Awareness and realistic view

180 on the teacher, as in the case of Bea above, or Bori and Brigi (not cited), or being almost completely independent, as in the case of Flóra. Ádám expressed his view on how this changed during the years: “I think it‟s in connection with the fact that I‟ve come to like English, the lessons and what we do in class” (cf. Mezei, 2008a). This illustrates another point, where teacher intervention is possible and required by way of motivational strategies, or teaching students how to use learning strategies and motivate themselves. However, it is not clear why self-regulation, in the students‟ view, corresponded to „learning alone‟ or an extension of it, and nothing else. This mismatch, combined with the relatively low scores of the Learning experience scale, points to the fact that no matter how autonomous the students believed they were, they were far from self-regulation per se.

181 autonomous. Some quotes below suggested that this concept might not be unidirectional with no way back on the developmental continuum:

“I‟m relatively autonomous” (Ábel)

“I don‟t exactly know [what I do to be independent]” (Bea)

“If I really want it, yes [I am independent]” (Brigi)

“it‟s enough for me if she tells me which part of the material [to learn]” (Buda)

“I try to do it on my own, if I‟m not sure about something I listen to her first, then I try to do it on my own” (Betti)

“it‟s not a problem for me [to do it on my own] […] I help myself. So I‟m really autonomous” (Fanni).

Brigi‟s opinion indicated that cognitive aspects might play a role in student autonomy, and Adél gave another, rather affective, point of view, commenting: “I go through phases, sometimes I tend to be autonomous, then I‟m not really interested, then I become more interested, and at the same time more autonomous too.” These opinions point to the fact that various motives can blend in self-regulation, and both cognitive and affective factors can play a role similarly to motivation (Dörnyei, 1999).

The teacher is again an important participant in the process, one who seems to have a serious role in creating autonomy in students. Fanni said that “the teacher should set an example, or tell me to improve this or that” and explicitly stated that she is trying to forget about a semester when she felt the teachers abandoned her (with the exception of two teachers) and let the students fend for themselves. She said that

“they imposed everything on us, I didn‟t feel they‟d like to help […] two teachers helped then let us go, but the others weren‟t interested in what I do or how I go about doing things.”

It follows from this that initial autonomy is virtually impossible without the teacher‟s intervention and scaffolding, and that the learners, most probably, develop

self-182 directedness just as they learn the language. I argued elsewhere (Mezei, 2008) that this comes with increasing maturity as a learner, and, as Csaba‟s opinion confirmed, a mature learner can direct and influence the learning process:

“we should do it this way, we should make R. [native speaker teacher] build in [extra material in the syllabus], he‟s very much inclined to carry out changes in the material […] I‟ve just realised that we could read things for the lessons and stuff like that. So do extra stuff that is in connection with English.”

This is also in line with other research. For instance, Dörnyei and Tseng (2009) argue that more advanced learners, as opposed to novice learners, can “activate task-appropriate action control mechanisms to further increase the effectiveness of their learning process” (p. 130). Csaba was confident enough to ask the teacher to change and adapt his style of teaching. This suggests that creating autonomy and building up self-regulation in students is a subprocess that is bidirectional (teacher feedback is needed), requires continuous adaptation, and is certainly not a question of student ability only but also teacher recognition and response.

What the quote above illustrates is a rather advanced form of self-regulation and autonomy in general. At this stage the student was able to recognise his abilities and needs, and also to influence the environment in order to fit his world (cf. contextual control, Pintrich, 2000; and environmental control, Wolters, 1999 in Section 5.5.1). Not all students are so confident, however. Fanni thought that “my skills are below average or around average maybe” and Flóra said that “sometimes I‟m really disappointed at my English knowledge.” Other students also expressed similar views at various points in the interview.

The teachers, on the other hand, indirectly strengthened the idea that some students have low self-confidence. The source of negative self-evaluation, according to Annabella, might be exceptionally high parental expections:

183

“It‟s a real problem when they [the parents] want the maximum, the kid is really diligent, works hard, but very young, so – and they [the kids] see that they work a lot […] but they cannot do more. And they don‟t understand.”

It is also common that the students had not reached a level of maturity that would help them make use of every piece of useful advice from the teacher:

“Maybe they don‟t [understand that they don‟t understand], maybe they think that they‟ve understood and they think, OK, that‟s all right, but they just don‟t understand it in a way so that they can build on this knowledge later”

(Boglárka).

A slightly contradictory opinion came from Annabella, according to whom the students had realistic views about themselves and each other. It must be noted, however, that the following quote is about 18-year-old students, which strengthens the claim that more advanced learners have more effective control and self-regulating mechanisms at their disposal (Dörnyei & Tseng, 2009):

“they give marks to each other on the oral mock tests and they are very good at guessing how many points they would earn in an exam situation. I think that they do [evaluate realistically]. There are some who don‟t. But only a few students.”

