Evaluating students’ autonomous learning through their uses of a self-access centre

Colomb. Appl. Linguist. J., 2006-09-00 vol: nro:8 pág:53-73

Research Articles

Evaluating Students' Autonomous Learning Through Their Uses of a Self-access Centre

Julia Zoraida Posada Ortíz

E-mail: posadajulia_@yahoo.com.mx

Abstract

This article describes a small-scale project aimed at developing a systematic evaluation of a Self Access Centre (SAC) located at a private university in Bogotá. The objectives of the project were first, to identify the most common strategies used by the SAC's users and find out if this SAC was enhancing autonomy. The second objective was to discover some of the strengths and weaknesses of the SAC. The results showed that students used indirect strategies which might show some autonomy, since these strategies are related to the management of our own language learning. The results also demonstrated that students need some counselling with both the language and technology.

Key Words: Evaluation, Self Access Centres (SACs), autonomous learning, learning strategies.

Resumen

Este artículo describe un mini-proyecto de investigación encaminado a desarrollar una evaluación sistemática del Centro de Recursos (C.R.) de una universidad privada de Bogotá. El estudio pretendía primero, descubrir el tipo de estrategias de aprendizaje del inglés más utilizadas por los usuarios de dicho Centro y a través de esto determinar si este C.R. promovía la autonomía de los estudiantes. En segundo lugar, se buscaba examinar las fortalezas y debilidades del C.R. como tal. Los resultados demostraron que las estrategias más usadas por los estudiantes son las indirectas. Esto indica cierta autonomía ya que estas estrategias tienen que ver con el hecho hacerse responsable del desarrollo del idioma que se está aprendiendo. Entre las debilidades del Centro se encuentra la ausencia de una persona que apoye a los usuarios tanto con el idioma como con el uso de las herramientas que encuentran allí.

Palabras Claves : Evaluación, Centro de Recursos, aprendizaje autónomo, estrategias de aprendizaje.

INTRODUCTION

Self-access centres (SACs) for language learning have enjoyed growing popularity in recent years. By providing an environment with a variety of machines and materials that users can exploit , and some kind of catalogue, such centres offer a wider and more flexible range of opportunities for language use than is possible in most classrooms. In short, they are a means for improving learning.

SACs are supposed to enhance learners' autonomy. However, it would be interesting to explore if they accomplish this purpose by carrying out some research about it. By doing this kind of research we will start evaluating the use of SACs. This small-scale project aimed at finding out the more frequent group of strategies used by SACs' users and at exploring how SACs' theory relates to practice in terms of what students actually do there and how they perceive the centres. I addressed the following questions: Which group of strategies are used most frequently by the users of a SAC? What are the students' perceptions of the SAC?

The research was carried out at a Language Institute of a private university in Bogotá with 15 students. The Institute has a SAC provided with computers equipped with English Discoveries and Internet. Students can make use of the Centre whenever they want. To carry out the small-scale project, two basic instruments were used. The first one was "the speakers of other languages" version of Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) designed by Rebeca Oxford (1990) (see appendixes A and B). The second one was a survey to find out the type of activities students did at the SAC and the frequency of their visits (see appendix C). The relationship between SACs and students' autonomy was explored by looking at the relationship between the SILL's results and the surveys. In what comes next there is a definition of the main constructs of the study.

Understanding Key Concepts

It is important to explore and understand some of the key concepts implied in this small-scale project. Some of these concepts are evaluation, learning language strategies, autonomy and self-access centres. To cover some aspects of the concepts mentioned above, this chapter has been divided into five parts. They are as follows: towards a definition of evaluation, how students learn a second language, autonomous learning: What in the world is it? and finally, a typology of self -access centres.

Towards a definition of evaluation

I would like to adopt the definition given by Genesse and Upshur (1999), in the sense that evaluation is more ";than grading students and deciding whether they should pass or fail", but it is about "making decisions about instruction or plans for instruction" (p.3). This definition suited the purpose of the study since I wanted to know if there was some kind of autonomy or not in the learning attitudes of a group of a University SACs' users. I wanted to know what happened when they used the self-access centre as a complement to classroom activities. As the concept of evaluation mentioned implies a systematic process which starts with the purpose of knowing what strategies the SAC visitors used and their relation with the theory of SACs that will be described further in this paper, I had to go through a process of collecting information from the students and their learning strategies, then interpret them and finally, make a decision, which is the key aspect of evaluation according to the authors cited above. I would like to state that I adopted this concept of evaluation because I think it implies a holistic view of the term, as evaluation is seen as a process that aims at improving second language teaching.

