Autonomy in Language Education offers a holistic overview of and novel contribution to a complex and multifaceted, yet under-studied, field of inquiry that is transforming language pedagogy: It offers nineteen original chapters that critically analyze the impact of Henri Holec’s seminal 1979 book Autonomy in Foreign Language Learning; unpack theoretical, empirical, conceptual, methodological, ethical, and political developments over the last forty years from many perspectives; explore practical implications for teaching, learning, and teacher education; and suggest future avenues and challenges for research and practice in this broad, diverse, essential field.

This book uses fifteen grounded research projects to explore innovative self-reflexive approaches to autonomy in language education. It emphasizes the multi-voiced and contradictory complexity of pursuing autonomy in language education and includes commentary chapters to help readers engage with key issues emerging from the research.

This book seeks to expand the research agendas on autonomy in language learning and teaching in diverse contexts, by examining the present landscape of established studies, identifying research gaps and providing practical future research directions. Based on empirical studies, it explores research agendas in five emerging domains: language learning and teaching in developing countries; social censure and teacher autonomy; learner autonomy and groups; learner autonomy and digital practice; and finally, learner autonomy and space. In doing so, it sheds new light on the impact of digital media, group dynamics and the application of ecological perspectives on learner autonomy. The contributors present a novel reconsideration of new learning affordances, and their discussion of spatial dimensions provides much needed expansion in the field. This book will have international appeal and provide an invaluable resource for students and scholars of second language learning and higher education, as well as teacher educators. Chapter 2 of this book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2F978-1-137-52998-5_2.pdf.

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.

This book examines this contested relationship between assessment and autonomy from a number of perspectives in a variety of Higher Education language-learning contexts in Europe and the Far East. The contributors to the book describe research into assessment both for and as autonomy, as well as approaches to the assessment of autonomy itself.

This book explores theories of space and place in relation to autonomy in language learning. Encompassing a wide range of linguistically and culturally diverse learning contexts, this edited collection brings together research papers from academics working in fourteen countries. In their studies, these researchers examine physical, virtual and metaphorical learning spaces from a wide range of theoretical and interdisciplinary perspectives (semiotic, ecological, complexity, human geography, linguistic landscapes, mediated discourse analysis, sociocultural, constructivist and social constructivist) and methodological approaches. The book traces its origins to the first-ever symposium on space, place and autonomy, which was held at the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) 2014 World Congress in Brisbane. The final chapter, which presents a thematic analysis of the papers in this volume, discusses the implications for theory development, further enquiry, and pedagogical practice.

This book examines how autonomy in language learning is fostered and constrained in social settings through interaction with others and various contextual features. With theoretical grounding, the authors discuss the implications for practice in classrooms, distance education, self-access centres, as well as virtual and social learning spaces.

The topics of autonomy and independence play an increasingly important role in language education. They raise issues such as learners' responsibility for their own learning, and their right to determine the direction of their own learning, the skills which can be learned and applied in self-directed learning and capacity for independent learning and the extents to which this can be suppressed by institutional education. This volume offers new insights into the principles of autonomy and independence and the practices associated with them focusing on the area of EFL teaching. The editors' introduction provides the context and outlines the main issues involved in autonomy and independence. Later chapters discuss the social and political implications of autonomy and independence and their effects on educational structures. The consequences for the design of learner-centred materials and methods is discussed, together with an exploration of the practical ways of implementing autonomy and independence in language teaching and learning . Each section of the book opens with an introduction to give structure to the development of ideas and themes, with synopses to highlight salient features in the text and help build upon the material of previous chapters.

The exponential growth in the amount and complexity of information transmitted and shared on the Internet and the capabilities afforded by new information technologies result in the continuous emergence of new genres and new literacy practices that call for new models of genre analysis and new approaches to teaching literacy and language, where language learning autonomy has to take centre stage. Any pedagogical approach which seeks to develop autonomy in online language learning should also be concerned with the development of new literacies, with raising an awareness of digital texts and with the cognitive processes learners engage in when constructing meaning in hypertext. The purpose of this volume is to lay the foundations for an approach to online language learning which draws on the analysis of digital texts and of the practices and strategies involved in using such texts. With this aim in mind, this book incorporates and draws relations between research on digital genres, autonomy, electronic literacies and language learning tasks, combining theoretical reflections with pedagogical research. The chapters in this volume, written by researchers from different academic traditions, report research concerning digital genres, new literacy skills and the design of webtasks for effective language learning. These chapters will be useful resources for researchers and doctoral students interested in the development of autonomous language learning in digital environments.

The present volume brings together papers devoted to the role of learner and teacher autonomy in the process of second and foreign language learning, which have been contributed by scholars from Poland and abroad. The book has been divided into three parts in accordance with the topics that the individual contributions touch upon. The first part includes papers dealing with different ways in which learner autonomy can be fostered and evaluated. The papers contained in Part Two are connected with the role of language learning strategies in the development of learner independence. Finally, Chapter Three focuses on developing teacher autonomy, which, in the opinion of many specialists, is indispensable if learner autonomy is to be promoted. Thanks to its wide-ranging focus, this edited collection will be of interest not only to second language learning specialists interested in the role of learner autonomy, but also to undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students working on their BA, MA and PhD theses, as well as practitioners wishing to promote learner independence in their classrooms.