Of Fish,

Perceptions,
cinci

Stereotypes
Stephen H. Brown
Assumption JuniorCollegesbrown@cvn.bai.ne.jp
Havingstarted this paperhoping to articulate aflexible, multi-contextualframework for autonomy
which would break withstereotyped 'Western or Asian versions of autonomy, my interest has beendrawn to those stereotypes themselves—to theprescriptive perceptions of learners, and of autonomy
itself, which can so inhibit thepotential for autonomy. I've sought to offer a kind of pastiche ofthoughts—of students, ancient thinkers, modern writers, and my own—rather than a rigid
academic argument, in order to showhow my thinking has moved to the idea of an autonomous
zone of interdependence. / suggest this zone as a space that allows learners to learn without theconstraintsof stereotypes.
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Contexts for Fishing
Ifyou give a manafish, youfeed himfor a day.
Ifyou teach a man tofish, youfeed himfor a lifetime.
-attributed to Confucius (551-479 BC) and often cited by modern-day proponents ofautonomy in language learning (e.g., Ellis & Sinclair, 1989, p. 2)
Ancient Voices Imagined

M = Master A = Acolytes (1-4)
Al How wiseyour words are, Sensed. Now I can see what I need to do—I will teach them tofishfrom the ocean! I will teach them ourwayoffishing.
M Forgive me my child. How willyou do that? Do theynot live inland?
Al J know theyhave never seen the ocean—but this is the correct way. I will teach them
deep-sea fishing!

A2 Your words are wise, Sensei, but...
M

Yes?

A2 Well... Where I am, too, there is no ocean. They could not understand; it would be
impossible for them to beable to fish like us. They cannoteven eatfishfrom the ocean, so
whyshouldI waste their time and mine trying to teach them?

M Have theynever tried? Have they never tasted deep sea fish?
A2 Theyhaven't, so theycant: Their culture makes it impossible for them.

M So theycannotfish?
A3 No, theycannotfish likeus, but we canfind theway which suits them and make them
do it that way. They do not know of oceans, butthey have manystreams, so let us teachthem onlyfresh water fishing. Letus decide 'their way,' the best wayfor them to try.

M And doyou know whatis bestfor them, what 'their way' is?

A4 Ler us not decide for them. They know theirfish and their streams better than we do, sothey must decide. Theycan tell us thewayoffishing that suits them and theirculture
best, and then we can teach them all in accordance with that way.

Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank AkikoTakagi and Mike Nix, my collaborators on this project, (with apologies formy own shortcomings on the collaboration front), and the two readers responding to my paper,
Prof. Dick Allwright and Andy Barfield. My thanks are also due to everyone involved in thisanthology, but most particularly to co-editors Mike and Andy for their sterling efforts in pulling
this whole remarkable project together— LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y259 * Of Fish . . .

M And may each one notfish differently? May it not be thatsome of them would excel in
the artof ocean fishing if they knew of it and had the opportunity? Could they not work
together tofind the best way for each of them tofish?
Why does each one of them want tofish?
Do they all want to be taught?

Where will they befishing—all of them in thesameplace?

Do they each have thenecessary equipment?
A Changing Focus

This chapter differs in many ways from the others in Autonomy You Ask! It's not really a 'project'based on a piece of action research in the classroom, so much as an attempt to pull together
ideas and perceptions which I've been wrestling with over the last few years—ideas andperceptions that concern forms of autonomy which are not culturally biased or contextuallyspecific. My original intention was to try and articulate a framework for autonomy which
would work whatever the context, culture or constraints, and whoever the participants are.
In the process of exploring this framework, however, my focus has shifted to the question ofautonomy and stereotypes, and it is this that is now the central concern of this chapter.
The question of contexts for and constraints on autonomy is not new of course—and
I certainly make no claim to any originality here. Rather, I have tried to put things into a
different perspective: During my initial research, and increasingly during the collaborative
process of creating this Anthology, the focus of the paper changed, and I have come to address
more and more the question of stereotypes—particularly the stereotyped perceptions oflearners, of groups of learners. I am still, of course, concerned with articulating a framework
for autonomy which would work in different contexts. However, it has become clearer to me
that many of the constraints which shape how the learning process works in practice, or how
autonomy may (or may not) work in our classrooms, stem from stereotyped perceptions ofothers, of individuals and groups, of what they are and what they are able to do.

