Tools to develop language learner autonomy

1. Tools to develop language learner autonomy David Little Trinity College Dublin Ireland

2. Overview • What autonomous learners can do in their target language after four years of learning: two examples • Learning tools and learning focus in the autonomy classroom • Speaking and thinking in L2: a Vygotskian perspective • A concluding theoretical view of language learner autonomy

3. What autonomous learners can do in their target language after four years of learning: two examples

4. Where do the examples come from? • Leni Dam’s classroom • Learners at the end of their fourth year of learning English: Grade 8 / 15 years old • The question: “After four years of learning English, how would you assess your overall progress?” • The task: to write a short self-evaluation • The immediate nature of the task: • Learners must reflect briefly on the question and then write their response in their logbooks • They have no time for elaborate preparation, use of dictionaries, etc. • They must activate the same psycholinguistic mechanisms as underlie fluent speech

5. Example 1 Most important is probably the way we have worked. That we were expected to and given the chance to decide ourselves what to do. That we worked independently … And we have learned much more because we have worked with different things. In this way we could help each other because some of us had learned something and others had learned something else. It doesn’t mean that we haven’t had a teacher to help us. Because we have, and she has helped us. But the day she didn’t have the time, we could manage on our own. • Impressive combination of fluency and competence • Relation between proficiency in English and awareness of the learning process: “the way we have worked”; “the chance to decide ourselves”; “we worked independently”; “we have worked with different things” • Learner self-direction and control benefits the individual learner but also the class as a whole: “in this way we could help each other”

6. Example 2 I already make use of the fixed procedures from our diaries when trying to get something done at home. Then I make a list of what to do or remember the following day. That makes things much easier. I have also via English learned to start a conversation with a stranger and ask good questions. And I think that our “together” session has helped me to become better at listening to other people and to be interested in them. I feel that I have learned to believe in myself and to be independent. The target language as medium of communication and instrument of reflection • Again a combination of fluency and competence • The capacity of the autonomy classroom to • create continuities between learning at school and life outside the classroom: “I already make use of the fixed procedures from our diaries when trying to get something done at home” • have an impact on general attitudes and behaviour: “I think that our ‘together’ session has helped me to become better at listening to other people and to be interested in them” • develop learners’ confidence and self-esteem: “I have learned to believe in myself and to be independent”

7. Learning tools and learning focus in the autonomy classroom

8. Learner logbooks − record of learning • Content of lessons • Words etc. to be memorized • Plans for homework • Evaluation of own progress • Especially in the early stages, the texts they compose • As far as possible in TL • Posters − stimulate, guide and record learning of class • Words and phrases • Ideas for learning activities and homework • Results of brainstorming (teacher translates from L1) • In due course learners make their own posters Tools • Learner-created learning materials • Word cards  • Dominoes  • Picture lotto  • Board games • Learner-generated texts • About myself  • Picture + text  • Plays, stories, poems • Projects

9. Creative text production • Activities that • gradually become more complex and ambitious from a very simple start • usually involve working in pairs or small groups • give language learning a “here and how” purpose • Intentional learning • Activities that are • Analytic • Focus on language and linguistic form • Can be very simple • Beginners’ word cards • or complex & sophisticated • Hanne Thomsen’s vocabulary learning project (Thomsen 2003) A dual focus Logbooks, posters, intentional learning activities and creative text production are all second-order tools • Three points to note: • Because everything is communicated in the TL, the boundaries between intentional learning and creative text production are fuzzy • Traditional distinctions between listening/speaking and reading/writing are difficult to maintain • The dynamic of the classroom depends on writing in order to speak and speaking in order to write

10. Speaking and thinking in L2: a Vygotskian perspective

11. Vygotsky’s view of the relation between speech and thought Verbal thinking Speech Thought

12. Four kinds of speech (Vygotsky 1987) • Written • Designed for others • No interlocutor • No paralinguistic cues • Fully explicit and expanded • External • Social function • Dialogic form • Abbreviation possible: shared knowledge and assumptions • Egocentric • Developmental bridge between external and inner speech • Evolving form • Inner • Largely implicit and fragmentary • Social interaction with oneself as the basis of human consciousness

13. Four kinds of speech (Vygotsky 1987) The developmental process External speech Egocentric speech Inner speech

14. Four kinds of speech (Vygotsky 1987) • The relation between external and inner speech is complex and dynamic: • External speech: “a process of transforming thought into word” (Vygotsky 1987: 257) • Inner speech: “a process that involves the evaporation of speech in thought” (ibid.: 257) • “Where external speech involves the embodiment of thought in the word, in inner speech the word dies away and gives birth to thought” (ibid.: 280) • Miller (2011: 195) on the transient function of egocentric speech: • “… as children develop into adults they discard their external auxiliary crutches and replace them with internal mental representations” • they become “fully autonomous agents with motives ‘that give birth to thought’ ”

15. In the autonomy classroom • All activity is mediated, embedded and realized in “external speech” • “External speech” is captured in writing (logbooks, posters) • Creative activities entail the production of “written speech” (About myself, Picture + text, plays, stories, poems, etc.) • Constant engagement with the target language − communicating but also reflecting − generates a capacity for inner speech (thinking on the basis of the target language) • The capacity for inner speech in the target language explains learners’ ability to produce discursive text spontaneously and fluently • As learning progresses, learners are able to abandon some of their second-order tools (word cards, lotto, picture dominoes) as they become increasingly autonomous agents in the target language The target language itself is the first-order tool of learning in the autonomy classroom

16. Conclusion

17. A theoretical summary • Learners already know, at least implicitly, what it is to behave autonomously: they are agents of their own lives outside school

18. The joys of family life “To parents, even babies seem to have a will of their own; they are hardly passive creatures to be easily moulded by the actions of others. From their earliest years, boys and girls make their active presence, their wilful agency, their demands and protests, very vividly felt. In every household that has children, negotiations must be made with young family members: their personal agendas have somehow to be accommodated” (Salmon 1998: 24)

19. A theoretical summary • Learners already know, at least implicitly, what it is to behave autonomously: they are agents of their own lives outside school • Our task is to help our learners extend their existing capacity for autonomous behaviour to the business of learning/using and using/learning the target language • This entails helping them to make their autonomy explicit • Giving them co-responsibility for planning, monitoring and evaluating • Ensuring that all learning activity embedded in reflection  metalinguistic talk in the target language • Our first-order tool: spontaneous and authentic target language use  from the first the target language is a channel of learners’ agency • Our second-order tools (which mediate the first-order tool): logbooks, posters, learner-created learning materials, learner-generated texts

20. References Miller, R., 2011: Vygotsky in Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thomsen, H., 2003: Scaffolding target language use. In D. Little, J. Ridley and E. Ushioda (eds), Learner Autonomy in the Foreign Language Classroom: Teacher, Learner, Curriculum and Assessment, pp.29–46. Dublin: Authentik. Vygotsky, L. S., 1987: Thinking and Speech. In R. W. Rieber and A. S. Carton, The Collected Works of L. S. Vygotsky. Volume 1: Problems of General Psychology. New York and London: Plenum.