Developing Learner Autonomy in Figurative Thinking

Abstract

So far we have seen that figurative thinking is likely to play a fairly important role in foreign language learning, and that it can be beneficial for language teachers to help their students develop their figurative thinking capacity, in order to facilitate their comprehension and retention of L2 figurative language. However, inasmuch as learners need ultimately to be able to operate without the support of a teacher, one important part of this process must involve helping learners to identify and understand figurative thinking processes, and exercise a degree of control over them. In other words, learners need to develop a degree of autonomy over them. Just how much autonomy is possible or productive, though, is a complex question. The aims of this chapter are therefore to examine what is meant by ‘autonomy’, to assess the extent to which foreign language learners can develop autonomy over their figurative thinking processes, and to consider how at least some of the barriers to autonomy might be surmounted. We argue that an awareness of the existence of such barriers can in many cases be a first step towards dealing with them.