Manuel Jimenez Raya - Böcker

Autonomy in Language Education offers a holistic overview of and novel contribution to a complex and multifaceted, yet under-studied, field of inquiry that is transforming language pedagogy: It offers nineteen original chapters that critically analyze the impact of Henri Holec’s seminal 1979 book Autonomy in Foreign Language Learning; unpack theoretical, empirical, conceptual, methodological, ethical, and political developments over the last forty years from many perspectives; explore practical implications for teaching, learning, and teacher education; and suggest future avenues and challenges for research and practice in this broad, diverse, essential field.

Autonomy in Language Education offers a holistic overview of and novel contribution to a complex and multifaceted, yet under-studied, field of inquiry that is transforming language pedagogy: It offers nineteen original chapters that critically analyze the impact of Henri Holec’s seminal 1979 book Autonomy in Foreign Language Learning; unpack theoretical, empirical, conceptual, methodological, ethical, and political developments over the last forty years from many perspectives; explore practical implications for teaching, learning, and teacher education; and suggest future avenues and challenges for research and practice in this broad, diverse, essential field.

This book aims to challenge established teaching cultures to promote teacher autonomy and autonomy-oriented pedagogies in language teacher education.Offering a set of inspiring case studies that illustrate language teacher education for autonomy as a space of multiple possibilities, the book fuses theory and practice and gives a holistic view of the changing landscape of language teacher education, accounting for the transformative power of educational practices that help teachers think and act in informed, context-specific, and learner-centred ways. It also demonstrates the importance of autonomy in language teacher education contexts, specifically to foster teachers’ professional learning, identity, and agency, as well as in assessing and reshaping teacher education programmes.This book will be particularly useful to researchers, scholars, and postgraduate students in the fields of teaching and teacher education, modern foreign languages, and teaching and learning language research more broadly. Curriculum designers and language teacher education programme directors may also find the volume of use.

This book aims to challenge established teaching cultures to promote teacher autonomy and autonomy-oriented pedagogies in language teacher education.Offering a set of inspiring case studies that illustrate language teacher education for autonomy as a space of multiple possibilities, the book fuses theory and practice and gives a holistic view of the changing landscape of language teacher education, accounting for the transformative power of educational practices that help teachers think and act in informed, context-specific, and learner-centred ways. It also demonstrates the importance of autonomy in language teacher education contexts, specifically to foster teachers’ professional learning, identity, and agency, as well as in assessing and reshaping teacher education programmes.This book will be particularly useful to researchers, scholars, and postgraduate students in the fields of teaching and teacher education, modern foreign languages, and teaching and learning language research more broadly. Curriculum designers and language teacher education programme directors may also find the volume of use.

The book explores the idea that pedagogy for autonomy requires the integration of teacher and learner development and can be enhanced through a case-based approach in teacher education. A case-based approach values experiential professional learning and expands professional competences necessary to promote autonomy in schools: developing a critical view of (language) education; managing local constraints so as to open up spaces for manoeuvre; centring teaching on learning; interacting with others in the professional community. Two strategies to implement the approach are presented and illustrated. The first one involves teachers in designing, implementing and evaluating experiences of pedagogy for autonomy, which are the basis for writing professional narratives and building a case portfolio. The second draws on teachers’ pedagogical experience as the basis for the construction of case materials where experiential elements are combined with theoretical input and reflective tasks, so that the teachers who use those materials can reflect about and explore their own practice.

This volume seeks to foster the development of teacher and learner autonomy in language learning in higher education. It pools the insights and experiences of a group of international researchers who present their reflections and research on different aspects of autonomy and related issues. Although autonomy is acknowledged as one of the main goals of education, in higher education the need for accountability and standardisation of learning outcomes may constitute external limitations to its development. In order to overcome teaching traditions and mainstream academic culture, teachers may need to reorient themselves and face the challenge of a substantial change involving their own and their learners’ beliefs, their practice and their role in the institution.

This book proposes a comprehensible, context-sensitive and flexible framework for the development of pedagogy for autonomy in language education. The «framework» metaphor highlights the effort to identify structuring elements in the authors’ stance towards pedagogy for autonomy, which fall into three domains -the context, the learner, and the teacher. In each domain, the authors raise ethical, conceptual and practical issues that are crucial to their perspective and offer a basis for reflection on learner and teacher development towards learner and teacher autonomy. The book proposes a common definition for learner and teacher autonomy within a vision of education as transformation and empowerment. Pedagogy for autonomy is operationalized through a set of ten general principles.

Insights into Language Education Policies is of particular interest to academic researchers, policymakers, and teaching professionals interested in language education. It aims to provide the reader with critical insights into language education policies in diverse countries around the world. The chapters examine from different perspectives (for instance, migration and minority languages, indigenous languages, and content and language integrated learning [CLIL] instruction) the measures adopted in these settings to foster (modern) language learning, underlining their strengths and weaknesses and suggesting future avenues and courses of action to enhance plurilingual education in these particular contexts and beyond.