“We should learn to navigate on a sea
of uncertainties, sailing in and around islands of certainty”
- Edgar Morin, Seven Complex Lessons in Education
for the Future. UNESCO Publishing,
2001.
"You cannot teach a man anything; you can
only help him find it within himself."
–Galileo
Who needs to get smarter the computers or the
people?
Autonomy and independence are used more or less
as synonyms in language teaching. To me,
both terms imply that students take a greater degree of control over the content and methods of
learning than is usual in classroom language learning contexts. Taking control over learning also
implies that students have or develop the capacity to learn independently and that the
institutional context in which they are learning allows them to do so.
It has been claimed that all learning is ultimately autonomous
learning in the sense that it
depends on the efforts of the learners themselves. Allowing students greater freedom in learning
and helping them to become more aware of their capacities for autonomy may therefore
enhance motivation and the quality of learning.
Autonomy is not a synonym of 'learning on your
own' or 'self- study'. Although autonomy was
associated with the concept of individualization in the early 1980s, most researchers now prefer
to emphasize interdependence as a dimension of autonomous learning. The term 'self-direction',
or 'self- directed learning', is often used in connection with autonomy. It implies that learners
study under their own direction rather than under the direction of another. Self-directed learning
does not necessarily imply 'learning without a teacher', but in self-directed learning the teacher's
may become more that of a helper or counsellor.Thus learning to be autonomous is basically an
individual, gradual, never ending process of self- discovery - a process through which each of
us gradually discovers the maximum of autonomy which is possible given the subjective and
objective constraints of our own individual situation. So the true meaning of autonomy is not a
complete, irrational freedom to do anything under the sun, but rather a more subtle ability - the
power to decide, at any single moment, whether we should be safe or daring (cf. van Lier
1996, page 65).
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