AUTONOMY LIST

Autonomy in a connected world

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:19:00 GMT

In response to Linda's points, yes, as we know all learners bring to their learning a whole set of beliefs and attitudes, preconceptions and assumptions about what language learning involves and how they see themselves as language learners. What is particularly interesting is the big gulf that often exists between high self-esteem a a person in the workplace and total lack of confidence as a language learner. And all this has an effect on the development of autonomy: low levels of confidence are often associated with high levels of teacher dependence. So it is a question of how much support a learner needs in order to change negative self-perceptions and take off as an independent learner, and how this support can best be incorporated into course materials and teaching approaches in new learning spaces.

There is of course another type of learner who reflects a deficit model of autonomy - someone with very high self-esteem who has no worries about him or herself as a language learner, seeing successful learning as the job of the teacher. This type of learner is not willing to engage with the idea of autonomy at all - in the same way as servicing the car is 'the job of the mechanic at the garage' ... It may be that the 'new' ways of connecting will encourage even the most reluctant, whether based on lack of or high levels of confidence, to embrace autonomy, naturally and unproblematically. As learning environments change so may the interpretation/application of autonomy.

But what do people understand by a 'multi-faceted and dynamic view of learner autonomy'?

Stella

Hello everyone, here are a few �starting� thoughts related to issues raised in Elspeth Broady�s abstract�.

Working with adult learners I see how people with lots of experience and very responsible positions in all areas of life may see deferring to the teacher or the teaching material as the �thing to do� when they sign up for a language course. Perhaps it�s less a matter of dealing with a deficit and developing capacity for autonomy than about freeing people from preconceptions to use the capacity they have and ensuring that our programmes don�t contradict that intention?

Linda

Hi everyone!

As Andy has announced, we would like to start a discussion in advance of the IATEFL LA SIG/SWON Autonomy in a Connected World event in Milton Keynes on 11th December.

Inspired by Elspeth Broady's abstract (click here or see below), we would like you to think about the following:

Do you see evidence of a �deficit model� of learner autonomy in your advising/teaching/learning context? How unhelpful or useful do you think it is? (For example, is it not the case that many learner training or 'learning how to learn' programmes are built around such a model?) Thinking about how this relates to the bigger conference theme, what aspects of our �connected world�, should we be considering when trying to build effective learning environments and relationships with our students in order to reflect a multi-faceted and dynamic view of learner autonomy? Should the emphasis here be on 'new' ways of connecting - online social networking for example, or the physical, but loosely structured learning spaces known as learning commons? Or is there still a case for building effective learning environments for learner autonomy in classrooms and self-access centres?

Let the discussion begin!

Linda and Lucy

2009/10/14 Andy Gao <andygohteacher@hotmail.com>

Dear all,

Good morning from Hong Kong!

I am honoured to declare that the autumn discussion at autol will be moderated by Lucy Cooker from Nottingham University and Dr. Linda Murphy from Open University. They will be chairing the discussion in relation to the forthcoming SWON IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG event at Open University. Here is a message from them:

The forthcoming SWON (Sheffield, Warwick, OU, Nottingham Autonomy Network) /IATEFL LA SIG/Open University event to be held at the OU in December is entitled 'Autonomy in a Connected World'. The invited speakers at this event are Elspeth Broady, Bernd R�schoff, and Ema Ushioda. Our AUTO-L discussion this season is aimed at promoting interest and discussion in advance of the event by focusing your attention on the opening presentation to be given by Elspeth Broady, and some of the issues she raises.

In her abstract, Elspeth Broady writes:

A deficit model of learner autonomy � our learners don�t have it, we need to develop it � can undermine our ability as teachers to build effective learning environments and relationships with our students. As much of the reflective work of the last twenty years has argued (Benson, 2007; Oxford, 2008) �learner autonomy� is � and must be � a multi-faceted and dynamic concept...

Do you see evidence of such a �deficit model� of learner autonomy in your advising/teaching/learning context? How unhelpful or useful do you think it is? What aspects of our �connected world�, should we be considering when trying to build effective learning environments and relationships with our students in order to reflect a multi-faceted and dynamic view of learner autonomy?