How students learn a second language

While we all inherently exhibit human traits of learning, every individual approaches a problem or learns a set of facts or organizes a combination of feelings from a unique perspective. No two learners are alike. No one can be neatly placed in a cognitive type. As language teachers we need to recognize and understand a multiplicity of cognitive variations active in the second language learning process, meeting them where they are providing learners the best possible opportunities to understand them and take advantage of them.

There are variations in learning styles that differ across individuals, and in strategies employed by individuals. Style is a term that refers to "consistent and rather enduring tendencies or preferences within an individual", that "pertain to you as an individual and that differentiate you from someone else" (Brown, 2000 p.113). Strategies are "specific methods of approaching a problem or task, modes of operation for achieving a particular end planned designs for controlling and manipulating certain information" (Brown, 2000 p.113).

According to Oxford (1990), there are two major learning strategies commonly used by language students, direct and indirect (p.14). These strategies are subdivided into a total of six groups. They are as follows memory, cognitive and compensation, under the heading of direct learning strategies; metacognitive, affective and social, under the heading of indirect learning strategies. The first direct strategy refers to how students remember language, the second one to how students think about their learning and the third one enables students to make up for limited knowledge. The first indirect strategy refers to how students manage their own learning, the affective strategy is related to how students feel in the classroom and the last one involves learning by interaction with others.

These language learning strategies are defined by Oxford as "operations employed by the learner to aid the acquisition , storage, retrieval and use of information" (Oxford, 1990 p.8) and she states that they support each other.

If autonomy is understood as an attitude towards learning (Dickinson, 1993) we could say cognitive, metacognitive and social strategies are the main strategies used by autonomous learners. Nevertheless, it is also true that an autonomous learner has the ability to tell which strategies better suit his/her learning style (Dickinson, 1993). In the next section, I explore some of the implications of autonomous learning and the possible relations between language learning strategies and autonomous learning.

Autonomous learning: what in the world is it?

According to Leslie Dickinson (1993) autonomy is "an attitude to language learning which may not necessarily have many external, observable features" (p. 330). However, she states that there are a number of characteristics that can be identified in autonomous learners such as their ability to formulate their own learning objectives, select and implement appropriate learning strategies and enrich them by identifying those which work for them and those which do not. Finally, autonomous learners are able to monitor their own learning.

Since not everybody comes to the task of language learning as autonomous learners, it is important to know that the ability to direct one's own learning can be developed through pedagogical procedures of one sort or another. There are degrees of autonomy, and the extent to which it is feasible or desirable for learners to embrace autonomy will depend on a range of factors related to the personality of the learner, the goals in undertaking the study of another language, the philosophy of the institution (if any) providing the instruction, and the cultural context within which the learning takes place (Nunan, 1988).

The levels of autonomy can be described in terms of two curricular domains, the experiential content domain, and the learning process domain. (Nunan, 1997 p. 194). The experiential content domain has to do with the topics, themes, language functions, that along with the linguistic domain, make up the syllabus. The learning process domain relates to methodology, and is concerned with the selection, creation, modification and adaptation of learning tasks and procedures. The experiential content domain has to do with what students will learn and the process learning domain has to do with the how. For this reason, for Nunan, encouraging learners to move towards autonomy is best done inside the classroom, by incorporating content goals and learning process goals hand in hand with the students, involving them in making choices, creating situations in which they are able to develop their own goals, content and learning process goals and helping them move beyond the classroom.

Some authors think there are certain dangers in the way the word autonomy is seen as a classroom practice. For instance, Pennycook (1997) considers that if as educators we start teaching students how to become autonomous we will start making this attitude part of a mainstream practice and we will lose its ultimate goal which is, according to him "to empower learners to use their learning to improve the conditions under which they and those around them live and work" (p.45).

