Autonomy Tasks for you (5)

Hello,

Below are some questions I'd like you think about and I'd like you to post your thoughts by Monday evening. You don't have to answer all of them or, in fact, any of them - feel free to post whatever comes to mind regarding autonomy and EAP. However, I would like you to share your thoughts with the other participants and comment on what has been posted. I'd like you to think about the context in which you are teaching (or have taught or will be teaching) EAP as you think and write.

1. Is promoting learner autonomy something that you engage with as a teacher? Why (not)? How?
2. What do you think are the major obstacles to promoting learner autonomy in your teaching context?
3. In what ways do you try to engage learners to take responsibility for their learning?
4. Regarding your own autonomy as a teacher, how do you try to exercise your autonomy?
5. What could be done in your teaching context to foster learner and teacher autonomy more effectively? Do you feel autonomy has a central role in teaching and learning objectives? Lip service? ...?
6. How do you try to involve learners in decision-making and taking control of the classroom? Is this appropriate in your view?
7. How can technology help foster learner autonomy? How could you integrate technology more systematically into your teaching to do this? Or do you view technology as something which might hinder autonomy?

These questions are here just to get you thinking and writing... as I mentioned feel free to write whatever comes to mind ... whatever you think. Please don't worry about what you write ... these are just your initial thoughts, not a test :-)

You will have noticed that the elephant is now in the room and I've used it as a metaphor which is open to mulitple interpretations ... I'll leave it for you to decide.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts.