SELF STUDYING AND AUTONOMY

                                                                   

                                                                                                Najla Zahara de Castro

 To define the conceptions of  autonomy and self studying is important to be aware of  the contradictions and problems related to the subject., which evokes doubts about the effectiveness and quality of  learning. With the technology’s advance and development of internet sources, it become easier to students in many areas 

(specifically languages) to improve and increase their knowledge . But in what circumstances this kind of learning can be helpful or confuse to the learner? What has to be taken in consideration to the student to take advantage of this kind of learning?

  According to Heloisa Collins, “For many researchers in the field, autonomy is about the learner deciding what, how and when to learn”. Based on her affirmative, we can suppose that the learner is able to lead himself in studying. But the learning quality depends on many things such as the student volition, good materials, and the most important: organization. When the student is engaged with the language is much easier to him to absorb the knowledge and put it in practice. Then, it becomes a pleasure to the learner, specially if he has been exposed to the language. In a “virtual context”, in which computers became the most used learning tool, we find a lot of websites focused on learning which has exercises, learning videos, blogs, forums that can be helpful to the learner to practice, which is essential on learning a new language.

   A problem related to autonomy is the straight association to isolation. Holec’s  definition of autonomy is: “the capacity of taking charge of  one’s own learning” (1981:3). Taking his assertion on consideration, we can interpret that the student has to have a kind of “ self- criticism”, and he has to evaluate his own knowledge. It doesn’t mean that all students are able to be autonomous, which concern organization, control and discipline. Little (1991) says that autonomy is “a capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision making and independent action[…] The capacity for autonomy will be displayed both in the way the learner learns and in the way he or she transfers what has been learned to wider contexts (1991:4).

 Teacher’s role in the student life is basically to give support and leads him to acquire the language (in this case English), with grammar’s notions, theoretical basis etc. But actually all students has to be a little autonomous. They have to complement  what they have learnt in classes, and being autonomous in this case can  make all the difference in the student acquisition of the language.

 The principal aspect on learning a language is the fact that the learner has to practice it. In some cases, the autonomous student doesn’t interact with others, being limited just to reading, not put in practice what he has learnt. Otherwise there are some who knows how to deal with autonomous learning, interacting with other students, improving and fixing their knowledge and exchange opinions and ideas, even helping other students in the same situation.

 For contemporary students, there are many good resources on learning English. Is difficult to find schools which doesn’t have available computers, even in public schools. Out of “virtual conceptions”, there are some libraries that have English magazines, books, grammars, which can be also helpful to learners. Because of the huge influence of  USA culture in Brazilians’ behavior and life, is easier to have contact with their language such as in films, songs, what is  a form  to apply  the language and interact with those who are also learning.

To conclude, self- studying is essential to a good performance, in order to improve and enlarge the knowledge on English. It depends on the student volition , endeavor, commitment, what makes all the difference. Is just a matter of organization and self criticism; the student have to know if  the materials used are enough to his learning. Otherwise it becomes a waste of time, and the student will lost his interest on the language.

           

References:

MAGNO E SILVA, Walkyria. A model for the enancement of autonomy.

COLLINS, Heloisa, Distance Learning ,autonmy development and language discussing possible conections.

LITTLE, David, learner autonomy and second/foreign  language learning.(www.llas.ac.uk/resources/gpg/1409). Accessed in 13/10/2010.