Action: what to do to foster autonomy and improve self-regulation

187 autonomy-related approach, they did not know how to react or behave in a classroom situation. An unlikely but possible outcome of this was that it could

“result in a situation when you want to make them work on their own, but they are not willing to do [the task] and they want to make someone else do it”

(Flóra).

It would appear then that the old routine, i.e., instructions from the teacher, and limited freedom as to how to solve a problem or finish a task in the language class instead of creative efforts, were welcomed. The teachers certainly faced difficulty and sometimes considerable resistance on the students‟ part, but they were ready to show the students new approaches. At this point it is safe to claim that the participating students were going through the developmental stages of self-regulation, and not all of them were mature enough to be able to take advantage of their opportunities. The next section, therefore, will focus on two positive examples that prove that it is possible to incorporate elements in the language class that promote student autonomy and eliminate rigidity.

student-188 centred learning was rooted in her experiences in secondary school (when, in contrast to her class, the other English class had comparatively interesting and funny English lessons), and also in her training as a teacher and mentor teacher; whereas Boglárka‟s attitude was grounded in the faults of teacher education and memories of what she missed from lessons when she was learning English in secondary school (for example, scaffolding, teacher explanation on tricky structures, and learning strategies in the case of some challenging grammar points).

In particular, Annabella had had experience in teacher training and best practices. In her interview she talked about student centredness (which she currently has to resign herself to) and autonomy (an approach that she would like to make use of one day), as ideal aims in teaching. She described the activity box task as a core element in her teaching practice as follows:

“Interviewer: And how does this activity box work?

Annabella: It works like, maybe you didn‟t see it, this is from the series Cambridge English for schools, it‟s for grammar or vocabulary revision, so I ask the kids to write tasks and they use an A6 sheet, on one side they create the exercise, and on the reverse side the key. We collect the sheets and before a test we do them and evaluate them, what do they know, I put the sheets on the desks, they go around and choose the grammar or vocabulary they want to do. They do the exercises, check with the key and they move on to the next task.

Interviewer: Yes, I think you gave it as homework.

Annabella: Yes, and I collect them, for example in year 6, I gave them sheets I hadn‟t had time to check, you know I should check all the sheets beforehand. So I didn‟t have time to check them, they handed them in and one of them said that he didn‟t like it, he would say it differently, so it‟s hard work to check 60 sheets whether they are correct or not. And I bring in sheets from old classes and they say, oh, it was written by my brother or my sister or a friend, so these are funny things, but it takes a lot of time.”

Not only did this activity foster autonomy, it also motivated students to learn as they could see that other students also worked on the sheets. This activity was a recurring topic among Annabella‟s students, who mentioned it as one of the highlights of the English lessons. Other elements of her teaching practice have been described, and

189 activity box is an excellent example of what can be done with limited resources (time, in this case).

Boglárka, on the other hand, described a more complex approach to student autonomy. She invested a great amount of time into setting an example to students partly intentionally, partly subconsciously, and showed them ways and tricks to improve their English through becoming self-regulating and autonomous. This was a whole-body approach, in the sense that every aspect of her teaching, not only the given activities which helped her reach her aim, was based on this belief. She summarised it this way:

“basically the aim is to make them become autonomous.” She listed several techniques such as learning strategy training, administering the students a psychology test in order to identify the best methodology to learn, teaching note-taking, learning from mistakes, avoiding common mistakes and using metacognition to overcome difficulties. Some excerpts from her interview highlighted this approach:

“they need to be taught learning strategies […] I brought a traditional psychological test in class when I had the impression they had problems with vocabulary learning […] it happened that with the help of a psychological test someone realised that they tried to use a learning technique that didn‟t suit them”

“I remember a lot of things that posed a problem to me […] I call their attention to problems that I bumped into […] and I‟ve realised that I wouldn‟t have had problems with certain structures if someone had said something, just a sentence.

So I do such things. I come back to such things from time to time.”

“I show them typical mistakes, I tell them what to pay attention to and they cannot run into such problems. And I don‟t agree with some people who say that […] making mistakes is bad. […] I think it‟s the opposite, I tell them it‟s good to make mistakes because you can learn from them.”

She was firmly convinced that it is worth addressing these issues in class because

“the penny drops with some people only years later […] in my opinion some of these 45-minute lessons can be sacrificed if a kid becomes better or more confident, if they learn how to go about it […] in this case it was worth it.”

190 These two teachers had completely different experiences and backgrounds in teaching, but they were both aware of the fact that self-regulation and student autonomy are important aspects of teaching even if they refer to it by different names. They were aware of the difficulties and negative side-effects, and in spite of this fact they invest time and energy in fostering student autonomy. These two brief examples show the essence of their teaching practice concerning self-regulation, and highlight the fact that small but effective actions are indeed proper means to improve student self-regulation.