Abstract
This chapter outlines and discusses three versions of the concept of learner autonomy. The first, central to the Council of Europe’s project on adult education in the 1970s, embeds “self-learning” in the interactive, dialogic processes of group work. The second version, elaborated by Henri Holec for the Council of Europe’s parallel project on adult language learning, is closely associated with the first but is exclusively cognitive-organizational and individual in its orientation; and it treats the development of learner autonomy and the growth of proficiency in the target language as separate processes. This version had a major impact on universities’ understanding of autonomous language learning: students working on their own in a self-access centre, probably a language laboratory. The third version of learner autonomy is concerned with classroom language learning. Developed by Leni Dam as a set of practical procedures, it shares with the first version the view that learning is a social-interactive as well as an individual-cognitive process; and because from the beginning the target language is the principal medium of classroom communication, it sees the development of learner autonomy and the growth of target language proficiency as inextricably linked. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of these three versions of learner autonomy for English-medium programmes at non-English-speaking universities.
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Little, D. (2017). Three Versions of Learner Autonomy and their Implications for English-Medium Degree Programmes. In: Breeze, R., Sancho Guinda, C. (eds) Essential Competencies for English-medium University Teaching. Educational Linguistics, vol 27. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40956-6_10
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