LEARNER AUTONOMY

For me, this week was very busy and exhausted although our topic of the discussion made me fresh and strong as I'm interested in the topic autonomy. I like the word 'autonomy' and its meaning. I believe in autonomy to keep my life ahead. It means self determination, federal, confederacy. I've always tried to keep my autonomy. This week I recognized many autonomous friends of mine, they are really great. I got to know many things from them about "Learner Autonomy" as well as One Computer Classroom. Some were focused on 'Learner autonomy' and some in 'One Computer Classroom'. My focus was on 'Learner Autonomy'. I read two articles given by my instructor which provided me lots of insight in learner autonomy. To learn more on it, different post in wall wisher helped me. In the same course, I browsed internet and watch some videos. Among them I liked the video on the topic In Pursuit of Autonomy and Learner Autonomy: A Theoretical Phantasm?.  It is an Educational video on autonomy and autonomous behavior and how ITDE managers can best facilitate an autonomous learning environment is its main focus.

In my view, autonomous learners have ability to take responsibility of one's own learning. They can manage their own learning and survive outside the sheltered environment of the classroom. To make students autonomous is one of the great challenges which foreign language teachers are facing. Students one's own understanding of needs, knowledge of individual learning styles, ability to set their goals, monitor and evaluation of their learning are all needed for autonomous learners. Likewise, motivated to learn, good guessers, choosing materials, methods and task, making and rejecting hypotheses etc. also comes under the characteristics of autonomous learners. Making students aware of these strategies, as well as incorporating their use in activities is the first step toward learner autonomy where teachers should be responsible.
The most important thing to make students autonomous is use of authentic materials inside the classroom and it cannot be denied that nowadays, internet is one of the reliable sources of providing authentic materials. As I already shared, an essential part of making students autonomous is to help them become aware of their needs, learning styles, strengths and weak points etc. but this can only be possible if the learners are willing to work. Interest and motivation are therefore, two important factors in learning and I think the internet offers a wide variety of different topics which suits the taste of individual learner's learning styles. There are many search engines. Students can use any of search engines to find topics which interest them.

In the same way, I'm working in my project plan. I've almost completed first half of the plan where I have focused on Lower Secondary students to be successful blogger. Let's see whether I will be success or not.