You can lead a horse to the water …

Dear All,

'You can lead a horse to the water, but you can't make it drink'. What light does this old saying shed upon this week’s discussion on learner autonomy? It is a meaning-rich light for sure, as for me it sums up some of the crucial points of the teacher’s role in motivating the learners. In that interplay the teacher provides the learners with the indispensable means for coping in the language learning adventure, if no longer with all the building block themselves. Students’ willingness and capacity to take control over their own learning may arise as an added value. It is great that I found these very words - motivation and their willingness to take responsibility of their own learning – voiced in Nina’s blog as well.

This week I have been reminded that, as teachers, we cannot expect students to act neither unanimously nor reciprocally to our prompts, tasks and expectations – because each student is different, and students, taken collectively, are different than we are. Their motivation differs too – some like learning the language for the fun or even the beauty of it. Some do it because they know it is an asset they can’t do without. Some, of course, do it because they simply have to. I assume that, as professionals, we have to respect these differences and try to direct the learners by trying to engage different learners in different ways.

In his article Engaging students as learners Jeremy Harmer refers to one of the features of an engaged and autonomous learner as that eager to ‘take over agency’ and, consequently, ‘responsibility for one’s own actions’. Autonomy is primarily discussed in the relationship of the student to himself/herself, or to the teaching material, or the teacher, for that matter.

Yet, learning is a process that heavily relies on the interaction with the environment, and in ideal circumstances, this joint effort, massive input and output, feedback and scaffolding, implies the learning community. Therefore it can be compared to ‘an orchestra’ (another term Harmer uses) in which everyone is a ‘player’. Still, there are students who refuse to take agency and become players, preferring the role of listeners. Interestingly enough, Harmer suggests that such students are necessarily no poorer for that.

Although my reflections so far seem to be more illustrative of engaging learners than encouraging their autonomy, the two processes are actually intertwined. Over the last few weeks all of us on this course have agreed that one of the benefits of technology is that we no longer need to be the sole source of linguistic or cultural information for our learners. On the contrary. What we can and should do is to direct, recommend, and help student aggregate and critically approach what they come across. Besides, technology enables students to be involved in learning even when the teacher is not there. So it is access and exposure that are vastly augmented owing to ICT. The sense of student’s individual ‘voice’ is further facilitated by the Internet’s democratic nature.

Yet where does this abundance often leave us? Sometimes students will take shortcuts on their road to autonomy – rather than taking trouble to perform their own searches, to take one example, they will happily embrace the most obvious search results. The ease of use is the king. Also, if not reminded that ‘learning is discovering things we already know’, students may feel they have learnt enough and stop being curious to explore further, having reached a kind of a plateau.

Our role as teachers is by no means diminished by no longer being a sole linguistic authority. There are many other, just as complex roles, we need to take on - equipping the students with strategies, be it cognitive or metacognitive. Also, the fact that human communication is being increasingly exercised through technology, makes the socio-affective strategies no less important – they are very much needed by our homo zappiens students to both cope and strive in the classes of the future. Personally, I find it extremely daunting, as a lot of our assumptions we gained during our professional growth need to be redefined. Also, there are some novel issues, like the large-scale introduction of iPads, for instance, mentioned by our moderator Jeff Magoto this week, which are bound to change the learning landscape ever further. The idea of a teacher as the students’ companion on this ever more demanding road to learning seems plausible to me.

There is more information around and more hunger for it than ever. Hoping that the thirst for knowledge will not cease either, I would like to conclude by saying that the hardest thing for us as teachers to do is probably to tell at which point our ‘leading to the water ends’ and our students’ ‘drinking the water’ starts.

I am giving final touches to the draft of my report as well. Like Zlatka said, it seemed easier to do than it turned out to be – the hard part being focusing on the important bits and making them understandable for the reader. Having the opportunity to exchange feedback on my own work with one of my colleagues here certainly helps me understand my students more.
Yet it is an inevitable part of our learning experience.

Best regards,

Andreja