Language Learner Autonomy: Policy, Curriculum, Classroom: A Festschrift in Honour of David Little

417 Pages·2010·4.628 MB·

by  Breffni O'Rourke, Lorna Carson (editors)

Contents
Leo van Lier
Foreword: Agency, Self and Identity in Language Learning ix
Lorna Carson and Breffni O’Rourke
Introduction: Language and Learners, Interdependence
and Autonomy xix
Acknowledgements xxv
Part I Language Learner Autonomy
Viljo Kohonen
Autonomy, Agency and Community in FL Education:
Developing Site-based Understanding through a University
and School Partnership 3
Lienhard Legenhausen
Group Work, Weak Learners and the Autonomous Classroom:
Indirect Support for the Interaction Hypothesis? 29
Ema Ushioda
Researching Growth in Autonomy through I-Statement Analysis 45
Naoko Aoki and Osaka University students
A Community of Practice as a Space for Collaborative
Student Teacher Autonomy 63
vi
Leni Dam
Developing Learner Autonomy with Adult Immigrants:
A Case Study 79
Dieter Wolff
Developing Curricula for CLIL: Issues and Problems 103
Bernd Rüschoff
Authenticity in Language Learning Revisited:
Materials, Processes, Aims 121
Bernd Voss
Language Teaching in Higher Education and the TCD
Language Modules 135
Lorna Carson
Innovation and Autonomy in an Institution-wide
Language Programme 151
Part II Second and Minority Language Education
Ewelina Debaene and David Singleton
The Language Educational Experience of Polish Migrants
in France and Ireland 171
Lorraine Leeson
Supporting Academic Success for the Irish Deaf Community 189
John Harris
Attitude Motivation in the Early Learning of Foreign Languages
and Minority Second Languages 213
vii
Muiris Ó Laoire
Change and Challenge in the Teaching of Irish 231
Pádraig Ó Riagáin
Implementing International Standards for Minority Language Policy:
The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
and Moldova between 2000 and 2005 251
Waldemar Martyniuk
Assessing Competences at the End of Compulsory Schooling:
The Polish Case 273
Androula Yiakoumetti and Edith Esch
Educational Complexities inherent in Bidialectal Communities and
the Potential Contribution of the Common European Framework
of Reference to Second-dialect Development 291
Part III Implementing the Common European Framework of
Reference and the European Language Portfolio
Joseph Sheils
Council of Europe Policy for Plurilingual Education 315
Rolf Schärer
The European Language Portfolio:
Goals, Boundaries and Timelines 327
Hanne Thomsen
This is My Portfolio: Telling the Story of My Learning 337
Manolis Sisamakis
The Motivational Potential of the European Language Portfolio 351
viii
Philip Riley
Reflections on Identity, Modernity and the European Language
Portfolio 373
Appendix
Chronological Bibliography of Publications by David Little 387
Notes on Contributors 399
Index 409
Leo van Lier
Foreword:
Agency, Self and Identity in Language Learning
David Little has influenced language education in Europe profoundly and
in many ways. He is probably best known for his pioneering work on the
notion of autonomy in language teaching and learning, but the present col-
lection shows that there are many other aspects to his work and influence:
the CEFR, the ELP, the teaching of Irish as a native and second language,
language education for immigrant workers, and more. It is not hard to find
something to write about that is relevant to David’s lifelong endeavous.
The challenge is to push ahead, that is, to use his work as an inspiration to
further explore the visions and ideals that he has championed over many
years. My aim is to give a bit of a push, or at least a modest nudge, encour-
aged by the many excellent contributions of David’s students, colleagues
and friends collected in this volume. I start with the notion of autonomy,
but I suggest that the underlying issues that are raised all relate to a central
theme that foregrounds the notion of agency and, indeed, advocacy and
purpose. None of these things are neutral or uncontested; they all require
constant effort and argument, as well as of course action.
In this contribution I examine some constructs that are used increas-
ingly in our field, and that are deemed to be of significant importance in the
learning of additional languages – though we appear still to be struggling
to find empirical support. These constructs are agency, self and identity.
The first of these constructs, agency, is close to the notion of autonomy
that has played a central role in the work of David Little. In fact, I would
be hard put to give a precise delineation of the similarities, and especially
the differences, between agency and autonomy. For now, let’s regard them
as synonymous, noting only that they arise from different – though quite
compatible – traditions of scholarship. The second and third notions, self
x Leo van Lier
and identity, are often lumped together in the various social sciences that
discuss them, e.g., psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy – and
applied linguistics. I shall argue, however, that they are best conceptualised
as two different attributes of a person, in our case a language learner. More
precisely, the self is a reference point, and identity is a family of processes
and activities that co-reference and co-create self and world in a number
of ways, with the goal of achieving an ecological fit (the ecology being
comprised of physical, social and symbolic relations).
1. Self
I will begin with the notion of self, since I take this to be ontologically
primary, even though it may be hard to disentangle it from agency; in fact
self and agency are probably coeval. In our relations with the world, the
self “sprouts” identities, which are ways of relating self to world. The self is
basically anything and everything we call “me” or “I” (Harter, 1999). Then,
agency refers to the ways in which, and the extents to which, the person
(self, identities, and all) is compelled to, motivated to, allowed to, and
coerced to, act. Noticing (ironically) the passive in all these statements, I
hasten to add that agency refers equally to the person deciding to, wanting
to, insisting to, agreeing to, and negotiating to, act. And with these two last
sentences, one intransitive and the other transitive, we have captured nicely
the complexities of the notion of agency (more about this below).
The grammatical choice of passive and active voice in the two parts
of the definition above illustrates the Janus-faced nature of the notion of
autonomy (and self, identity and autonomy, by extension): it looks in two
directions at the same time, to the personal, and to the social, to “myself”,
and to “the other”. This harks back to the age-old dualism of subject and
