1. Hong Kong Institute of Education
HASALD Seminar ( )
Fostering learner autonomy through reflective journal writing in class
Dr. Joanne Chuk
Hong Kong Institute of Education

2. Presentation Outline
Teacher and learner autonomy
Research Gap
Research context
Research design
Findings of the study
Recommendations

3. What makes successful teachers successful?
Genuinely successful teachers have always been autonomous in the sense of having a strong sense of personal responsibility for their teaching, exercising via continuous reflection and analysis the highest degree of affective and cognitive control of the teaching process, and exploring the freedom that this confers. (Little, 1995, p.179)

4. Teacher Autonomy & Learner Autonomy
Autonomy is a highly rated goal of teachers.
Results of survey of 2,565 students in 11 countries suggest that students also share a positive views towards independent learning. (Littlewood, 2002)

5. Learner Autonomy & Teacher Autonomy
Learner autonomy is defined as the capacity, freedom, and responsibility to make informed decisions about one’s own learning. (Aoki, 2002)
Teacher autonomy is defined as teachers’ willingness, capacity and freedom to take control of their own teaching and learning.
(Holec, 1981, Allwright, 1990, Bergen Declaration, 1990, Dam, 1995, Huang, 2005)

6. Research Gap
- Not much research has been done to explore issues of autonomy in pre-service language teacher education.
- While teacher education programmes have a crucial role to play in developing teachers to be autonomous in their own learning and teaching, there have been very few reports showing how these programmes attempted to promote autonomy.

9. The Autonomy Project Website

11. Research Context
Language Proficiency Assessment for Teachers (LPAT) in 2001 (External LPAT)
Internal LPAT at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (Graduation Requirement)
Secondary ELT Methods: Developing Literacy Skills
Used Reflective Journal Records from 2002 onwards

12. Research design In-class reflective journal writing
(semi-structured form with titles (e.g. what I have done, what I have learnt, Reflection on yourself as a language learner, any future plans)
All journals were returned to students for review at the end of each semester
One final reflective form was distributed in the last session of each semester

13. Exploratory Practice
Two fundamental principles for Exploratory Practice:
1) promoting everyone’s understanding, while
2) promoting language teaching and learning.
Taking action to promote ‘understanding’ is the starting point for improving quality of life.
Action for understanding is fully integrated into classroom life so that it does not lead to ‘burn-out’ on the parts of the participants.
Allwright (2003, 2005)

14. Metacognitive Awareness & Autonomy
To make informed decision about learning:
Learner awareness
Language awareness
Learning process awareness
Social awareness
(Sinclair, 1999)

15. Language characterized by
Evaluating linguistic evidence of metacogntive awareness (Sinclair, 1999)
Level
Language characterized by
Level 1
-largely unaware-
description with little or no rationale;
broad statements with little or no support; little or incorrect use of metalanguage
Level 2
-becoming aware
Greater use of anecdotal evidence; expression of thoughts/feelings;
metaphor; metalanguage
Level 3
- largely aware
Confident and competent use of the above
+ descriptions of alternative strategies

16. Findings
What are the effects of promoting learner autonomy through reflective journal writing in class?

17. Findings - Learner awareness
“I am definitely a visual learner because seeing the verbal materials helps me to learn best. If I only get the sound without words I could not comprehend well enough. As a teacher, I think I should provide multimodal learning materials for students to cater for their diverse needs..” (Maria)
“I like learning through interaction & negotiation. I’m somebody who enjoys engagement in social interaction, through which I think knowledge can be constructed. I may conduct my class in a more student-centred manner to facilitate student learning.” (Brian)

18. Findings – Language awareness
“I am weak in making use of a wide variety of sentence structures in writing. My vocabulary bank has to be expanded. As a teacher, I have to monitor the accuracy of my own speech and make appropriate on-the-spot self-correction.”(Vicky)
“I need to pay more attention to grammartical accuracy in my assignments and oral delivery. As a potential teacher, I should be cautious in accuracy when designing notes, PPT and I need to monitor my speech in class because SS are learning from my production.”(Oscar)

19. Findings – Learning process awareness
“Yes, I’ve planned to learn some practical ways in teaching writing, e.g. peer assessment, providing linguistic support. I also learnt how to evaluate teaching plans so as to give feedback to my partner’s work and modify my own work. To choose an appropriate text for students, I tried to pay more attention to the linguistic features in the texts.”(Florence)
“Well, I have not achieved some of the plans but I have made great progress in my listening skills. In these two months, I have intensively watched an American TV series “Smallville” for over sixty episodes. I realized that I could catch up with the pace of native speakers when they speak.”(Eric)

20. Findings – Learning process awareness
“For future plan, I frequently put down “to enhance my teaching in the future.” I think by learning different strategies, I have basically grasped some ideas for teaching. E.g. for language of interaction, I know how to elicit answers from my students and I practiced it with my tutees.” (Jo)
“Yes, I have learnt different practical reading & writing strategies especially through the process at doing the reading & writing plans. I also tried out the reading and writing strategies I learnt by teaching a remedial class on Saturday.” (Nathan)

21. Findings – Learning process awareness
Changing as a person:
“Yes, I’ve become more patient. ^_^ (I believe)”.
- Koey

22. Findings – Social awareness
“By giving and receiving feedback, I could learn to identify the strengths and weaknesses of others. By receiving feedback, I could know my mistakes and further improve.” (Patty)
“I find it beneficial because I can reconsider my views from others’ perspectives. When some of my groupmates are not that constructive in contribution, I can still learn how to deal with difficulties arising from group work. (Jocelyn)

23. The use of Reflective Journal writing
I have never done formal reflection for my study. This is an absolutely insightful way for me to probe into my internal world and to question how much I have acquired. (Borromeo)
It helps me to recap what I have learnt that day. Besides, I have also reflect on my proficiency in English when writing the journal. I can keep track of my improvement. (Connie)

24. The Use of Reflective Journal writing
“It helps me to reflect on my weaknesses and find some personal ways to handle the problems. It promotes independent learning. Teacher can’t push me. It’s me who pushes myself to learn. Once I made my future plans, I could check my learning process and this provokes self-efficacy.
I have one point to add, if a new section is added, - ASKING STUDENTS TO ASK QUESTIONS, it may help further push students to reflect by coming up with questions.” (Eric)

25. Findings – Readiness for autonomy Marton et al’s (1993) conceptions of learning:
Increasing one’s knowledge
Memorizing and reproducing
Applying
Quantitative
gains
4. Understanding
5. Seeing something in a different way
6. Changing as a person
Qualitative gains

26. Teacher’s reflection Implemented EP with a sense of ownership
Received immediate feedback on my teaching from the learner diary records
Achieved better mutual understanding
Tailor-made class activities for my students
Learned to stepped back and let my students take more responsibility

27. Conclusions
Metacognitive awareness was raised to varying degrees in different students.
Both learners and the teacher achieved a better understanding of their classroom experiences.

28. Recommendations
The promotion of learner autonomy depends on the promotion of teacher autonomy. There is an interdependent relationship between teacher autonomy and learner autonomy. (Benson, 2001 and 2002; Lamb, 2000; Little, 1995; McGrath, 2000; Smith, 2003; Thavenius, 1999; Vieira, 1999).
Future teacher education programmes should provide student teachers with the skills to develop autonomy in the learners.

29. Thank you!
Questions and comments are welcome!