Learner Autonomy in the English Classroom: Empirical Studies and Ideas for Teachers

Description

The volume consists of twelve classroom studies concerned with the implementation of learner autonomy in English classes. The individual studies range from primary school level to university level. They include studies on multi-media dictionary work, reading logs, peer correction, communication strategies, vocabulary learning strategies, oral proficiency, as well as work with literary texts and authentic news texts. Two studies focus specifically on the teaching of other subjects in English (Content and Language Integrated Learning). The authors describe their own empirical studies, record their classroom observations and make practical suggestions for teachers to take up in their own classrooms. All the studies are firmly grounded in second language acquisition theory and established didactic principles. They are prefaced by an introduction and a background chapter on the theory and practice of learner autonomy in language teaching. Table of Contents The contributors Introduction (Paul Lennon) Part One. Background The story of learner autonomy: from self-access to sociallearningPaul Lennon 1. The rationale for learner autonomy 2. Strategies for learning 3. The good language learner 4. Learner and teacher roles in the autonomous classroom 5. Social learning as conscious learning 6. The autonomous classroom 7. Very young learners 8. Motivation and learner autonomy 9. Assessment 10. Learner attitudes to self-directed learning 11. Teacher training 12. Cultural aspects References Part Two. Primary School Some possibilities for implementing and increasing learner autonomy in the English lesson (Piri Leeck) 1. Learner autonomy at elementary school level 2. Implications for elementary school 3. Implications for English 4. Some main building blocks 5. Examples and what we can learn from them References Multimedia dictionaries in the primary school (Tanja Freudenau) 1. Learning and working techniques 2. Use of media 3. The importance of vocabulary building 4. Dealing with the written word 5. Dictionaries and their versatility – practical experiences 6. Multimedia dictionaries and individual prompting 7. Opportunities for action and practical examples 8. Summary and outlook References Part Three. Lower and Middle Secondary School Suggestions for the effective use of reading logs in the ninth grade (Kathrin Kaupmann) 1. Background 2. Teaching literature 3. The empirical study 4. Conclusion References Peer correction in the English Language writing classroom: an empirical study in the ninth grade of a Realschule (Matthias Bärenfänger) 1. Introduction 2. The history of error correction 3. A small-scale empirical study on peer correction 4. Conclusion References Lexical compensatory strategies among learners of different age levels: implications for teachers (Kathrin Kaupmann) 1. Introduction 2. Communication Strategies 3. An empirical classroom study 4. Some teaching implications 5. Sample strategy training activities 6. Conclusion References Which vocabulary learning strategies do students actually use? A survey in the tenth grade of a Gymnasium (Anna Niehaus) 1. Introduction 2. Definition of the term ‘learning strategy’ 3. An overview of the development of learning strategy categorisation 4. Language learning strategies 5. Vocabulary learning strategies 6. Learner Autonomy 7. A survey of a 10th grade class in a Gymnasium on the use of vocabulary learning strategies 8. German EFL learners compared to Chinese and Japanese EFL learners 9. Implications for teachers 10. Conclusion References Part Four. Upper Secondary School and University “Raise your voice!” An autonomous learning concept to promote oral proficiency in the EFL-classroom (Diana Schmitt-Egner) 1. Speaking in the EFL classroom – an introduction 2. Requirements of an approach to promoting oral proficiency 3. “Raise your voice!” – An approach to promoting oral proficiency in the EFL classroom 4. Evaluation 5. Conclusion References Authentic texts as a basis for autonomous learning (Till Meister) 1. Introduction 2. Authentic texts in the language classroom and beyond 3. Authentic texts in classroom and research 4. Study setting and outline 5. Results 6. Interpretation 7. Conclusion and implications for the use of authentic texts in secondary education References Promoting learner autonomy by training students to generate their own reading comprehension questions (Joanna Kucza) 1. Introduction 2. The study 3. Pedagogical implications and conclusions References A different point of you: a corpus-based study of peer editing in a university-level EFL writing seminar (Patricia Nell Skorge) 1. Introduction 2. Doing peer response: why and how 3. Peer response in EFL settings 4. The study References Part Five. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in Secondary School Content and Language Integrated Learning in physical education: evidence for language and content scaffolding during peer interaction (Nathan Devos) 1. Introduction 2. Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in Germany 3. Physical Education (PE) as a CLIL subject 4. A sociocultural approach to language learning in CLIL 5. Empirical research 6. Results 7. Discussion 8. Conclusion References Strategic support in bilingual history classes at different age and proficiency levels (Marcel Suchier) 1. Principles of language learning and the bilingual philosophy 2. The bilingual classroom 3. The subject ‘history’ 4. Language support: an empirical study References