autonomy-oriented pedagogies in language teacher education. Offering a set of inspiring case studies that illustrate language teacher education for autonomy as a space of multiple possibilities, the book fuses theory and practice and gives a holistic view of the changing landscape of language teacher education, accounting for the transformative power of educational practices that help teachers think and act in informed, context-specific, and learner-centred ways. It also demonstrates the importance of autonomy in language teacher education contexts, specifically to foster teachers’ professional learning, identity, and agency, as well as in assessing and reshaping teacher education programmes. This book will be particularly useful to researchers, scholars, and postgraduate students in the fields of teaching and teacher education, modern foreign languages, and teaching and learning language research more broadly. Curriculum designers and language teacher education programme directors may also find the volume of use.

Autonomy has become a keyword of language policy in education systems around the world, as the importance of independent learning and new technologies has grown. Now in a fully revised and updated second edition, Teaching and Researching Autonomy provides an accessible and comprehensive critical account of the theory and practice of autonomy. Examining the history of the concept, it addresses important questions of how we can identify autonomy in language learning behaviours and how we can evaluate the wide variety of educational practices that have been designed to foster autonomy in learning. Topics new to this edition include: - Autonomy and new technologies - Teacher autonomy - The sociocultural implications of autonomy With over three hundred new references and five new case studies of research on autonomy providing practical advice on research methods and topics in the field, Teaching and Researching Autonomy will be an essential introduction for teachers and students to a subject at the cutting edge of language teaching and research.

Navigating Foreign Language Learner Autonomy provides novel insights into both the theory and practice of learner autonomy in the context of foreign language education, and does so in multiple languages and through multiple voices. The contributing authors showcase effective practices and new directions in research, but also report on the status quo of learner autonomy at institutions around the world. Most of the authors write about their experiences with implementing foreign language learner autonomy in their home or dominant language(s). The volume contains full chapters or extracts in 15 languages: Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese, Māori, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, and Turkish. Each chapter is accompanied by a chapter or summary in English, along with a glossary and some reflective questions. As a starting point, a theoretical introduction is provided by David Little, and to conclude, the editors analyse the narratives of the contributors and comment on the process of navigating autonomy through different languages.

This volume examines the agency of second/foreign language teachers in diverse geographical contexts and in both K-12 and adult education. It offers new understandings and conceptualizations of second/foreign language teacher agency through a variety of types of empirical data. It also demonstrates the use of different methodologies or analytic tools to study the multidimensional, dynamic and complex nature of second/foreign language teacher agency. The chapters draw on a range of theories and approaches to language teacher agency (including ecological theory, positioning theory, complexity theory and actor-network theory) that expand our understanding of the concept, while at the same time presenting various analytic approaches such as discourse studies and narrative inquiry. The chapters also analyze the connection of agency to other relevant topics, such as teacher identity, emotions, positioning and autonomy.

What does 'autonomy' mean within language learning? Should it be enhanced within national, institutional or small group culture and, if so, how can that be done? A variety of new theoretical perspectives are here firmly anchored in research data from projects worldwide. By foregrounding cultural issues and thus explicitly addressing the concerns of many educators on the appropriateness and feasibility of developing learner autonomy in practice, this book fills a gap in the literature and offers practical benefits to language teachers.