Learner autonomy has been identified as a complicated capacity that potentially has a great impact on personal growth and achievement. Different mediated attributes associated with situational, psychological, cultural and political aspects of this construct have been developed and examined to facilitate the promotion of this educational goal. Taking this into account, this paper adopts socio-cultural perspective to localize the situation of EFL learning in higher education in Vietnam. Personal reflections and part of the data generated from a large-scale project are extracted to illustrate a dilemma of the context where learner autonomy can be either fostered or hindered deliberately within various community constraints. The paper finishes with a discussion on the implementation of local learner autonomy promoting practices and puts forward some directions for further research.
The integration of interactive online communication into different educational settings has been widely researched since the emergence of Web 2.0 technology. It has been particularly identified to give EFL students more opportunities to express ideas, enhance their engagement in learning activities and promote their confidence during virtual interactions. These benefits coincide with attributes of a learning environment that can foster learner autonomy. Therefore, this paper reports on an investigation into the impacts of the employment of a web 2.0 Learning Management System (LMS) in an EFL course. Data extracted from individual interviews with four undergraduate students in a Vietnamese university was analyzed to illustrate possible effects of LMS in students' ability to initiate, monitor and evaluate their learning process. The presentation continues with a discussion on the cyclic relationship among these three capabilities. It also addresses the local students' perspective on socializing and academic activities as well as the relationship between them in the socio-cultural context of Vietnam. It then concludes with implications for EFL teaching practices with the adoption of LMS and puts forward suggestions for further research.
Learner autonomy has been consistently identified to foster independent learning over the last three decades, and its promoting practices have primarily been targeted by empirical investigations. However, only little attention has been paid to students’ perceptions and the specific social factors that can sustain the development of this capacity, particular in the case of young learners. To bridge this gap, the current study investigates if high school English foreign language (EFL) students’ perceptions of learner autonomy is mediated by their perceived parental supports. Employing a quantitative approach, this research distributed a Likert item questionnaire to 515 high school students who learn English as a foreign language to find out their perceptions of learner autonomy and its relation to the level of parental support that they perceive. The data analysis shows a positive correlation between the two. The more care that the students think they can receive from their parents, the greater appreciation of learner autonomy they express. This indicates the significant role of parents in fostering the development of learner autonomy and calls for further research on this complex relationship.
Learner autonomy has been considered the central aim of education because of its significant role in enabling students to develop into successful lifelong learners. In modern times, students have many opportunities to learn outside the classroom, the ideal context for learner autonomy development. Therefore, research about the development of learner autonomy in the out-of-class learning context needs to receive more focus, especially in Vietnam. Based on sociocultural theory as the theoretical framework, the current research aims to explore the potential of promoting EFL tertiary students’ learner autonomy in the out-of-class learning context through teachers’ roles in the classroom. Data collected from answers to a questionnaire on learner autonomy and teachers’ roles (N=709) suggested significant correlations between factors of the situational, behavioral, and psychological dimensions of learner autonomy and the roles of teachers as a resource, an evaluator, a controller, an instructor, a facilitator, and a co-learner in the classroom. The follow-up semi-structured in-depth group interviews (N=35) revealed that the factors that mediated the relationship between learner autonomy and teachers’ roles were the students’ motivation, teacher autonomy, trust, and care. These results help to bridge in-class and out-of-class learning and provide pedagogical implications to foster learner autonomy development in the out-of-class learning context.
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