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Teacher Development Towards Pedagogy For Autonomy in The Foreign Language Classroom
Teacher Development Towards Pedagogy For Autonomy in The Foreign Language Classroom
A lot of research has been done on the area of learner autonomy in language
education, but a lot remains to be done on teacher development towards a pedagogy
for autonomy in the school context.
The paper articulates teacher and leamer development within the same fromework, by
exploring the relationship beiween reflective teacher education and a pedagogy for
autonomy. 00th orientations see education as a process of empowerment, where the
goal of personal growth is combined with the aim of social reconstrudion.
A framework for the in-service development of FL teachers towards a pedagogy for
autonomy is suggested. The proposal is inquiry-oriented and classroom-based, and
is organized around five leading questions: how does teacher development relate to
pedagogy?, what sort of language teacher are you?, what do you know about a
pedagogy for autonomy?,how can you move towards a pedagogy for autonomy?, and
how can you get other teachers involved?.
lntroduction
"The idea of autonomy is fundamental to liberal philosophies of
education, which see the central goal of schooling as the
development of independent minds and hence of a capacity for
independent action." (Little, 1997: 35)
loses authorityor becomes redundant, but rather how the teacher's authority can
be built up from the learner's authority and vice-versa. lnterdependenceseems
to be the key-word here: independence and social responsibility are articulated;
personal needs or expedationsaire constantly reframed and redefinedwithin the
group. Regulation is the means whereby teachers and learners become
explorers and researchers of their own adion, in order to monitor, evaluate,
change or confirm previous ideas and practices. With a systematic focus on
learning contexts and on culhtral, institutional or methodological tensions,
teachers and learners become aware of the complexities of teaching and
learning and are co-responsible for instructional decision-making.
As a whole, this conception of pedagogical roles presupposes an
interpretative view of schooling and an exploratory view of pedagogical
communication (Barnes, 1976),thus emphasizing the emancipatory potential
of formal educational contexts.
So far, it has been suggested that reflective teacher educationl practice
and autonomous learner education can converge in significant ways dueto the
existence of homologous assuniptions, goals, principies, facilitating conditions
and pedagogical roles. This i:; the basic argument to propose a reflective
orientation in programs designed to prepare teachers for a pedagogy for
autonomy, which is the subject of the next section.
TABLE 1.
A framework for in-service teacher development Towards a pedagogy for autonomy
Let others hear your own voice, such is the assumption underlying the
need to stop teachers from living in "professional quarentine" (Rubin, 1989).
Flávia Vieira
Training programs should help teachers realize the value of their own
voice as professionals and encourage them to make themselves heard within
the educational community, through both the dissemination of results and
further engagement in project-like activities. As teachers are quite often aware
of the low status of their own voice, they tend to adopt a defensive strategy and
resist public exposure. However, when there is a support group where
professional knowledgeis built from experience as happens within collaborative
action-research, self-assertiveness and self-confidente are expected to arise,
along with a sense of empowerment and a willingness to share one's work with
others.
Having a voice in the professional community requires having access
to different metalanguagesand developing an ability to translate them into one
another. In our framework, the term "metalanguage" refers to a set of
negotiated, co-construded meonings, primarily related to concepts within a
pedagogical approach that aims at the development of learner autonomy.
Different teachers may hold different assumptions, beliefs or priorities but, as
members of a professional community, they should possess the linguistic tools
that enable them to confront perspectives and achieve intersubjective
understandings, with a sense of both individual freedom and social
Conclusion
The main argument of this paper is that teacher and learner
development can be productively articulated within the same framework. A
strong perception of the mutual implication of reflective teaching and learner
autonomy is assumed, so that teachers and learners become involved in a
process of autonomization, thus feeling more empoweredto take charge of their
own course of adion. Some elements in the proposed framework for in-service
teacher development programs can be pointed out as crucial (Vieira, 1997b):
a. The adoption of a reflective orientation to teacher education, with a
focus on processes of description, interpretation, confrontation and
reconstruction of personal theories and pradices ;
b.The enactment of reflection and experimentation through action-
research, where negotiation and collaboration among participants
maintains affective and cognitive involvement;
c. The integration of teaching and research aims and processes,
whereby teaching becomes a sort sf research, and research becomes
a way of teaching;
Teacher Development Towards a Pedagogy for Autonomy in the FL Classroom
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Teacher Development Towards a Pedagogy for Autonomy in the FL Classroom