In short, autonomy is an attitude to language learning that involves a series of characteristics which can be identified in autonomous learners and that were previously described in this section. Some of the characteristics of autonomous learners are the ability to formulate their own learning objectives, select and implement appropriate learning strategies and enrich them by identifying those which work for them and those which do not. Not all learners are autonomous and the feasibility of embracing autonomy depends among other factors, on the student's personality and the philosophy of the institution. These two traits are particularly important in this study since the university in which this project took place, provides the students with a SAC in which they have access to knowledge on their own, formulating their own objectives. Formulating their own objectives is one of the characteristics of autonomous learners as stated by Dickinson (1993). By providing a SAC, the institution is to a certain extent already promoting autonomy. Therefore, autonomy, or at least its furtherance might be part of the university philosophy.

By identifying the strategies most commonly used by the SAC's users and their perception of it, I aimed at identifying the role of the university SAC as a promoter of autonomy. The former objective is particularly relevant for this study as it involves an evaluation of the SAC. This evaluation implies a critical view of autonomy and SACs because the concepts of autonomous learning and SAC have become "buzz-words" of ELT (Little, 1991). There is a close relation between both of them that will be explored in the next part of this theoretical framework.

A typology of self-access centres

As defined by Miller and Rogerson-Revell (1993), self-access centres (SACs) is one of the four areas included in self-access language learning SALL (p.228). Self access is understood as providing the opportunities for learners "to make decisions over what they would like or need to study...and assume greater responsibility for their own language development" (Littlejohn, 1997 p.181). Miller and Rogerson-Revell have classified SACs into four main categories according to their organization of human and material resources and the type of learners who use them.

The four types of SACs are:

- Menu-driven: in which the materials are classified, and the information stored either electronically or on hard copy. It is called menu-driven because every time a learner needs to gain access to the system they can refer to the menu. Its end-users are university students who need to be trained on how to use the system.

- Supermarket: it is a self-access system in which the learner has the opportunity to look around and choose what to study. The system displays materials under categories such as: listening, reading, games, etc. The categories are highlighted with different colours. The end-users are teacher students.

- Controlled-access: a system where learners are directed to a specific set of materials by their tutors. It is directed to engineering and science students.

- Open-access: This system is usually part of a library. The material is open for use by students studying English and other library students. The categories mentioned above were made taking into account self- access centres created in countries like France, Malaysia and China. However, these categories can be used as a reference framework for different self-access centres in different places. For instance, the particular group of students who worked on this small-scale project had access to a centre in which they could work with English Discoveries, a multimedia software created in Israel in 1995. The software consists of 11 CD ROMS divided into 10 level's of English. There is one CD for absolute and false beginners called Lets Start, 3 basic ones, 3 intermediate and 4 CDs for advanced level including review. Each CD ROM contains activities in order to develop the four skills of language. The students are trained on how to use the software and after that, they can gain access to the centre any time they want.

It is very difficult to classify the university SAC in which this study was carried out within only one of the categories stated above because it shares some characteristics with two of them. For instance, I could say it is a menu- driven, as its users need some training and the information is stored on software. It could also be a supermarket centre in the sense that students can choose what to work with: vocabulary, reading, writing or listening. Learners can work with or without a counsellor's help as the system contains explanations of grammar and provides opportunities for self-correction. The menu-driven and supermarket self-access systems were created for university students and teacher students. This also fits the target population of the study as most of them are university students. Even though supermarket is intended to be for teacher students I think any learner could benefit from using a supermarket self-access centre.

It is important to highlight that even though self-access centres were created to enhance apprentices' autonomy it might be possible that they do not achieve this goal. How is this possible? It would be necessary to analyse the relationship between the philosophy of the institution in which this self-access centre was created, the relationship between the centre and the institutional curriculum, and finally the role of the users. The role of the users is clearly of utmost importance yet the danger exists that they may become mere consumers of a product or service, since everything has been placed in the self-access centre for them and they just do what has been scripted for them.

