Fostering Learner's Autonomy through Response Journal
Journal Title: The International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Invention - Year 2017, Vol 4, Issue 2
Abstract
Autonomy is a phenomenon that speculated many scholars and readers. It is a broad term found in many disciplines because it has a number of potential benefits. It is defined by Henric Holec (1981, p.3) as a capacity or a fundamentally critical process to reflect on one's own experience and "to take charge in one's own learning". This paper investigated the promotion of autonomy throughthe use of response journals. The aspects of autonomy were examined generally in this study. Language teaching was approached through the task-based instruction. Students were asked to write a response journal as the task to language learning. The response journal was written before explaining the lesson in class to ensure students’ responses to the lesson were original and not blurred by the teacher’s explanation. The subjects were senior female English students in King Saud University. The subjects were given explicit instructions regarding the format and content of the journal. Then, an analysis of the first journals and fifteenth journals took place in terms of self-reflection, self-recognition, and other aspects of autonomy. The choices of the journals were taken randomly, just to track the progress in the subjects. Therefore, the effectiveness of the use of response journal to foster autonomy in language learners was the main concern of this paper. The analysis showed that learners throughout the process of writing journals used more of the mental verbs, personal pronouns, and attitudinal lexis. These three features can denote students' self-awareness, self-recognition, and self-reflection.As such, this study has found that the use of response journal is an effective method in fostering their autonomy. It provides students with a context to learn, reflect, and evaluate, hence, promoting learners' autonomy
Authors and Affiliations
Wafa Al Juaythin
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP314460
- DOI -
- Views 62
- Downloads 0
TheAnalysis of Student’s Creative Thinking Skillsin Solving "Rainbow Connection" Problemthrough Research Based Learning
Creative thinking skills are needed in the 21st century learning. According to the P21 platform (Partnership for 21st century learning), someone will survive in the 21st century if they have some skil...
Employee Turnover and Retention Strategy at Dubai Public Prosecution
The purpose of this research paper is to describe a major problem in employee‟s retention at Dubai Public Prosecution (DPP), where there is no study done on developing a good methodology to maintain the...
Researching Men and Women: Field Experience of a Female Researcher
This article focuses on the experience of a female researcher, researching on both men and women in Bangladeshi society. It has been well documented in academic literature that in qualitative research da...
The Rise of an Orphan as “The Iron Lady of Asia” from the political instability after the gruesome assassination of –“Bangabandhu –The Father of theNation
She was born, grew up and raised with the full flavor of political atmosphere that why it did not take long to devote her life in the political world. She began her leadership role with the “Vice President” position at I...
Fabulation in Paul Auster's Mr. Vertigo
The present narratological research aims to discern and analyse fabulist qualities of Paul Auster's Mr. Vertigo. The term 'fabulation' was coined by Robert Scholes in 1967 to refer to a number of non-romantic and non-tra...