I've been perplexed, even irritated at times,by what I perceive to be blinkered thinking
concerning the potential for autonomy in language learning, and by perceptions of which kindof approach to developing autonomy may be effective or ineffective in so-called 'East Asian'contexts, but more particularly in Japan. (This is true not only of those who would challenge theclaims made for autonomy, but also of many who seek to promote it.) Such perceptions cannot
be ignored or glossed over:Whatever the approach, it can only be understood in terms of theperceptions of learners and of learner autonomy that it rests on. It is therefore quite natural thatwhatever approach to fostering autonomy I consider,whatever theoretical and practical elements
I posit as being essential to an autonomous approach, the question I find myself returning to time
and time again is that of perception—stereotyped perceptions in particular.
I would liketo suggest, in this chapter,that autonomy is essentially about understanding that
individual learners construe the world in different ways and allowing them the space to do that.
This means that an understanding of the differing perceptions, or constructs, of the participantsin the learning process—learners and teachers, as well as administrators—is what really counts
in the end if autonomous learning is to be effective. When those perceptions are based onstereotypes, they can become powerful constraints on the potential of autonomy in the classroom.
One practical outcome of this exploration of stereotypes is a questionnaire to elicit teacher
and learner perceptions of possible approaches, rather than just perceptions of autonomy—

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per se. The questionnaire is not a research tool for this chapter, producing data for analysis;
rather it is the outcome, arising from the specific issues explored in the chapter.
Changing Views of Autonomy

A 'Western' View

A standard dictionary will give two definitions for autonomy. The first will be the idea of selfgovernment by a country, region, or organization, the second, "the ability to make your own
decisions about what to do rather than being influenced by someone else or told what to do"(Collins COBUILD, 1995).Although the idea of autonomy has clearly been around in nonWestern contexts for a long time (witness the proverb often attributed to Confucius at the startof this chapter), it is the 'Western' concept which has dominated. This is a reflection of theincreased concern in Western thought, over the last two hundred years, with the individual,
more specifically with "the capacity of the individual to act as a responsible 'member ofsociety'" (Benson &Voller, 1997,p. 2). This has also been the dominant voice in EFLliterature
on autonomy over the last two decades. Holec (1981, p. 1), for example, articulated "the needto develop the individual's freedom by developing those abilities which will enable him to act
more responsibly in ... the society in which he lives." Trim's (1997) definition for the Councilof Europe was more explicit:
Byautonomy, we mean that individuals are willingand able to take charge of theirown affairs in a responsible and effectiveway. This means not only that they have thenecessary knowledge and skills to do so, but also that they recognise the rights of others
and accept the necessary constraints of living in a society in a co-operative spirit, (p. 15)
There is an ambiguity here: on the one hand, freedom from restraint; on the other, a
responsibility to "recognise the rights of others," which obviously involves a degree of selfrestraint.

A simplified table of the elements of this 'Western' view of autonomy might look something
like Table 1.

Table 1 Elements of a 'Western' Model of Autonomy (from Brown, 1998, p. 10)
DIMENSIONTENSION

individual

individual: social

political/social

responsibility: freedom

The dimensions are the two threads of the dictionary definition above: individual and political/
social. There is a potential tension between the notions of the individual and the social, implying
a more specific tension between the ideas of (individual) freedom and (social) responsibility—
both important elements of autonomy. Coming to terms with these tensions involves developing
what Trim (1997,p. 15) calls"sociallyresponsible independence of thought and action [which isan] ultimately political objective." The "political objective" of Trim's context was the nurturing ofindividual responsibility and freedom as part of the development of democratic processes across(Western) Europe, specifically the European Union. In this sense, such a political dimension
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'Western' view appropriate and desirable for all contexts in which language learning might takeplace? Recent voices within the field seem to suggest otherwise.
A Broader View
Some Modern Voices

Different cultures interpret autonomy in different ways... Different teaching and learning
contexts require different approaches to the promotion of learner autonomy.
Barbara Sinclair (1997, p. 13)[CJoncepts ofautonomy and individual responsibility come laden with Western values... To make autonomy an undiluted educational objective in a culture where it hasno
traditional place is to beguilty at least of cultural insensitivity. Jeremy Jones (1995, p.
229)[Theapparent ascendancy of] the Western approach [does not mean] thatautonomy
as a concept oran educational goaldoes notexist elsewhere, butrather thata notion ofautonomy will bevery different in different educational contexts. Alistair Pennycook(1997, p. 44)[Surveys of cultural types are often] based on over-simplified and over-generalized viewsof learners' 'culture'... [and] tend topresent cultures as static determinants of learner
behaviour rather than as dynamicsystems subject to change. Richard Smith (1997, p. 10)

We should notjump to conclusions about innate characteristics of learners (e.g. Japanesepassivity) but rather examine the educational environment. Alison Hoffman (1997, p. 6)
It should not besurprising if [learners'] values andperceptions of learning have been
influenced to a considerable extent bythevalues andperceptions that theyhavecommonly
experienced within their sodocultural group. This does not mean, however, that they
have been passively moulded by them or thatall individuals will conform to the common
pattern. William Littlewood (1999, p. 78)
My response to these voices:• There is not just one fixed model of autonomy—the model will vary according to
the context and to the initial reason for autonomy. Each context is different, withdifferent implications for autonomy; individuals within each context will also vary,with similar implications for their own autonomy.
•

The kind of'Western' model described above is not sufficiently wide or flexible toembrace different contexts and cultures—e.g., the Asian contexts that Jones andLittlewood describe above may not traditionally encompass the drive for individual
responsibility that Trim (1997) articulates.

