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RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN LEARNER
AND TEACHER AUTONOMY: REALITIES AND RESPONSES
Abstract
This symposium will explore the relationships between learner
and teacher autonomy through practice-based studies carried out
in university, school and teacher education settings. The eight
contributions display a range of innovative research methodologies
which allow issues to be considered from different perspectives.
Concepts
The opening section conceptualizes theories of autonomy by focusing
firstly on teacher and learner notions of control, then on consciousness-raising
and its potential for increasing freedom from control. It concludes
with a study of student-teachers' beliefs about autonomy.
Realities
The realities of constraints on autonomy are firstly examined
from learners' perspectives through an interview-based study,
then from teachers' perspectives in a study which attributes resistance
to autonomy to peer opinion and institutional limitations.
Responses
Moving onto practical pedagogical and research approaches, the
third section offers examples of teacher-researcher responses
to constraints on learner and teacher autonomy. They examine interventions
designed to encourage reflection, for example through action research.
They also look at examples of teacher collaboration, either in
terms of empowerment, or as a practical means of creating learning
environments conducive to teacher and learner autonomy. Examples
of innovative research methods include the use of student-teacher
biographies and verbal reports; teacher-initiated action research
with feedback questionnaires and classroom observation; and a
discourse of team-teaching informed by an interpretive research
approach.
Consistent with the theme of autonomy (and the AILA 2002 theme
of "opportunities for innovation and creativity"), an
innovative approach to symposium organization will include presentation
of and interaction around the papers in an electronic format in
the lead-up to the event. The symposium can then be spent in a
dialogue aimed at defining relationships between learner and teacher
autonomy.
Contributors
Phil Benson; Turid Trebbi; Hélène
Martinez; Sara Cotterall and David Crabbe; Vera Santos; Sada A
Daoud; Richard Pemberton, Sarah Toogood, Susanna Ho and Elza Tsang;
and Jonathan Shaw
Organizers
Terry
Lamb (University of Sheffield, UK) and William
Savage (Consultant, Thailand)
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