Abstract
Learner Autonomy is a key element in the field of education, and the number of academic studies in the field has considerably increased recently. Educators have also attached importance to classroom implementations to raise their learners’ autonomy over time. In this classroom action research study at a university in Turkey, I aimed to present the findings to this question: What is my learners’ level of awareness regarding their own learning and study habits? This article will present the results of this classroom inquiry based on a portfolio task that asked learners to prepare an oral report about their study habits. Data were collected through student notes, my notes on the whiteboard, and observations throughout the task. The thematic analysis method was used to analyze patterns in the data. The results suggest that learners are good at accessing study materials according to their identified needs. Although they have some effective strategies for how to learn, these strategies are outnumbered by source selection strategies in the students’ suggestions list. This article may be useful to those who are interested in promoting learner autonomy through classroom activities.
Highlights
Learner Autonomy has been one of the trending concepts which language educators in Turkey are willing to explore more in recent years
Learner Autonomy and Its Significance in Language Classes As the well-known English proverb goes, ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.’
Learner autonomy has become a key element of all types of learning, and it has seen a considerable growth of interest in academia
Summary
Learner Autonomy has been one of the trending concepts which language educators in Turkey are willing to explore more in recent years. At AYBU School of Foreign Languages (AYBU SFL), students are required to complete one year of English classes before they start studying their own major. My observations and experiences have taught me that learners should be supported to be more autonomous, out of class and in a classroom setting, so that they can lead and direct their own learning. With the motive to promote learner autonomy through classroom activities, I applied this exploratory classroom research in one of my classes, where I taught English to these students who were studying their second academic year at AYBU SFL. Learning advisors can prepare learners in advising sessions through the promotion of deep reflection Another method that can be applied is to help learners through structured awareness raising classroom activities. One area that could help us is advising in language learning (ALL) which aims to assist learners to develop these characteristics
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