A fewyears ago, in an attempt to go beyond the 'Western' model of autonomy, I proposeda broader set of elements, which might form the basis for a more flexible model (see Table
2 below). It seemed to me that the reason for autonomy and its context were key areas which—

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should be included in the model because they might shape and constrain how autonomy
manifested itself, impacting on the dimensions and the possible tensions involved. Recognitionof different contexts and reasons for autonomy is, therefore, essential in avoiding theimposition of one approach onto all contexts.
Table 2 Elements of a Broader Model of Autonomy (from Brown, 1998, p. 14)
IMPLIEDREASONCONTEXTDIMENSION

philosophicalpedagogicalpractical

cultureindividual

nationsocialinstitution

psychologicalpolitical

class (= group)
genderlearning history...

TENSION

responsibility:
freedom, rights
individual: social

The four dimensions have become generally accepted by supporters of a more flexible

conceptof autonomy. Sinclair (1997) outlines the four dimensions in the following way (cf.
Benson 1996):• Individual"stresses individual learning styles and preferences. In this form of autonomy
individual choices take precedence over collaborativelearning."• Social"in contrast... recognises that learning takes place through interaction andcollaboration, as wellas through individualreflection and experimentation."• Psychological"focuses on the importance of the psychological or 'internal' capacities of the learner,such as cognitive and learning styles, motivation, attitudes, aptitude and soon.Thereis a focus on the learners' responsibility for their ownsuccesses and failures in learning."• Political"in contrast... has, as its prime goal, a political end, and the learning process isshaped bythis. An example of thisisthe view of autonomy promoted by the Councilof Europe." (p. 12)

The elements and categories in Table 2 are obviously not discrete items, but areinterconnected, each affecting to whatextent the other will come into play. The pluralityof
reasons and contexts demands a wider range of dimensions and will determine the balanceof those different dimensions. The political dimension, for example, is a clearoutcome of aphilosophical purpose (as in, for example, the kind ofautonomy described byHolec andTrim
above, and referred to by Sinclair, where the ideaof individual responsibility and freedom
within a democratic Europe is as important as pedagogical reasons for autonomy).
What, though, are the practical classroom implications of this new view? The broader
framework implies a more flexible manifestation of autonomy, but much still depends on

perceptions bylearners andteachers ofwhat these elements are—perceptions of the context
and howthe elements are practically constituted in forming a more concrete modelfor
autonomous learning in the classroom.
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Stereotypes and Perceptions
A Scale of Stereotypes

It is true, then, that the understanding of what autonomy is and can be in different cultures/contexts—and how it might manifest itself in the language classroom—has become broader

and more flexible in recent literature in the field. However, it seems to me that many ofthese views are still rooted in stereotypical views of'other' cultures and involve (albeit
subconsciously) degrees of cultural imperialism and imposition. Perhaps this can be moreclearly seen if views of autonomy are located on a 'stereotypical scale,'as in Table 3 overleaf.
In the table, lower numbers at the top of the scale represent stronger stereotypes (narrower,prescriptive perceptions of what autonomy is and/or what learners can do); higher numbers
at the bottom represent less strongly stereotyped positions (broader, more descriptive
perceptions).
At the strong end of the scale, the stereotyping is two-dimensional:
1. Stereotypes of particular learners and their contexts: what learners are, wmat they canor cannot do, their capacity for autonomy.

2. Stereotypes of autonomy: what it is, what it could or could not be, the kind ofclassroom practice it implies.
Point la. on the scale focuses on autonomy, whereas lb. involves stereotypical views bothof autonomy (the limited 'Western' view), but even more so of the learners' capacity ("They
can't do it, so why bother?"). For the rest of the scale, the stereotyping of the learners and theircontext (1. above) is predominant. Points 2 to 4 on the scale accept the possibility of different
models for autonomy, but construe the learners and their context differently. As Mike Nix(personal communication with the author) put it:

At the top of the scale, the learners are seen as synonymous with the context... ordeterminedby it—learners in Japan are Japanese learners—but as you go down the scale,the possibility of different typesoflearner in one contextincreases—learners in Japanare allsorts of different learners who do their learning in their own different ways in theJapanese context.

This serves to underline the importance of the Context category in the 'broader view' of
autonomy (see Table 2). A view of the context which is too prescriptive and limited belongs at
the stronger end of the stereotype scale; movingtowards the weakerend of the scale involves a
focus on the potential of individual learners, rather than predetermining them by their context.
An awareness of the context, without having a preconceived stereotype of what learners canand cannot do is important, so that a particular view or form of autonomy is neither imposed
nor unilaterally withheld because of perceptions of the cultural context.
Perceptions: They are the determining factor here in deciding what form of autonomous
learning can and will be allowed to work. Fransella and Bannister (1977, p. 7) observe that
"Nobody has ever responded to a stimulus. They respond to what they perceive the stimulus
to be." This seems to me to be an essential perspective: The same stimulus can lead to very
different perceptions. On the one hand, the perception can be descriptive, observing andaccepting in a non-judgmental way; on the other, it can be prescriptive, unilaterally pre-empting
what the reality will be. This, of course, is where the stereotypes are born, whether in thelearner, the teacher, or other participants in the process.

