Málfríður - 15.09.2002, Side 5

cedural skills, learners can become
autonomous only by being autonomous
(in this respect becoming an autonomous
language learner is similar to learning to
drive or play the piano).What is more, the
development of their autonomy as learn-
ers depends crucially on their progressive
achievement of learning targets. When
apphed to learning second/foreign lan-
guages, this argument amounts to the
claim that autonomy in language learning
and autonomy in language use are two
sides of the same coin.
According to the theory of learner
autonomy (see especially Little 1991, Dam
1995), learning depends on partnership:
learners share in planning learning (which
is the beginning of reflection), and learn-
ers as well as teachers take initiatives. This
means that learners are sometimes teach-
ers and teachers are sometimes learners.
Using the ELP to develop learner auton-
omy may mean making changes to the
way you teach, for example, creating space
for learners to take initiatives. It should
not mean working against the curricu-
lum, however, because all communicative
curriculunr goals can be restated in terms
of the Council of Europe’s common ref-
erence levels, which underpin the ELP.
The ELP’s checklists of target skills can
help the teacher to plan dynamically and
flexibly. Mediating between the syllabus
and the textbook, they help to move the
planning process away from the structure
of the textbook towards the teacher’s
sense of where her learners are now and
where they need to go next.The ELP can
also help learners to understand syllabus
objectives in terms of their developing
communicative repertoire, to analyse text-
book units and examination tasks in terms
of underlying target skills, and to under-
stand what they are doing and why.
Self-assessment and learner
reflection
Self-assessment is fundamental to effective
use of the ELP. It is also fundamental to
the processes of planning, monitoring and
evaluating learning, which means that it
Hes at the heart of learner reflection and
learner autonomy. After all, truly
autonomous learners know what they
have achieved, how they achieved it, and
what remains to be achieved. Note that
self-assessment is always a matter of mak-
ing micro as well as macro judgements —
for example, learning to judge formal
accuracy as well as communicative suc-
cess. Note also that self-assessment is based
on learners’ developed capacity to reflect
on their own knowledge, skills and
achievement, whereas assessment by oth-
ers provides an external, objective mea-
sure of the same knowledge, skills and
achievement. Self-assessment and assess-
ment by others should support one
another: achieving complementarity and
balance between them is one of the aims
ofthe ELP.
During the ELP pilot project (1998—
2000; see Schárer 2000) many teachers
worried about the accuracy of learner
self-assessment, but this mostly proved to
be unnecessary: when language skills are
expressed as “can do” statements, learners
usuafly assess their communicative capaci-
ties fairly accurately. In the context of
reflective learning, however, self-assess-
ment involves a great deal more than tick-
ing items on a checklist of target skills; it
is present in planning and monitoring as
well as evaluation. If we want our learners
to develop reliable self-assessment skills,
we must ensure that reflection in all its
forms plays a central role in every aspect
of classroom practice. Some possible
focuses for reflection (drawn from the
Irish ELP for lower and upper secondary
learners; Authentic 2001) are:
- My general aims and rejlections
- Setting goals and thinking about learning
- Things I notice about language and culture
- Hoiv I solve communication problems
- Methods I use to learn languages
- Intercultural experiences
- Heritage languages
Learner reflection grows out of appropri-
ate classroom interaction. When focussed
on the learning process, it may be stimu-
lated by Leni Dam’s five questions: What
are we doing? —Why are we doing it? —
How are we doing it? — With what
results? —What are we going to do next?
According to the
theory of learner
autonomy learn-
ing depends on
partnership:
learners share in
planning learn-
ing and learners
as well as teach-
ers take initia-
tives.This means
that learners are
sometimes
teachers and
teachers are
sometimes
learners.
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