A look at the latest trends in education would most likely show that learner autonomy features at least among the top ten of (current) buzzwords. This is also reflected by the large number of publications that have followed Holec’s (1979/1981) report to the Council of Europe. Alongside autonomy, assessment represents a second major area of concern in contemporary research and practice in education. At first glance, this might appear a bit odd, as, according to Benson in his Foreword to the volume, ‘language learning is often subject to assessment regimes that are inimical to learner autonomy’ (p. viii). Ensuing the implementation of educational standards and output-oriented curricula, the spectre of assessment has been haunting the world, and many countries have seen ‘an unbelievable increase in the development of high-stakes testing and assessment modelling as well as the creation of test and assessment centers around the world’ (Finkbeiner 2012: 385). Bluntly put, this means that we find ourselves in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, we as teachers are expected to follow the latest ‘assessment mania’ and measure our students’ abilities to meet often externally predefined outcomes. On the other hand, however, we should help our learners become autonomous (which is difficult even to define precisely! For a comprehensive survey see pp. 9–14).