English 345: Thursday, October 20

When I first started to read about learner autonomy from Chapter 6 in Kumaravadivelu, I asked myself, "Is there a minimum age on teaching this?" I then got to page 144 and read this, the simple answer to my question: "Learners at different proficiency levels will profit from an emphasis on academic as well as liberatory autonomy." Yet, I asked that initial question partly because of what I've seen this year in various classrooms. Many ISU freshmen simply do not want to think for themselves. They don't seem willing to and able to think independently. And many really don't want to take responsibility for their own learning. Instead, they want to teachers to tell them exactly what to do and exactly how to do it. They want teachers to point out the exact location of some particular point on the class syllabus. And, when something goes wrong, they want to immediately blame someone else rather than look back at their own learning and classroom decisions to see what caused that event to happen.

So, what I have seen a lot of this past year is a complete lack of learner autonomy of any kind. I see teachers trying, but many students just don't seem to care. Looking back, the problem could stem from a lot of factors, from the type of teaching that they often get in high schools today to overactive parent involvement to the complete lack of care about this particular class (which then creates the attitude of, just tell me what to do, I'll do it, then I'll pass the class). Regardless of the reason, the autonomy isn't there--and the students really don't seem to care.

With the previous scenario as a backdrop, I found chapter 6 to be thoroughly refreshing. Regardless of a learner's age, one can start teaching him or her autonomy, both the narrow as well as the broad view. The students above will likely be able to develop the skills of autonomy; they probably just haven't been given the chance, and haven't felt that there was a need, yet. Almost all are L1 learners from the middle class, so "questioning" why things are done the way they are, why they speak English the way that they do, why they write in the "standard" English, likely are not pressing issues for them. They are the audience that the standardized tests are written for. They are the audience most consider when writing textbooks. These ideas of autonomy are still very important, but just not pressing.

However, learning these skills of autonomy, from learning how to learn to learning to liberate are extremely important to L2 learners, especially those who immigrant to this country during their K-12 years. Unlike the previously afforementioned group, they probably aren't being considered in school decisions. Their first language is probably never being given use or rarely. Giving them the opportunity to question what decisions, regarding their language use or otherwise, is a skill that they necessarily need to learn. As Pennycook notes, have them examine just what sociopolitical factors are really shaping theri L2 classrooms. The libertory autonomy is synonymous with a critical pedagogy, which, in turn, is synonymous with Freire's idea of giving "power to the oppressed," of allowing those students who may not be considered in school policies the power to question just why this is so.