What teachers think about learner autonomy

Abstract

Readers will not be blamed for sneering at the pretentiousness of the title of this article. Who can claim to pontificate on what teachers think about Learner Autonomy? Which teachers did one have in mind? What areas of autonomous learning were in focus? What sort of tools were used to find out views and figures? The notion of anyone being able to come up with some sort of reliable conclusions about this controversial area of educational practice seems to be quite a tall order. A small group of educators assembled on a cool spring day at the European Centre of Modern Languages in Graz decided to give it a try. On that day the group decided to set up a project which sought to find out what teachers across a number of European countries think about this important pedagogical issue. By establishing the premise that there are areas of learner autonomy which attract more support than others from teachers, and by sharing a common professional curiosity to find which areas attracted which support, the group was amply motivated to spend the best part of two years trying to find out the answers.