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Tit2019b Week 2 Nguyen Thanh Binh

This document discusses developing learner autonomy and communicative competence. It argues that learners need the confidence and skills to continue learning independently. Teachers play an important role by providing genuine communicative demands that require learners to make their own decisions. However, teachers are often concerned about motivating learners and preventing embarrassment, which can inhibit autonomy. The document also discusses using strategies to develop effective autonomous learning skills in students and the importance of explicitly teaching learning strategies.

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Binh Nguyen
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24 views

Tit2019b Week 2 Nguyen Thanh Binh

This document discusses developing learner autonomy and communicative competence. It argues that learners need the confidence and skills to continue learning independently. Teachers play an important role by providing genuine communicative demands that require learners to make their own decisions. However, teachers are often concerned about motivating learners and preventing embarrassment, which can inhibit autonomy. The document also discusses using strategies to develop effective autonomous learning skills in students and the importance of explicitly teaching learning strategies.

Uploaded by

Binh Nguyen
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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TECHNNIQUE IN TESOL – 2019B Nguyễn Thanh Bình 19814011131

WEEK 2

Communicative competence and learner autonomy

It is necessary to make communicative competence the goal learning. In order to achieve such
goal, encouraging learner autonomy is of great importance. Specifically, learners are expected to
have sufficient confidence and competence to continue learning the language independently. The
process of working towards it requires learners to make choices not only in the content of what is
learned but also the methods and materials to learn it. In addition, it is argued that learners are
unlikely to become communicatively competent if they are not faced with genuinely
communicative demands. A possible explanation for this could be the fact that genuinely
communicative demands play a significant role in asking learners to make their own decisions
without any support.

Developing autonomous classrooms: the teachers’ perspective

Motivation

One dimension that has been deemed as problem-raising for language teachers in increasing
learner autonomy is motivation. Many teachers are concerned to "keep it simple" in order to
avoid learner frustration when they are assigned an assignment that they consider to be "too
complicated." To deal with the situation, Johnstone's (1989) "problem-solving strategies" were
applied. Teachers often appear to carefully scaffold the interaction to prevent pupil
embarrassment when they fail to answer a question. This form of scaffolding is unlikely to
prepare learners for the demands of real-world language use. However, if teachers believe that
scaffolding is required for most effective whole-class interaction, leaving learners to work
independently is doubtful.

First steps?

The first step towards autonomous learning that Harris (2000) argued is the carousel. However,
this raises many questions as the carousel is observed to cause the situation in which pupils are
not genuinely engaged. It is because that they neither have a real “say” in their learning nor any
sense of responsibility for it. Autonomy implies freedom to choose; choice implies the ability to
make sensible decisions. All things considered, teacher-centered structure or learner-centered

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continuum, it is to superficially restructure the way the classroom is organized but without any
fundamental changes into who make choices over what.

The introduction of the written form

Another aspect that might be preventing language teachers from providing more autonomy is a
concern about the use of the written word. The focus should be on oral work, according to a
common assumption about the communicative approach. New language should be presented and
practiced orally before learners see the written version. Besides, learns tend to request target
language phrases that are specific to their own needs and desires, which is one of the problems of
a more autonomous class. The teacher is understandably worried that they do not have the time
as well as the means to verbally practice any of these phrases with the entire class. For this
reason, they would have no choice but to write it down.

Being an autonomous learner: the pupils’ perspective

A range of key skills are found to be lacking in learners. As a result, it is essential to study the
strategies used by effective language learners to deal with the challenge of coping in a new
language. Metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social and affective strategies were
classified by O'Malley and Chamot (1990).

A successful language learner is one who makes personal decisions, either implicitly or
explicitly, about how to make learning easier in whatever situation they find themselves in. They
know what to concentrate on and which strategies to use at different stages of the learning
process. If this is not the case, teachers should step in to instruct them how to learn effectively.

The purpose of strategy instruction should be made explicit to pupils

Learners should be aware of the reasons for using strategies in addition to the activities and
materials designed to elicit their use. Once they have a clear understanding of learning strategies,
they will be capable of moving strategies from the training context to any other appropriate
setting they may experience, and even some improve the ability to choose which strategies seem
to be more appropriate to the task at hand without constant support from the teacher.

Other than that, SI should involve interactive, collaborative learning. Also, there is broad
agreement that SI should be intergated into modern language curriculum. Finally, as much as
possible of the SI should be in the target language as well.

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