1. Learner and Teacher Autonomy in language education
KWOK Chee Ying Henry
LAM Yan Yin Felix
LAU Tik Sang Dickson
LEE Chi Leung Edmund
TAM Ming Sum Sammy

2. What is your goal
as an English Teacher?

3. Autonomy
Creating spaces

4. Constraints Exams Oriented Culture Time Family EDB Class size Workload
Classroom
Discipline
Resources
Family
Student diversity
Exams
Oriented
Culture
Workload
Scheme of Work
Lack of
Training
EDB
School Politics

5. Teacher Autonomy Benson (2000) ‘right to freedom from control’
Little (1995) ‘capacity to engage in
self-directed teaching’
Smith (2000) ‘teachers’ autonomy as learners’

6. Teacher Autonomy Aoki (2000) ‘autonomous teachers’
‘the capacity, freedom, and responsibility to make choices concerning one’s own teaching’

7. Learner Autonomy
Would it be great if students can learn by themselves?
Misconception: ‘learning without a teacher’
Little (1991) ‘capacity for taking control of learning’

8. Teacher Autonomy Dimensions
Classroom-based approach to the development of learner autonomy (Sinclair 2000)
Prominence of learner autonomy as a goal
Promoting learner autonomy
Structuring and scaffolding reflective learning
Learning ‘pedagogy for autonomy’
‘student are to learn to take control and teacher may need to let go.
Reflection: When to let go, when to control?

9. Teacher Autonomy Dimensions
PSYCHOLOICAL
TECHNICAL
POLITICAL
a strong sense of personal responsibility (continuous reflection and analysis)
how pedagogical skills can be acquired
uniform staff development programs & classroom observations
Capacity for self-directed professional action
Capacity for self-directed professional development
Freedom from control by others over professional action or development

10. Linking together Teachers Able to apply to be an to their autonomous
TECHNICAL
PSYCHOLOICAL
In order to promote learner autonomy,
teachers may need to have:
Teacher
Training
Pedagogy
for foster
autonomy
Teacher
Reflection
Learning
together
with students
as a student 1.
Capacity for
self-directed
teaching 2.
Freedom from
control over
their teaching 3.
Capacity for
self-directed
teacher-learning
Able to apply
to their
teaching
Capacity to grant
learners’
freedom
in learning
Teachers
to be an
autonomous
learner
Exam
Oriented
Culture
POLITICAL
Teacher Education (e.g. PGDE)

11. Teacher Autonomy Linking together Learner Autonomy Constraints
Creating Spaces
PSYCHOLOICAL
TECHNICAL
Attitudes, Skills, and Knowledge (ASK)
Life-long Learning
Learner Autonomy
POLITICAL
Constraints
Time
Student diversity
Lack of
Training
Family
Classroom
Discipline
Workload
EDB
Resources
School Politics
Exams
Oriented
Culture
Scheme of Work
Class size
Motivated
Better Language
Learning

12. Language Teaching
Autonomy in ELT?

13. Autonomy vs. Methods Grammar Translation Direct Method Audio- Lingual
CLT
TBL
Materials
Design
Autonomy

14. Autonomy in Language Teaching
Grammar translation method
Assigned teaching materials
Little autonomy
Direct method
Find examples from every day vocabulary and sentences
Audio-lingual method
Follow model dialogue and teach through repetition & drilling

15. Autonomy in Language Teaching
Communicative Language Teaching
“It is unified but broadly based, theoretically well informed set of tenets about the nature of language learning and teaching.” (Brown H.D. 2001)
Design learning activities and tasks involving real-life communication
Autonomy

16. Autonomy in Language Teaching
Task based learning
Skehan’s (1998) concept of TBL
Meaning is primary
Communication problem to solve
Relationship to comparable real-world activities
Task completion
Assessment of the task in terms of outcome
Select authentic materials
Autonomy

17. Summary (Autonomy vs. Methods)
Grammar
Translation
Direct Method
Audio-
Lingual
CLT
TBL
Materials
Design
Assigned & prepared in advance
Examples from every day
Repetition & drilling
Design learning activities
Authentic
Autonomy