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Table 3 A Scale of Stereotypes in Autonomous Learning Contexts
More

stereotyped

la. Imposing aWestern View

"This is the way to be autonomous; this is the wayto learn."/ will teach them our way offishing.

Thisis the easy one to spot! Andit'sbeenwidely targeted overthe lastdecade(e.g., Holliday, 1994, 1997; Pennycook, 1997). There is an arrogance in thecultural imposition.

"Asian/Japanese learnerscan't do it yet; we haveto train them."lb. Withholding Alternative Views and New Knowledge"They can't do it—they'll never be able to, because they're different from us,
so what's the point in trying?"
They cannot even eatfishfrom the ocean, so why should I waste their time andmine trying to teach them?
In some ways, this is more arrogant than the imposition of la, an elitist denialof access to new areas of potential knowledge.
"Japanese students can't be autonomous, so we shouldn't try to make them."
2. 'Othering'—Creating a special category for 'them'"They can't/don't do it 'our' way, so we need to label/categorize 'their' way anddevise a form of autonomy appropriate for them."
Theydo not knowof oceans, but theyhavemanystreams, so let us teach them

onlyfresh water fishing. Let usdecide 'their way'
This shows an apparent degree of cultural sensitivity (relative to la. and lb.),
but still maintains the barriers of stereotype, by unilaterally limiting the kindof autonomy to which learners have access—an indirect imposition, keeping'them' away from the 'top table.'"East Asian cultures are 'collectivist,' so autonomy in these cultures can only bea group-based autonomy."
3.'Self-othering' / Self-labelling
They can't/don't seem to do it 'our' way—'their' way must be different. They
need to tell us what 'their' way is and label it appropriately, deciding forthemselves what form of autonomy is appropriate for them.
They know their fish and their streams better than wedo, so they mustdecide.
This seems less stereotypical than 2.—and more benevolent—but is still aform of labeling.Although the 'culture' labels itself,learners are still placed
into a box which doesn't allow for individual differences.

"We Japanese are shy. Harmony of the group is more important than theindividual."
4. All individuals are different.

Less

stereotyped"Learning experience / context and cultural background may affect learners'
and teachers' expectations of what should happen in the classroom, but may
not really indicate how their thought processes work, what they want tohappen in the classroom."
May each one notfish differently? May it not be thatsome of them would excel in
the art of ocean fishing if theyknew of it and had the opportunity?
This is the zero-stereotype end of the scale, where individual (or groups of)learners are empowered to make their own informed and reflective choices
about the kind of autonomy they enjoy.

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Remembered Voices(Not, of course, verbatim, because they are my memory—my perception if you like—of what
was said, simply paraphrased.)
1. November 1998, Japan; a presentation by Leni Dam, prior to the Japan Association
for Language Teaching (JALT) Conference, in which she describes the autonomous
learning approach she uses in her classes in Copenhagen.
Reaction from a British teacher:But this isjust a methodology. You're justgivingusa list if activities and telling us what
to do. How is this differentfrom other 'methodologies'?
Reaction from an American teacher:This wouldn't work in Japan. My students couldn't do whatyou do; they're notautonomous and could never be. They're too passive.

2. November 1998, Japan; the JALT Conference.The question and answer session at theend of a presentation by David Little.
Q: That's all very well for where you teach [Ireland], butJapanese students can't do that.
They're not as autonomous as Western students.
A: Well you say that, butI'm notsure if mystudents (in Ireland) areas autonomous as
everyone seemsto think 'Western students are. They're really quite dependent.
3. Summer 1999, Japan; a seminar for high school teachers. Comment from a Japaneseteacher.

Japanese studentsare shy... We Japanese are not individualist.

These voices seem to echo the voices on the scale of stereotypes. It is difficult to avoid
making stereotypes, giving prescriptive labels to particular contexts, rather than essaying a nonjudgmental observation of our learners as theyare.
Avoiding the Prescriptive Stereotype

It is important not to automatically accept perceptions at face value, but to examine themwith a critical eye.William Littlewood (1999), citing "culture-based studies of East Asians
and Westerners," notes that "East Asians have a greater tendency to perceive themselves asinterdependent selves," although "individual variation is important" (p. 79). I find myself
inclined to balk at blanket self-perceptions like this (see also the "We Japanese are ..." commentof the Japaneseteacher above), largelybecause I often suspect that there is a degree of selfdisplay involved, rather than genuine self-perception. Saying "I/We perceive myself/ourselves
this way"—usually the status quo—may be genuine, but it could just as well be a case of
subconsciously conforming, displaying the generally-accepted notion of what the society
concerned 'perceives' itself to be.
There is also, however, the opposite danger of falling into the trap of using stereotypes toargue against stereotypes. Although rejecting a stereotype, we may still follow the discourse'agenda' of the stereotype—"Japanese students are passive": "No they're not, they just conformto the behaviour that's expected of them." Or even a modification of the 'agenda': "No they're
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still a stereotype. It still labels. The very act of labeling falls into the trap.
So, can we develop a more flexible approach? One which (a) doesn't require or tempt us
to pre-determine what 'kind' or flavour of autonomy is appropriate for a particular culturalgroup, AND (b) is not unilaterally rejected along the lines of "They can't do that" or "Thatwouldn't work here,"AND (c) allows for differing perceptions of individual learners andteachers? Such an approach would also give space for learners' constructs of the learning
process to emerge and shape what happens in the classroom. It would also give teachers
the opportunity (and perhaps the stimulus) to reconstruct prescriptive and uninformed
perceptions of their learners. Exploring what this kind of approach might look like is the focusof the next section.