It seems that in general the students, with a few exceptions, had a realistic view about themselves. The exceptions might have been the result of too high expectations on the parents‟ part, or the students‟ own low self-confidence, and both types of problems should be addressed. As for self-regulation, most students in this sample were on the way towards becoming self-regulating learners, and more proficient and more mature learners are at an advantage in this respect too. The interview data also showed that the steps forward along this continuum do not prevent students from turning back or hesitating at certain stages. It is the teachers‟ responsibility to recognise low achievers in autonomy and, possibly using motivational strategies, help them proceed.

184 5.5.3 Potential problems

Improving autonomy, and thus self-regulation, in students is not without problems. Constraints such as the pressure of time, syllabus, exams, and parental expectations will not be examined here, rather the issues that the students were directly concerned with are highlighted. According to Annabella, the borderline between autonomy³ and student centredness was rather fuzzy and it was not easy to strike the ideal balance. It follows from this that finding appropriate tasks and activities that foster self-regulation is key, and poses difficulty.

Annabella talked about the problem side of this issue in her interview:

“because the students in this educational system are not used to it. So I could start experimenting with it and maybe one day; it‟s an awful lot of energy, one might think that if they decide it means a lot less work [but] but in fact it‟s much more work. And again, there‟s not much time, so I feel like I want to do it several times but it‟s impossible physically.”

She also considered potential ways of addressing the problem:

“so I could ask the students about what kinds of tasks they think we should do when covering the next section, or they should get prepared for example with school-leaving exam topics, well, we‟re doing that actually, so there‟s a topic and they need to collect questions in connection with that topic and also the vocabulary, they decide on the topic and they need to collect these things.”

This attitude, namely, considering the problems while suggesting solutions, was also typical of the other teachers. It follows from this that while the teachers were well aware of the constraints of the system, they found small ways of manoeuvring around them.

Two examples of best practice will be shown in the next section.

Most teachers argued in the interviews that the extent to which the students can become autonomous largely depends on the students themselves. Willingness and the

3 The teachers used the word autonomy, not self-regulation or self-directedness.

185 parental background were emphasised with slight variations. Cecília also mentioned goals when talking about autonomy:

“there are students who are much more autonomous, for example they come up with tasks they do, or books, and these are the students who are really determined and persevering to achieve something. […] and one of them for example has decided to translate an English book into Hungarian.”

Here self-regulation is linked with goals and persistence. Boglárka, on the other hand, commented that it was the student‟s responsibility:

“most of it depends on the kids, and those who want to be autonomous, those who really want it, success and results are a function of the extent to which they want to contribute to it.”

In other words, intention, success, outcome and, covertly, ability surfaced as constraints to self-regulation. In the previous section, Annabella talked about parental pressure as a problem: even if the student was hard-working, they could not meet the parents‟

expectations. Ernesztina mentioned that larger group sizes and/or differences in knowledge between students inevitably led to a heightened level of autonomy, because the students needed to adapt to this situation. Furthermore, Ernesztina said that

“when the students are at very different levels, you need a lot of patience, so when I‟m dealing with one of them, the others are doing something else on their own, so it presupposes a great deal of autonomy.”

As for further constraints, a negative side effect of teacher education manifested itself in the interview with Boglárka. When talking about motivating students to learn and promoting self-regulation and autonomy in students, Boglárka expressed her negative views of current teacher education and the lack of several potentially important issues that were not addressed at university. While admitting that she does not pay attention to motivating students on purpose, she finds it extremely important to

186 consciously and constantly foster student autonomy. She expressed her views as follows:

“I was always taught that it is the teacher who motivates… I need to do it, of course but I cannot, I cannot execute what is expected from me in books of methodology.”

Although it seems from this extract that this teacher was ignoring a potentially fruitful way of motivating students, on reflection this was not true. It was obvious from the interview that she was using several motivational strategies, just like the other teachers, but it seems she considered self-regulation more important. How she motivated students to learn was already shown in the previous sections of this chapter; the next section will show that her motivational teaching practice includes teaching the students strategies and helping them improve their English.

What did the students think about potential problems with self-regulation? They did not mention too many negative aspects, but two opinions are worth looking at. One of them came from Csenge, who expressed the following view:

“She has the syllabus, she keeps to it, if the students had too many things to get involved in, if they had too many rights, that would lead to chaos. I think you cannot move on with the material.”

This opinion shows that this student could not imagine a teaching-learning process whereby the students took an active part in shaping the lessons and material. This is a shame, however, it is not unprecedented. Annabella‟s opinion about the same issue was outlined above: “the students in this educational system are not used to it,” and Flóra also concurred with this opinion. She expressed this view the following way: “everyone [the students] is used to the fact that they are told what to do” and “they [the students]

are used to the fact that they are being pushed in a direction.” From this, it follows that when the students met a new approach, be it a more student-centred or directly

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.