Autonomy in Language Learning: Stories of Practices

Stories of Practices brings together many different teachers' stories about their engagement with learner (and teacher) autonomy in many different places over many years. It stands out from other books on learner autonomy in the special way that the story chapters are structured. In this volume, each of the 14 story chapters is composed of the story of one teacher (the storywriter) and the responses of two readers (the reader responders) to that teacher’s evolving engagement with learner autonomy. A story chapter starts with the storywriter’s initial story of their engagement with learner autonomy. This Part 1 story is followed by reflections from two reader responders who draw out questions and issues from the storywriter’s starting narrative. The storywriter then continues with their Part 2 narrative, addressing points raised by the reader responders and focusing towards specific learner autonomy practices. Finally, each story chapter closes with second responses from the same two reader responders, this time focused towards pedagogic, ideological, and/or research issues that the storywriter’s continuing story highlights for them. In all, then, the story chapters are co-created from six different perspectives and they have a resolutely multivocalic and dialogic quality about them.
Stories of Practices also brings together a remarkable range of contributors working in the learner autonomy field across many different geographical and institutional contexts (Asia, Europe, the Gulf States, Latin America, North America, and Oceania). Some of the writers are already well known in the field, others are relatively new, and this helps create a lively dynamic within each chapter, as well as a rich diversity across the whole book. The story chapters are divided into four sections. The first four chapters are devoted to primary/secondary/high school education. The second section focuses on tertiary education and has three chapters, as does the next section dealing with self-access. The final section, made up of four chapters, is devoted to teacher education. This is followed by a final ‘trialogic’ chapter by Felicity Kjisik, Mike Nix and Stephan Breidbach who take extended turns to explore the different connections and contradictions that they see in the grounded exploration and theorization of learner (and teacher) autonomy that Stories of Practices embodies.

Edited by Andy Barfield and Natanael Delgado Alvarado

Contributors to this e-book:
Alice Chik (Hong Kong), Androulla Athanasiou (Cyprus), Anna Uhl Chamot (USA), Antoinette Camillerri-Grima (Malta), María del Carmen Reyes Fierro (Mexico), Chika Hayashi (Japan), Christian Ludwig (Germany), Christine Nicolaides (Brazil), Christine O’Leary (UK), David Palfreyman (UAE), Desirée Castillo (Mexico), Diane Malcolm (Bahrain), Felicity Kjisik (Finland), Flávia Vieira (Portugal), Frank Lacey (Denmark), Gary Barkhuizen (New Zealand), Hugh Nicoll (Japan), Irina Minakova (Czech Republic), Isabel Barbosa (Portugal), Jodie Sakaguchi (Australia), Katherine Thornton (Japan), Kuchah Kuchah (Cameroon/UK), Leena Karlsson (Finland), Lucy Cooker (UK), Manuel Jiménez Raya (Spain), Maria Giovanna Tassinari (Germany), María Sara Rodríguez (Uruguay), Martin Lamb (UK), Mehmet Boyno (Turkey), Mike Nix (Japan), Moira Hobbs (New Zealand), Naoko Aoki (Japan), (Peter) Jing Huang (Hong Kong), Peter Voller (Hong Kong), Pornapit Darasawang (Thailand), Richard Smith (UK), Sarah Mercer (Austria), Shu Hua Vivien Kao (Taiwan), Simla Course (Turkey), Stephan Breidbach (Germany), Steve Brown (Japan), Terry Lamb (UK), and Umida Nurjanova (Uzbekistan)