Best Regards,

Xuesong (Andy) Gao

Department of English, Hong Kong Institute of Education

10, Long Ping Road, Taipo, Hong Kong

http://www.ied.edu.hk/eng/staff/academic_xsgao.htm

________________________________

The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

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Autonomy in a connected world

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Hello everyone, here are a few �starting� thoughts related to issues raised in Elspeth Broady�s abstract�.

Linda

________________________________

The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

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Autumn discussion - Autonomy in a Connected World

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:12:00 GMT

Hi everyone!

As Andy has announced, we would like to start a discussion in advance of the�IATEFL LA SIG/SWON Autonomy in a Connected World�event in Milton Keynes on 11th December.�

Inspired by Elspeth Broady's abstract (click�here�or see below), we would like you to think about the following:

Do you see evidence of a �deficit model� of learner autonomy in your advising/teaching/learning context? How unhelpful or useful do you think it is? (For example, is it not the case that many learner training or 'learning how to learn' programmes are built around such a model?) Thinking about how this relates to the bigger conference theme, what aspects of our �connected world�, should we be considering when trying to build effective learning environments and relationships with our students in order to reflect a multi-faceted and dynamic view of learner autonomy?�Should the emphasis here be on 'new' ways of connecting - online social networking for example, or the physical, but loosely structured learning spaces known as learning commons? Or is there still a case for building effective learning environments for learner autonomy in classrooms and self-access centres?

Let the discussion begin!

Linda and Lucy

2009/10/14 Andy Gao <andygohteacher@hotmail.com>

Dear all,
�
Good morning from Hong Kong!
�
�
I am honoured to declare that the autumn discussion at autol will be moderated by Lucy Cooker from Nottingham University and Dr. Linda Murphy from Open University. They will be chairing�the�discussion in relation to the forthcoming SWON IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG event at Open University. Here is a message from them:

The forthcoming SWON (Sheffield, Warwick, OU, Nottingham Autonomy Network) /IATEFL LA SIG/Open University event to be held at the OU in December is entitled 'Autonomy in a Connected World'. The invited speakers at this event are Elspeth Broady, Bernd R�schoff, and Ema Ushioda. Our AUTO-L discussion this season is aimed at promoting interest and discussion in advance of the event by focusing your attention on the opening presentation to be given by Elspeth Broady, and some of the issues she raises.

In her abstract, Elspeth Broady writes:

A deficit model of learner autonomy � our learners don�t have it, we need to develop it � can undermine our ability as teachers to build effective learning environments and relationships with our students. As much of the reflective work of the last twenty years has argued (Benson, 2007; Oxford, 2008) �learner autonomy� is � and must be � a multi-faceted and dynamic concept...

Do you see evidence of such a �deficit model� of learner autonomy in your advising/teaching/learning context? How unhelpful or useful do you think it is? What aspects of our �connected world�, should we be considering when trying to build effective learning environments and relationships with our students in order to reflect a multi-faceted and dynamic view of learner autonomy?

Best Regards,

Xuesong (Andy) Gao
�
�

Department of English, Hong Kong Institute of Education
�
10, Long Ping Road, Taipo, Hong Kong

�

http://www.ied.edu.hk/eng/staff/academic_xsgao.htm

�

�

--
Lucy Cooker
PhD Research Student
Mob: +44 (0) 7811 436581
Supervisors: Dr Barbara Sinclair & Dr Richard Pemberton

The University of Nottingham
School of Education
The Dearing Building, Room C16
Jubilee Campus
Wollaton Road
Nottingham, NG8 1BB

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Early bird registration deadline approaching!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:01:00 GMT

Dear colleagues (apologies for cross-posting)

I wanted to let you know that the early bird deadline to register for the next IATEFL learner autonomy event is fast approaching (30th October). Visit the website for more details and online registration: http://learnerautonomy.org/open2009.html

This year's event entitled 'Autonomy in a connected world' will take place at the Open University in Milton Keynes on Friday 11 December 2009. The three invited speakers are:

Elspeth Broady, Independent educational consultant, joint editor of Language Learning Journal

Autonomy and identity � seeing and moving comfort zones

Bernd R�schoff, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Germany

Web 2.0 tools to actively engage language learners in output-oriented tasks

Ema Ushioda, Programme Director of the Doctorate of Education in Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, UK.

