Abstract
The International Conference on Self-Access (Encuentro Internacional de Centros de Autoacceso, EICA) was held at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) from the 4th to the 5th August, 2016. The conference theme in Spanish was Nuevos escenarios en torno a la autonomía del aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras which translates as ‘New scenarios in autonomy for foreign language learning’ and was attended by approximately 280 delegates. Most delegates were based in Mexico and were mainly working in one of the numerous university or school-based self-access centres around the country. Others were classroom teachers interested in learner autonomy and how it can be fostered in their contexts. In this short paper, each of the plenary speakers will share a summary of their talks and this will be followed by some brief reflections on the event in general.
Highlights
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Others were classroom teachers interested in learner autonomy and how it can be fostered in their contexts
The definition will no doubt change in the coming months, but the one I presented at the conference was: Self-access facilities are person-centred social learning environments that actively promote language learner autonomy both within and outside the space
Summary
Plenary 1: Taking Stock and Moving Forward: Future Recommendations for the Field of Self-Access Learning. The definition will no doubt change in the coming months, but the one I presented at the conference was: Self-access facilities are person-centred social learning environments that actively promote language learner autonomy both within and outside the space. The emotion of interest has its own pattern of appraisals: a novelty-complexity evaluation and a comprehensibility evaluation (Silvia, 2008) At this point I asked the audience to consider whether the resources and activities on offer at their self-access centres are likely to trigger learner interest, either in use of the target language or in topics they can explore further through the target language. This is a challenge that, on the evidence of the EICA conference, self-access in Mexico is very well equipped to meet
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