Interaction and Interdependence
An Autonomous Zone of Interdependence

Some Student Voices

These voices are from student diaries written during and after a first-year English Department
orientation course ('English Learning Workshop') at Assumption Junior College in Osaka. This
Workshop aimed at fostering autonomy in the context of a consciousness-raising approach tolanguage learning (Brown, 1998). Names are pseudonyms.

Hitomi: / remember my elder brother tech [= taught] me to ridea bike, Many many times
I triedbut I couldnot do. So my brother wasangry and went to his room.
Then I tryagain alone, andfinally I could do. I was very very happy!!! My brother wasvery surprised. Maybe I think he was very angry again because I don't need him.
I remembered this when we had ourEnglish Learning Workshop. We must learn our own
way. Thisis very important I think.
Keiko: English study at Assumption is differentfrom myHighSchool. This isgoodI think.
Because we don'tdo grammar study then sentence practice BUT using natural Englisii
from newspaper or tapeand THENdogrammar study. But it is difficultfor me.
Maki: Noticingis interesting butI want more grammar. Please explain grammar to me.

Mayumi: This wayis little difficult butinteresting! I like doinggroupwork to help eachother with English.
Sachi: / likeNoticing because I can studygrammar which nativespeakers use.
Yuki: I can'tunderstand these guys. Why don't theytalk? I always ask questions or talk...
I don'tlike to work in groups, it's easier alone.
And the same student in an interview at the end of the course:

Yuki: I still like to work alone, butI can understand whywe do groupwork now. I guess its
important to communicate, notjust bealone. But its hard forme.

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These comments from students are by no means exhaustive: They are just a small taste of thekind of comments some of my students produced in their diaries. For my purposes here, a few
observations can be made about them:•

Individual students are different—they reacted differently to the same approach.

• They appear to be learning in different ways.
•

They have different views about the approach used in the classroom.

•

They all construe the world differently•

Their ideas can change.

The final student's comments would appear to reflect the individual-social tension I
identified earlier (see Tables 1 and 2), and her final diary entry hints at a self-awareness of theneed for balance between responsibility and freedom.
Dependence, Independence and InterdependenceThis pair of tensions—individual / social, responsibility / freedom—has become a preoccupation for me. Autonomy is often equated with independence and diametrically opposed
to dependence, but this can be one of those stereotypes! Autonomy doesn't entail a kind of
isolated independence, even in so-called 'individualist' Western societies. As Little (1991,
p. 5) has noted, that kind of "[t]otal detachment is a principal determining feature not of
autonomy but of autism." Interaction with others is, for me, an essential feature of autonomy:
Learners are not confined to a point somewhere on an arbitrary cline between the two polesof independence and dependence, but can rather locate themselves in a less polarized zoneof interdependence. In Kohonen's (1992, p. 19) words, "Autonomy ... includes the notionof interdependence, that is being responsible for one's own conduct in the social context:
being able to cooperate with others and solve conflicts in constructive ways." That is to say,interdependence is not a characteristic of an exclusively'social' or 'collectivist' context forautonomy, but is "our essential condition" (Little, 1991, p. 5).

To satisfy my own preoccupation with this question, I attempted a visual representationof the relationship between dependence, independence, and interdependence. A common
perception of dependence and independence as opposite poles of the same cline might be
represented as in Figure 1.

DEPENDENCE<>

INDEPENDENCE

Figure 1 A simple cline of dependence and independence
Individuals, however, are not permanently fixed at one point of a one-dimensional cline
like this. Their orientation at a given time may vary according to the context, their mood andthe combination of people around them, amongst other factors. Figure 2 (overleaf), then, is
an attempt to represent a more complex relationship between dependence, independence, andinterdependence.

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INDEPENDENCE

C

Autonomous Zone ofInterdependence
D

INTERDEPENDENCE

Figure 2 Dependence, independence, and interdependence: A 'horseshoe' scale
The shaded area in Figure 2 is an autonomous zone of interdependence—a learner at
Point A, for example, would be 'in the zone.' ('Independence' is interpreted here as the'isolated independence' I discussed above.) Moving around the 'horseshoe,' towards either the
dependence (e.g., Point B) or the independence pole (e.g., Point C) of the scale, entails moving
out of this autonomous zone—into an area which I would consider to be non-autonomous.