18. Sharing

19. Henry After school enhancement classes (S3 & S6)
Drilling on TSA/ HKCEE / HKALE / HKDSE past paper
No autonomy
After school enhancement classes (S1, S2, S4, S5)
Less Drilling on past paper
Flexible group activities & games
Autonomy

20. Australian Primary School NET
Syllabus and teaching materials from EDB
(Primary Literacy Reading Program – PLP-R)
(Primary Literacy Reading/Writing Program – PLP-R/W)
Autonomy in group activities & games with P1 & P2
touch the words
tailor-made chess board
baseball score card
CVC (Consonants Vowels Consonants ) word game
singing the “left & right” songs, letter songs, etc.

21. Felix Teacher Students Time limitation Belief Meaning Motivation
Syllabus, lesson time, assessments, etc.
Belief
If you believe, you will
Encourage reflection
Students
Meaning
“What” to express before “how”
Motivation
Need
Cultural: teacher’s responsibility (Sakai, Takagi and Chu 2010)

22. Dickson Scheme of work Teachers
Form coordinators deliver the scheme of work to form teachers.
Have to finish teaching the units and specific items within the assigned periods.
Teachers
Design worksheets, hangouts and any other teaching materials other than the textbooks in order to fit the needs of their own classes
Always encourage and reinforce students that they are capable and smart enough to learn more
Assign more challenging tasks and teach more advanced level items

23. Dickson
Students
believe they are capable so they are willing to accept extra tasks.
develop a habit that reading Young Post and write down new vocabulary items on their ‘Learning Log’ every day.
submit news summary and reflections which are not assigned by the teacher.
apply those new items in their writing and speaking tasks.

24. Edmund Teacher Students Creating spaces out of constraints
Teach Junior High if possible
Try to pick the essentials to teach from the Scheme of Work
Spare as much free time to discuss the weekly news
Learner autonomy – true believer of self-directed learning
Students
Weekly reading and writing as a habit
Reading (Authentic Materials – One news article weekly)
Writing (News report - encourage students’ reflection)
Insist on marking with feedbacks on their weekly writings
Exam-oriented culture as the external driver

26. Sammy Background of the school A Band 3 secondary school
A connection between the local school and the American Lutheran Church.
Department of International Interface
American volunteers visit the campus by promoting Christianity and English learning through playing games, singing songs, visiting local families, participating in the lessons, etc.

27. Sammy Teacher autonomy promotes learner autonomy through:
Support by the Principal
Participating several activities with the volunteers from the US (sightseeing, dining, worshipping, etc.)
Communication > learning English for exam

28. Sammy Teacher Autonomy Constraint (Senior secondary school) Feasible
Society: Expect HKDSE takers have certain proficiency level
Parents: Expect the school has more drilling and practice
Curriculum: Senior form ( preparing for the HKDSE)
Time constraint : Remedial classes for different subjects
Feasible
Junior form
Language arts
Appreciation and enjoyment of the language
American studies lesson (culture, living style, activities)
Facebook connection with the US volunteers

29. Sammy
Evaluation
Not everyone in the school has the opportunity to participate
Able to create the space to enhance both teacher and student autonomy in junior level.
Enhancing the autonomy in their early age would strength the possibility of the development of whole-life learning

30. How can you create more spaces for yourself?
Discussion
How can you create more spaces for yourself?

31. References

32. References
Benson (2010). Teacher education and teacher autonomy: Creating spaces for experimentation in secondary school English Language teaching. Language Teaching Research, 14(3),
Benson & Huang (2008). Autonomy in the transition from foreign language learning to foreign language teaching. DELTA: Revista de Documentacao de Estudos em Linguistica Teorica e Aplicada,
Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd Edition). New York: Addison Wesley Longman
Sakai, S., Takagi, A., Chu, M.P. (2010), Promoting Learner Autonomy: Student Perceptions of Responsibilities in a Language Classroom in East Asia. Educational Perspectives v43
Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to language learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith R.C. (2003). Teacher education for teacher-learner autonomy. Centre for English Language Teacher Education (CELTE). University of Warwick. UK.

33. The End
~~~Thank you~~~