Teacher-learner autonomy in a connected world: re-engaging alumni through an
online community of practice

Check the website for full details of the other presentations http://learnerautonomy.org/open2009.html

Regards,

Jo Mynard (on behalf of the organising committee)

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Announcing Autunman discussion at Auto-l

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:44:00 GMT

In her abstract, Elspeth Broady writes:

Do you see evidence of such a �deficit model� of learner autonomy in your advising/teaching/learning context? How unhelpful or useful do you think it is? What aspects of our �connected world�, should we be considering when trying to build effective learning environments and relationships with our students in order to reflect a multi-faceted and dynamic view of learner autonomy?

Best Regards,

Xuesong (Andy) Gao

Department of English, Hong Kong Institute of Education

10, Long Ping Road, Taipo, Hong Kong

http://www.ied.edu.hk/eng/staff/academic_xsgao.htm

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ILA 2007 Japan Conference Proceedings - published online

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:53:00 GMT

Apologies for cross-postings

Dear AUTO-L colleagues,

On the second anniversary of the ILA 2007 Japan Conference, I am delighted to announce that the proceedings have been published online, and can be viewed and downloaded from the ILA website:

http://www.independentlearning.org/ILA/ila07/en/proceedings

�

The proceedings comprise�42 of the 170 scheduled parallel sessions, and one paper written in response to one of the sessions. The proceedings�have been registered as an online publication ISSN�2073-7513. All papers were double-blind peer reviewed a minimum of twice.

The editors are grateful to all authors and reviewers for helping us make this such a marvellous record of the event.�

I hope to see many of you in Wellington, New Zealand in 2012 for the 5th ILA conference.

Best wishes

Lucy Cooker

On behalf of�

Michael Carroll, Desir�e Castillo, Lucy Cooker and Kay Irie
Editors
ILA 2007 Japan Conference Proceedings

--�
Lucy Cooker
PhD Research Student
Mob: +44 (0) 7811 436581
Supervisors: Dr Barbara Sinclair & Dr Richard Pemberton

The University of Nottingham
School of Education
The Dearing Building, Room C16
Jubilee Campus
Wollaton Road
Nottingham, NG8 1BB�

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Autonomy in a connected world: Online registration open

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:22:00 GMT

Dear all (apologies for cross posting),

We just wanted to let you know that online registration for the upcoming event "Autonomy in a Connected World" at the Open University on Friday 11th December in Milton Keynes is open.

More information, abstracts, updates and registration details can be found on the event webpage: http://learnerautonomy.org/open2009.html

Best wishes,

Leni Dam Jo Mynard Stella Hurd
IATEFL LA SIG IATEFL LA SIG The Open University

Autonomy in a Connected World

Friday 11^th December 2009

http://learnerautonomy.org/open2009.html

Sponsored by IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG, the SWON (formerly SWAN) one-day conference will be hosted this year by the Open University, Milton Keynes (within easy reach of London and Birmingham by train). SWON is a network of academics and research students at the universities of Sheffield, Warwick, Nottingham and the Open University, who share an interest in researching and promoting autonomy in language learning.

This year's event entitled 'Autonomy in a connected world' will take place at the Open University in Milton Keynes on Friday 11 December 2009. As well as a number of researchers from the Open University, three invited speakers will be giving presentations at this event:

Elspeth Broady, Independent educational consultant, joint editor of Language Learning Journal

Bernd R�schoff, Professor of Applied Linguistics, Duisburg-Essen (UDE), Germany

Ema Ushioda, Programme Director of the Doctorate of Education in Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, UK.

Please check the website for details of the presentations and read the abstracts.
http://learnerautonomy.org/open2009.html

The conference fee, which will include lunch and refreshments, will be:

Early-bird registration (by Friday 30th October)

IATEFL Members	�45
Non-Members	�55
Students	�25

Late registration
IATEFL Members	�50
Non-Members	�60
Students	�30

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Find out about research, higher degree courses and studentships at the OU

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:56:00 GMT

Please see attached - also posted below.

CENTRE FOR RESEARCH IN EDUCATION AND EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY

CREET POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH OPEN DAY

17^th November 2009 10am � 3pm

You are warmly invited to a Research Open Day on 17^th November 2009, where you can find out about our full range of higher degree courses and our current research interests.

Attending our Open Day is an opportunity to meet with our students and supervisors. You can discuss your research interests, see our research facilities and hear about some of our current research projects.