Being somewhere in the middle of this horseshoe scale,however, doesn't automatically imply
autonomy: Most of us, I am sure, know many learners who are partly dependent, partly
independent, but who are neither autonomous not interdependent in the sense I've beentalking about. I picture these learners as belongingsomewhere outside the horseshoe (e.g.,at
Point D).

Interaction in the classroom is an expression of this interdependence, as well as anopportunity to promote it. It is a means of mediating between the social and individual
dimensions—not only with regard to autonomy, but in a wider sense, as individual beings
living in a social world. This is not just a matter of working together in groups however:Interdependent autonomy involves learners being reflective, critical, and collaborative. Criticalreflection is essential in moving learners beyond where they are at any given moment;
purposeful collaboration takes interaction beyond a kind of going-through-the-motionsgroupworktowards a truer interdependence. (The notion of'critical collaborative autonomy' isdiscussed by Murphey, 2001, and exploredby Mike Nix in Chapter 15of this volume.)
Kelly and Vygotsky

For me, this also makes sense in the context of my reading of Kelly and Vygotsky Kelly's (1955)
articulation of Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) offers a viable theoretical framework
for the kind of autonomy and the focus on perceptionsthat I've tried to explore here:
Each individual will construe the world in his/her own way, developing their own personal
constructs. PCP is not merelyconcerned with the individual in isolation,however. It placesindividual constructs in some form of dynamic relationship with others. Stringer (1979)
emphasizes the same point, that the individualist viewand the social I role-oriented view areboth important.

I have also found that Vygotsky's concepts of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and
the General Genetic Law of Cultural Development (GGLCD) mesh well with my thoughts on

autonomy and with PCP. Vygotsky (1978, p. 86) defines the ZPD as the "distance between the'actual developmental level as determined byindependent problem solving' and the higherlevelof'potential development as determined through problem solving' under adult guidance or incollaboration with more capable peers." In other words, interaction with others (here "more

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capable peers") is an essential plank in the process of individual development. Explaining the
GGLCD, Vygotsky (cited in Daniels, 1996,p. 6) notes that:Any function in the child's cultural development appears twice, or on two planes... 1.
on the socialplane ... 2. on the psychological plane ...
1. between people as an mferpsychological category... 2. within the child as an
infrapsychological category.

The individual's internal development, then, is inextricably linked with her/his social andinterpersonal development: The role of interdependence in the development process is central.
These concepts suggest the kind of interdependent or collaborative autonomy I have been
trying to articulate. 'Collaborative autonomy' is not a contradictory term: As Tim Murphey(2001, p. 136) notes, with reference to Vygotsky, "the concepts [of collaboration and autonomy]
actually go hand on hand. The more that people interact and collaborate, the more choices they
become aware of and the more autonomously they can act."
Although Kelly and Vygotsky appear to come from different directions (Kellyfrom theindividual, Vygotsky from the social), they meet in the middle: They are both concerned with
the individual operating in a social world. And this location of the individual in the social
context connects with the individual-social thread and with the notion of interdependence inautonomy which I have discussed.

The Questionnaire
So, what of practice in the classroom? I'm really exploring a form of autonomy which isinteractive, based on interdependence in the learning process, and flexible enough not tofall into the pitfalls of the stereotypes I've described. The next step in my research will be asurvey of teachers, to explore their perceptions of autonomy and of their learners. However,the 'double-stereotype' problem I discussed above means that this is not as straightforward
as asking Are yourstudents autonomous?, Do you/could youfoster autonomy in your classroom?
or Do you think it's important to do so? Aside from the question of potential stereotypes oflearners, the preconceptions of autonomy would make it very difficult to get accurate andreliable responses. (For example, the question Are yourstudents autonomous? involves not only
a perception of the students, but also a perception of what autonomy is, which would makeaccurate analysis of the answer difficult.) The questionnaire I have prepared (accessible on theAutonomy You Ask!website) is less conventional—and I am indebted to Mike Nix for the idea.

In the questionnaire, several types of class are described in some detail, corresponding
broadly to the range of stereotypes (and non-stereotypes) I have tried to describe here,
including:a heavily teacher-centred class;a teacher-centred 'interactive' class;a class where 'Western-style' autonomy is imposed/demanded;•

two types of autonomous/interdependent class.

These labels are not used in the questionnaire: Respondents will only have the detailed
description of the class types. For each classroom situation, the respondent is asked thefollowing questions, with responses on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from (1) Strongly Agreeto (5) Strongly Disagree.

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1. Does this kind of thing happen in your class?

(D-- -(2)~ --(3)- "(4)- --(5)2. Could you imagine it happening in your classroom?

(i)~ "(2)- --(3)- -(4)- --(5)3. With sufficient preparation/practice/training, could you
imagine it happening in your classroom?

(D- -(2)- ~(3)~ ~(4)-- -(5)4. Do you think this is a useful kind of approach in alanguage classroom?