object, but we need to understand that “I/me” and “you/it” both contain
objective and subjective memories and projections, thus illustrating that
the subject-object dichotomy is a false one.
Foreword: Agency, Self and Identity in Language Learning xi
Philosophically speaking, there are several views on the self. Sceptics,
like David Dennett, claim that there is no such thing as the self, and he uses
the analogy of a termite colony to explain what he means. A termite colony
seems to act in highly coordinated and purposeful ways, even though there
is no central command centre or government (i.e., a sort of controlling
“self” of the colony as a whole) that tells any individual ant what to do.
By analogy, as people, we do things one way or another way, but to claim
that we have a “self” that makes decisions is merely a fiction, or at best a
convenient metaphor (Dennett, 1991).
Counter to Dennett and other sceptics, the neuroscientist Antonio
Damasio (1999) does argue for the existence of the notion of self, and he
supports his argument by describing a number of cases that illustrate the
destruction of self due to reasons of disease or trauma. In accounts of self
such as those of Dennett, Damasio and others, self is taken to be close
to or identical with consciousness. In addition, as Dennett also points
out, consciousness is closely coupled with action or doing things, hence
our need to invoke agency in the description of self above. You cannot
describe self without describing agency. A person and his or her actions
define each other.
A final, crucial observation is that in the view of many writers about
the self, including Dennett and Damasio (the first philosopher, the second
neuroscientist), but also Vygotsky (1987) and Dewey (1916), the self (or
consciousness, which as noted to many writers appears to be essentially
synonymous) is in equal measure knowledge (cognition) and emotion. John
Dewey decried the separation and even opposition between the intellect
and the emotions in education. As he put it, professional educators seem to
think that “the intellect is a pure light; the emotions are a disturbing heat”
(1916, p. 321). He argued that this dualism had a crippling effect on educa-
tion. Perhaps as an expression of this perceived split between intellect and
affect, or knowing and feeling, there is now a need to think of different kinds
of intelligence, instead of just one (Gardner’s multiple intelligences (1993),
and Goleman’s emotional intelligence (1995), are examples of this).
xii Leo van Lier
2. Agency
As I mentioned, I find it hard to distinguish agency from autonomy, or
indeed from other related constructs such as self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997),
locus of control (Deci & Ryan, 1985), or self-regulation (Vygotsky, 1987).
For David Little, learner autonomy is “essentially a matter of the learner’s
psychological relation to the process and content of learning … a capac-
ity for detachment, critical reflection, decision-making, and independent
action” (Little, 1991, p. 4). We can relate autonomy in this sense also to
intrinsic motivation, as I did in an earlier discussion (van Lier 1996). We
can also relate it to Edward Deci’s pedagogically very useful distinction
between “controlling” and “autonomy-supporting” discourse in the class-
room (Deci & Flaste, 1995).
A much-cited definition of agency is the one by the anthropologist
Laura Ahearn: “agency is the socioculturally mediated capacity to act,”
which she wisely refers to as a “provisional definition” (2001, p. 112). It is
indeed provisional. In a recent paper (2008) I explored a number of L2
classroom interactions in terms of the agency they might display, and found
this issue to be far from straightforward. In addition (perhaps more contro-
versially), I do not think that the capacity to act has to be socioculturally
mediated. For example, if I am running along a forest path and encounter
a small creek, I may display agency in deciding to jump across that creek
without getting my feet wet. There is nothing sociocultural in that. Relat-
ing that same idea to language, if someone asks me when I am in Paris,
“Voulez-vous du café? Dessert?” my answer (yes or no) may be mediated
more by the contents of my wallet or my stomach than by sociocultural
considerations. In other words, we should not assume that there is socio-
cultural mediation in everything we do.
Foreword: Agency, Self and Identity in Language Learning xiii
3. Identity
Above I mentioned that the self “sprouts identities” in its relations with
the world. This statement presupposes a distinction between self and iden-
tity. A reasonable question to ask is, why make such a distinction, in other
words, what is the conceptual and empirical basis for it?
The answer to this question is not easy. To begin with, empirically
speaking there is very little evidence for the existence of self or identity, let
alone its or their impact on L2 development. Neuroscientific case reports
and clinical studies, such as those of Damasio (1999), do provide strong
grounds for postulating a notion one might call self, associated with brain
structures such as the hippocampus, the frontal lobe, and the amygdala,
but a distinction between self and identity does not have a great deal of
empirical support to date. In addition, many other words are used to refer
to the various phenomena associated with self and identity, including
notions such as personality, persona, and role, with various assumptions
as to their origin, stability, or changeability.
Be that as it may, we do know that people have different identities (to
use the term our field appears to have settled on – see Block, 2007a). Norton
has characterised identity as “a site of struggle” (1995), and I would like to
interpret this as the struggle of a person (self) in a particular environment.
The struggle is one of, on the one hand, maintaining the integrity of the
self and, on the other hand, adapting to (getting along, finding one’s place,
surviving or thriving in) the environment.
The notion of identity struggle, or of developing new or different iden-
tities, is most relevant in a situation in which a person experiences changed
or changing environments, including educational, vocational, linguistic or
intercultural environments. I would not go so far as to say that in every
different environment we enact an entirely different identity, though this
depends of course in large measure on how broadly or narrowly we con-
strue “identity”. In most cases there will be constancy as well as variation as
we move from setting to setting. In stable situations we may move effort-
lessly between settings, say home, office, classroom and pub, and it might