Autonomous Learning in CALL

Many learning situations in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) are actually autonomous situations. Students work autonomously on a software program, activities on a website, WebQuests, and many other lessons that incorporate the use of a computer. As Deborah Healey points out in her article "Theory and Research: Autonomy and Language Learning," there are varying degrees of autonomy. She quotes Benson (2002) as stating, "Autonomy is whatever an autonomous person thinks it is." That is, a group of students could work together on a computer assisted task without guidance from the teacher and feel that they are being autonomous.

An important part of Healey's article is a breakdown of autonomy into four perspectives: technical, psychological, sociocultural, and political-critical. In the technical perspective, the content is taken into consideration. Based on the learner's needs and goals, the learner should be guided by the facilitator to use a variety of materials and methods that will assist the student to grow in his/her language learning. A student could easily stop learning because s/he works on only one skill or activity. For example, I have seen students in the Language Technology Center at my language school concentrate only on learning new vocabulary words. One student in particular was so intent on learning more words that he never learned to use the words. He would write the word down with the definition in English and the translated word in his native language. If I ever pointed to a word and asked him to use it in a sentence, he could not. He got stuck at this stage for about three months before I was finally able to work with him and get him involved in other activities - such as reading books. In this case, I took away his ability to use the computer for a month.

The second perspective, the psychological perspective, looks the motivation and learning preferences of the individual learner. To me, this is something instructors struggle with. Often, due to time constraints and the inability to work with students on an individual basis or a lack of knowledge on how to assess a student on this perspective, teachers do little to increase a student's self-motivation. Students need to be directed towards self-motivation in order to be autonomous. They must be able to get over technological and other psychological barriers.

As I stated previously, sometimes autonomous learning deals requires students to work together without the constant guidance of the instructor. This leads to the consideration of the sociocultural perspective. Healey states, "A community of practice, generally larger than a pair or small group, can enhance autonomous learning by providing social, psychological, linguistic, and academic support for learning." I find this to be true. An English Language Learner (ELL) might think that s/he is the only person in the world having trouble pronouncing a particular sound or understanding and using a particular verb tense when in fact many ELLs probably have the same struggles. Feeling alone, the student may give up, but when working with others, the student will learn that s/he is not alone and, therefore, feels better about the struggle. The student may feel more motivated to overcome the situation. Another advantage to social learning is the ability for the teacher to take a further step back. The ELLs can work together to learn - they can teach each other, allowing the teacher to move from a traditional teacher role to more of a facilitator role.

The final perspective, the political-critical perspective, draws on the work of such researchers as Paulo Freire. In this perspective, autonomy is seen as a way to increase an individual's personal feeling of power. The student has an increased sense of his/her ability to control his/her learning.

As you can see, autonomy plays a very large role in CALL. CALL can create a feeling of control of one's learning and can also increase a student's motivation to learn.