(1)~ ~(2)« -(3)--(4)- --(5)I hope that the questionnaire will not only be a survey of teachers' perceptions, but also playa role in stimulating reflection among teachers on the following issues:• the stereotypes which unilaterally constrain the forms of autonomy which students
have access to;• what autonomy is and can be; and,•

their own classroom practice.

More importantly, I hope that, as you have read this far, you are inspired to respond to thequestionnaire on the website and that you gleen something from it—enough, perhaps, toreflect a little on your own perceptions in the classroom.

— LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y —27i " ° F Fish . . .
Critical Reader Response iAndy Barfield

A man goes into a restaurant, sits at a table, studies the menu long and hard, asks thewaiter a few questions about each dish and finally comes to a decision: 'I'd like a coffee.'
The waiter protests, says this is not possible, that it is lunchtime and one cannot sit
at a table and just order a coffee, that his function is to serve lunch.. .My friend says
he has indeed come for lunch, but would prefer to start with the coffee. .. .But when
he has finished his coffee, my friends then inquires as to what the waiter has by way
of dessert.. .the man eats his lunch.. .backwards! And sure enough he ends with anaperitif.. .My friend is changing nothing in the social code, all he is doing is inverting it.
(Boal, 1992, pp. 183-184)
Steve Brown's chapter invites us to consider how we can develop a more flexible approach tovisualizing forms of autonomy founded on interdependence in the learning process. One way
in which I feel invited is to imagine how the social order of classroom learning can be inverted
for other orders of doing things to be conceived.
A student/teacher goes into a classroom...

In indulging our imaginations, it seems to me that we can play back and play forward, pause,
pan in and out on both our preferred and freshly imagined ways of ordering teaching andlearning, by asking the question 'What if?'When we find it difficult to run such 'alternative' films,
we are, I believe, caught in stereotype thinking, perception, and action—or, to (re-)interpret Boal,
trapped in ritual. Boal comments:

When a social code does not answer the needs and desires of the people to whom it
is addressed, and thus those people see themselves as forced to do things which run
counter to their desires, or obliged to abstain from doing things which they want to,then we can say that the social code has turned into a ritual.A ritual is therefore acode which imprisons, which constrains, which is authoritarian, useless, or at worst,
necessary as the vehicle for some form of oppression, (p. 184)

Making such a connection between Steve's exploration of the constraints of stereotypes andBoal's parallelviewof rituals helps me perceive the power of stereotypes differently. I begin
to gain finer insight into my own understanding of autonomy by noticing that I need to see
and listen much more clearly to my own/others' ways of being in the world. Through bringing
alternative mini-films into focus, I become more criticallyaware of the roles that I and others
play: Is this the one and only choice that we have at this moment? What might the otheroptions be?What decisions can we take together to make this work better for you (and me)?
Is that perplexing? Sometimes, but it is also exciting to ask such questions and talk about
them together. Steve's chapter helps me find the appetite for eating lunch backwards with mystudents and colleagues. Itadakimasul—

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Critical Reader Response 2

Dick Allwright

Rethinking 'Autonomy': The Importance of Interdependence

Writing about autonomy is notoriously difficult (seeAllwright, 1988,1990). Firstly there is the
problem of settling on an acceptable conceptualdefinition, and then the problem of deciding
what that definition implies for any particular context (making the conceptual definition'operational'). It can help, initially, to make a strong distinction between global conceptual
thinking, not concerned about contexts, but about the global principles that stem from theuniversal'human condition,' and local thinking, and action, which can be seen as attempts togive local expression to the global principles. (For a further exploration of such ideas, but inthe context of teacher and learner development, seeAllwright, 2003.) Unfortunately somepeople then infer that 'practice' is simply a matter of'operationalising' global principles.
However, trying to find locally appropriate ways of honouring our apparently global principles
very quickly calls into question the very 'globality' of those principles (the universality of the'human condition'). Put positively, and if we work at it hard enough, this can helpfully inform
our thinking about our principles, both globally and locally.
Another problem is'agency' Steve Brown writes "Perceptions.That is the determining factor
here, deciding what form of autonomous learning can and will be allowed to work." But who getsto decide such things? People, like myself, writing about autonomy are, almost by definition, notpeople who see themselves as in need of persuasion about its advantages. So we end up in theawful irony of at least seeming to want to tell other people how they should respond to what we
see as their 'universal human condition' (of needing to develop their 'interdependence,' say), when
what we want ultimately to tell them, in a way, is preciselythat it really is none of our business,because they really oughtto be doing all the thinking for themselves.
From this irony arises another, that if we really believe in people being given space to bedifferent (a key aspect of the global thinking in Steve Brown's contribution), then one of thosedifferences will concern the extent to which people wish, for whatever reason or reasons, to act,
and to be seen to act, 'autonomously,' in the sense of minimising direct dependence on (notinterdependence with) others. Rejecting autonomy must be a real option, in other words.
And then there is the third irony, that even if learners do actually want to be, and to be seen
to be, 'autonomous,' it is unlikely that they will already know how to be as autonomous as they
could in principle be, and therefore someone is going to have to train them to be autonomous.
And no matter how we run the training, the training time is itself going to be a period of
increased 'dependence.'
This is really a very tricky 'minefield' to try to negotiate, then, and one Uiat is only mademore tricky by the stereotyping described in Brown's chapter. In a way the most colossal act ofhuman stereotyping we can imagine is perhaps to be found in the underlying idea that there issuch a thing as 'the universal human condition' (or 'our essential condition,' Little, 1991,citedby Brown). But only if we accept some such notion can we proceed with our thinking about
globally valid principles. If we cannot accept such a notion, then 'autonomy' must remain apurely local phenomenon, that must be allowed to develop (or not) purely in response to local
conditions, and therefore be as different (or similar) from place to place as local conditions
dictate.

— LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y273 * Of Fish . . .

That willstill probably leave us with a severe problem of stereotyping, in any particularplace, but again it will remain a local problem, to be treated in a local way.
Will a survey questionnaire help? I would like to think so, but I fear that such questionnaires
as the one proposed by Brown are very difficult to interpret usefully (i.e., validly). For example,
the first question exemplified is:"Does this kind of thing happen in your class?," and the
respondent is asked, on a 5-point scale, to agree or disagree. But how will the respondent haveinterpreted 'this kind of thing'? As the whole 'package,' for example, or only in terms of isolated
bits of it? And how will the respondent interpret the response format offered? By choosing'strongly agree,' for example, am I making a statement simply about the frequency with whichsuch things happen? And if I 'strongly disagree,'am I saying that frequency is very low, or zero?
Notice also that I may'strongly agree' that 'this kind of thing' happens, perhaps even frequently,
but still want to say it is not every kind of thing (or even the most important kind of thing) that
happens. And the next question: "Could you imagine it happening?" reduces 'this kind of thing'
to a singular entity, thus reinforcing the whole package interpretation of the first question, andof course is likely to read as a very odd question to anyone who has just 'strongly agreed' inresponse to the first question. And the third question then goes on to pre-suppose a negative
answer to Question 2, and the fourth question reinforces the idea that 'this kind of thing' isreally intended to characterise a whole approach, although at first sight it is less ambitious thanthat. Note also that the fourth question could also be answered positively by someone who in
principle would think autonomy a good idea, but only for others.

I can't help thinking about alternative sorts of question. For example:
1. How closely does this resemble what actually happens typically in your own classroom?

2. How close is it to what you would like to happen typically in your classroom?

This could be done by asking the respondents to rank (or preferably rate) each description interms of its degree of fit to their typical experience. And then an open invitation to commenton the following:
3. If whattypically happens inyour classes is notvery close to whatyou would like tohappen there, what gets in the way, do you think, and makes what actually typically
happens in the classroom theway it is?

I'm not yet convincedby the above suggestions myself, and partly because they are just my
first reactions. More generally, however, I must note here that I am not optimistic about theoverall productivity of surveyquestionnaires. I am much more optimistic with regard to theuse of a questionnaire as a way of getting people to start thinking about a topic which will
become the focus of face-to-face discussion. The problems of ambiguity raised above thenbecome far less important, becausethey can be 'ironed out' in discussion. Necessarily this is
likely to mean that far fewer people can be included in the work for understanding, but since
we seem doomed to never be able to getstatistically significant samples anyway in our field,
then perhaps that is something of a non-issue.
To return to the main thrust of Steve Brown's argument against the stereotyping thatbedevils discussions of autonomy, I think we could most usefully open up again the issue of'autonomy' itself, and consider the possibility that 'autonomy' is not perhaps the concept thatneeds to be at the centre of our thinking. Brown himselfoffers us an alternative keyterm, the'essential condition' of interdependence.
I suggest building on Steve's valuable suggestion and starting with 'interdependence,' insteadof'autonomy' And then we could stop talking about autonomy as a goal, and think instead

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about harnessing 'interdependence' to 'development.' If we can accept that 'development' isa matter of'developing understanding' (see Allwright, 1999), then we can turn our minds to
how learners and teachers might spend time together in class interdependently developing
their understandings of what happens there. Of course, they will all, including the teacher,develop different understandings, but we don't need consensus, only an agreement to workfor developing understandings. And this work will need to be collaborative, and continuous,with no pretence that any final understanding will ever be reached, or need ever be reached.
But these continuously developing understandings can be harnessed, by learners individually
and/or collectively,with or without the teacher, to help make their classroom experiences morepositive ones, for each and for all.
What I have just described above is Exploratory Practice, an approach that serves to foster'autonomy' by focussing on 'understanding.' For an introduction to its principles, and to several
examples of classroom practice, see the special issue of the journal Language Teaching Research
entirely devoted to Exploratory Practice (Volume 7, Number 2, 2003).
One final comment: I feel I have reacted to Steve Brown's paper rather than fully responded
to it. Byfocussing on the often crippling problem of wholesale stereotyping in our field hemakes a valuable contribution to the field. It deserves much fuller discussion than is possible
here.

LD SIG 2003 A n t h o l o g y