Research within CREET is grouped into clusters reflecting our main interests in child and youth studies, educational studies, higher education, language & literacies and technology-enhanced learning.

We offer a number of funded studentships, covering both fees and maintenance for our three or four year PhD programme. To find out more about our PhD programme go to http://creet.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/phd.cfm. At our Open Day you will receive advice about completing your application form and on writing a research proposal.

To register for a place on our Open Day email CREET-student-enquiries@open.ac.uk or telephone Anne Foward on 01908 655364.

Part-time Doctorate in Education

To find out about our part-time research degree, the Doctorate in Education, please contact CREET-student-enquiries@open.ac.uk or go to http://creet.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/edd.cfm and attend the Open Day on 17^th November 2009.

Best wishes,

Stella

Dr Stella Hurd,
Senior Lecturer in French
Department of Languages
FELS, Stuart Hall Building, Floor 1
Open University
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA

Join the OU one-week language summer school in France! www.open.ac.uk/action-in-french

The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

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Video gaming and learner autonomy

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:36:00 GMT

Dear all,
I am starting a new funded project on foreign language learning and video gaming. If you (or colleagues you know) are interested in knowing more about the project (or comments or dialogue or a chat...), please let me know

The development of language learner autonomy through video gaming
This project aims to explore the relationship between learner autonomy and out-of-class language learning, with a particular focus on foreign language learners' use of video gaming:
1.    How do foreign language learners learn from video gaming?
2.    What are their approaches in adopting video games for their language learning purposes?
3.    What types of language learning skills and strategies do they develop during video gaming?
4.    How do these out-of-class activities influence the development of learner autonomy in language learning?

The data collection methods will include:
1.    Autobiographical language learning histories written by the learners and researchers to gain insight into their foreign language learning and video game playing histories and to serve as a source of triangulation with other data;
2.    Observation and field notes from 10 video-taped gaming sessions, used to monitor the gaming process;
3.    A blog, used to keep asynchronous reflections from learner-participants and researchers;
4.    Semi-structured interviews conducted by the learner-participants with their friends and regular video gaming partners, used to enrich the understanding of video gaming and language learning from a wider community of young adults and video gamers; and
5.    Focus group interview sessions, at the beginning and the end of the study, will be used as reflective practices to explore the development of learner autonomy and foreign language learning in relation to video gaming.

At the moment, we recruited 10 undergraduates from different disciplines. We plan to start the project in the last week of September, if you are interested in collaborating or knowing more about the participants, please contact Alice (alice.chik@gmail.com).

You can also follow our project at http://en-videogaming.blogspot.com/

Cheers,

Alice

Dr. Alice Chik

Assistant Professor

Department of English

City University of Hong Kong

Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon Tong

Hong Kong

(Office) 3442 8209

(email) alice.chik@cityu.edu.hk

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Continuing Professional Development and Teacher Autonomy

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 18:31:00 GMT

Dear all,

I�d just like to thank everyone who responded to my request for ideas regarding the seminar I gave on teacher autonomy and continuing professional development. The feedback I�ve received has been very positive and now would seem to be the moment to capitalise on this and begin to make some changes. Interestingly (at least for me), much of the most animated discussion centred on ethical issues of teacher collaboration, power and identity and ways in which we can work more productively together. Having an audience with a wide range of responsibilities and experience helped keep the discussion concrete and practical.

If you would like a copy of the PowerPoint slides I used, please feel free to contact me privately off-list.

Alex

Alex Ding
Head of New Technologies in English for Academic Purposes
Centre for English Language Education
University of Nottingham
Jubilee Campus
Wollaton Road
Nottingham
NG8 1BB

Tel: +44 (0) 115 9514495
Fax: +44 (0) 115 9514992
http://www.cele.nottingham.ac.uk/

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Re: A troubled vocabulary curriculum and student autonomy.

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:29:00 GMT

Chantal and Andy,

Good advice! My colleagues and I have been batting around similar ideas, and students who have actually experienced elements of the scenario have done pretty well with their own solutions. When crafting the scenario I simply stitched together all of the challenges that some of them face into one unlikely "nightmare" class. Unlikely, but not impossible. Thanks to your thoughtful replies we will be better prepared if the nightmare ever occurs.

With Regards,

David

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