To sum up, I have described the concept of evaluation adopted for this small-scale project, I have also described some of the language learning strategies used by students and characterized an autonomous learner. This part also introduced four types of self-access systems as stated by Miller and (1993) Rogerson-Revell, I found these categories applicable to different contexts, and I have classified the self-access centre where this project took place within the menu-driven and supermarket ones as it shares some of the traits that characterize them. Finally, I stated that the self-access centres must be evaluated to see if they are actually enhancing students" autonomy because it is true that self-access centres are part of a system.

This implication may lead to a mismatch between the general philosophy of self-access centres and the way in which some of them are laid-out, that is, with a set of activities to be done by the students which may lead them to become "passive" rather "active" as they might become doers of what has been scripted for them in the material and activities available to them in the self-access centres.

Research Design

The core of this project was to evaluate self-access centres' theory in relation to practice in terms of what students actually do there and how they perceive the centres. The evaluation was based on two surveys carried out; the first one aimed at exploring the language learning strategies used by the SAC's users, and the second one to identify the activities they do there and how they perceived the SAC. To find out this I addressed the following question:

Which group of language learning strategies are used most frequently by the users of a private University SAC?.

Type of Study

I conducted a descriptive qualitative case study keeping in mind the parameters given by Seliger and Shohamy (1990) for whom "qualitative and descriptive research are concerned with providing descriptions of phenomena that occur naturally, without the intervention of experiment of an artificial contrived treatment" (p.90). This was a case study because I focused my attention on 15 students from the whole number of possible visitors the SAC might have. I chose this type of study because "it is believed that individual performances will be more revealing than studying large groups of subjects". (Seliger an Shohamy, 1990 p. 125).

The context

This study was carried out at the language institute of a private university in Bogotá. The aim of the language centre English program is to enable students to complete their undergraduate studies and take the First Certificate Exam (FCE). The FCE is part of the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES). UCLES has developed a series of examinations with similar characteristics in order to ensure that standards of efficiency in Foreign Language teaching and learning are being met. Within the series of five levels, the FCE in English is at Cambridge Level Three or B2 according to the Common European Framework. The examination is made up of five papers: Reading, Writing, use of English, listening and speaking.

The EFL program for adults at the language centre consists of four levels distributed over four academic semesters. The successful completion of these semesters represents the minimum requirement for obtaining an undergraduate English Certificate at Intermediate Level. Each semester consists of 180 hours distributed over a 16-week period; 10 hours per week usually involving one 2-hour class per day.

The goal of the EFL program is for students to achieve a fair degree of communicative competence in English. The instructional approach of the program is within the communicative orientation language teaching, with strong emphasis on vocabulary development, speaking, listening comprehension and writing, and to a lesser degree, reading. There is a strong emphasis on accuracy and the activities focus on linguistic form.

The language institute has a SAC equipped with English Discoveries software and internet. There are also tutorials and conversation clubs for elementary and intermediate students.

Participants

A sample of 15 of the SAC's users completed the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) and the survey designed by myself (see appendixes A, B and C).The participants volunteered for the project. The students belonged to different levels.

Instruments

The two basic instruments for the current study were "the speakers of other languages version of the SILL and a survey" (see appendixes A, B and C). The SILL is a self-scoring paper and pencil survey which consists of 50 statements that aim at identifying the six learning strategies described earlier in this document. It was designed by Rebeca Oxford. The statements and instructions were translated into Spanish by the author of this article. The SILL and the survey were piloted with two students. The survey consisted of 7 open questions that pointed at finding the activities carried out by the SAC's users and their perceptions of the centre as well as the number of visits. The questions were also posed in Spanish to make them clear and because I did not know the English proficiency of the students. The questions that appear in the survey talk about a laboratory since that is the way students call the SAC. My role as researcher was participant- observer.

Procedure

I visited the SAC for a period of three weeks at different times. As students showed up I explained to them the purpose of the study and asked them to complete the SILL and the survey. The collection was closed when 15 questionnaires had been returned. Average responses for each strategy were calculated across the 15 SILL questionnaires and ranked in order from 6 (most frequent) to 1 (least frequent). Each question in the survey was analysed as well.

Findings

As can be seen by an examination of the data set out in Table 1, students reported using compensation strategies least. Most frequently used are metacognitive strategies, followed by affective and social strategies. Students anked social and cognitive strategies in the middle-frequency average while memory strategies only ranked higher than compensation strategies.