Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Free Space

FREE SPACE | フリー・スペース
Thinking About
Learner
Autonomy/Learner
Development
Alison Stewart
Gakushuin University, Tokyo
Email: <alison.stewart@gakushuin.ac.jp>
What is “learner autonomy”? What is “learnerdevelopment”? I love thinking about thesequestions, but I don’t believe there is any
definitive answer to them. I tend to go back andforth on what I think they might mean. One of thereasons I enjoy being a member of the LD SIG isthat it brings me into contact with other people
who are thinking about these questions too andwho are finding new ways to envisage learnerautonomy and learner development and to realise
them in their practices of learning or working withlearners and other teachers. Similarly, I am
attracted by an inclusive practitioner research
approach, such as Exploratory Practice (Hanks,2017), because it involves collaborating withlearners to understand what puzzles them. My
understanding is always evolving from myexperience with learners, as well as from what I
learn from my peers in the LA/LD community. My
understanding of learner autonomy and learnerdevelopment—these terms which I can’t exactly
define—is also shaped continuously by the insightsthat come to me from my wider reading in the fieldof applied linguistics and even wider reading ofanything (novels, poetry, journalism, popularscience, biographies etc etc) that looks interesting
and that opens my eyes to new ways of seeing
myself and others and the world we live in. Dick
Allwright and Judith Hanks propose that the aim ofinclusive practitioner research is to understand the“quality of life” in the classroom (Allwright &Hanks, 2009). Reflecting on my first experience of

exploratory practice with my seminar students(Stewart, Croker, & Hanks, 2014), I questioned thenwhether this might not be too broad a term, andsuggested that “quality of learning” might be more
appropriate. But now I’m not sure. I think I like theopenness and inclusiveness of “quality of life”
better.
In my current thinking, learner autonomy andlearner development are not quite the same thing.
Autonomy, to me, conjures up notions of freedom,agency, power, identity—notions that warrant a
critical, problematising stance in research andpractice. Development, as I see it, focuses more on
the individual learner and their change and growth.
But actually, since all individuals live in a society,this also entails being critical. A few years ago, Tim
Ashwell and I came up with this definition oflearner development:
Learner development entails the development(in all senses: intellectual, emotional, social,physical, spiritual) of the individual. As
individuals, we are responsible to ourselves
and to others. And as adult members ofsociety, we have a responsibility to ensure that
our society is just and fair and that it provides
opportunities for the development of every
individual living in it. We are responsible forpassing on the knowledge that we have gained
through experience in the same way that weare responsible for reaching out to others tolearn from their experience. (Stewart &Ashwell, 2014, p. 22)
At the time, this felt like a bit of a stretch. To
be honest, we were attempting to justify acollaborative practice of learning, which was thefocus of an anthology of research articles of which
we were two of the editors (Ashwell, Miyahara,Paydon, & Stewart, 2014). Our formulation echoes
elements of previous definitions of autonomy: the“Bergen definition” of learner autonomy (Dam etal., 1990), for example, alludes to theresponsibility of learners, while the “Shizuoka

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Free Space
definition” of teacher autonomy (Barfield et al.,2001) sees learner-teacher autonomy as acontinuous project that teachers undertake incollaboration with their learners to develop andunderstand their own autonomy. However, because
we were defining learner development, our focus
was on individual learning or cognition, as much as
it was on social practices. Moral responsibility was
the solution Tim and I came up with then to bridge
the gap between the individual and the social, but
I still wonder whether or to what extent thisentails collaboration between learners. The notionof collaborative learning seems like an ideal way tomanage classroom relations, but does it actually
capture the experience of learning or of learnerdevelopment?
Talking to Chika about the connection between“collaborative learning” and “learnerdevelopment” while writing this piece, she makes
the point that through collaboration students get
to engage in shared affective experiences. InChika’s view, “Both teacher and students in aclassroom try to maximize their positive emotions
and minimize negative ones through interaction
with others and this will affect how much theyshare their knowledge as well as how to negotiatewith others.” In this way, collaboration has toenhance the quality of learning/teaching. I would
agree that affect is much more important incollaborative practice as our emotions areinfectious (negative as well as positive ones). But I
think collaboration is about more than justemotions. When we collaborate, either we aresimply sharing knowledge we have already acquired
for a common purpose, or we subordinate our will
to others and agree to something someone elsesuggests. Power is a dimension that I wanted tohighlight, and that is something that is quite
different to affect. Thus, collaborating in aclassroom practice that is designed to facilitate
learning might not in fact lead to either learning or
autonomy.
As this last point suggests, I believe that learnerautonomy cannot be understood without taking
issues of power into consideration. Since myresearch focus is more on teachers than learners,

I’ve recently been reading and writing about
concepts such as power/knowledge (Stewart &Miyahara, 2016) and agency (Stewart, forthcoming)in a way that actually questions the existence ofautonomy. This isn’t to say that I don’t believeautonomy exists; rather, what I’m thinking atpresent is that it’s more interesting to explore
where new practices, new ideas, and neworganisations come from.

References
Allwright, D., & Hanks, J. (2009). The developing
language learner: An introduction to exploratory
practice. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Ashwell, T., Miyahara, M., Paydon, S., & Stewart, A.
(Eds.). (2014). Collaborative learning in learnerdevelopment. Tokyo: JALT Learner Development SIG.
Barfield, A., Ashwell, T., Carroll, M., Collins, K., Cowie,N., Critchley, M., Head, E., Nix, M., Obermeier, A.,& Robertson, M. C. (2001). Exploring and defining
teacher autonomy: A collaborative discussion. In A.
Mackenzie & E. McCafferty (Eds.), Developingautonomy. Proceedings of the College andUniversity Educators' 2001 Conference, Shizuoka,Japan (217-222). Tokyo: The Japan Association for
Language Teaching.
Dam, L., Eriksson, R., Little, D., Miliander, J., & Trebbi,T. (1990). Towards a definition of autonomy. Third
Nordic Workshop on Developing Autonomous
Learning in the FL Classroom. Bergen, University ofBergen, Norway. Retrieved from http://
www.warwick.ac.uk/go/dahla/archive/trebbi_1990
Hanks, J. (2017). Exploratory practice in language
teaching: Puzzling about principles and practices.
Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stewart, A. (in press). Using Actor-Network-Theory toproblematize agency in teacher identity: The case ofFilipino English teachers in Japan. In H. Kayi-Aydar,A. Gao, E. Miller, M. Varghese, & G. Vitanova (Eds.),
Theorizing and analysing language teacher agency.
Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Stewart, A., & Ashwell, T. (2014). Clarifying terms. In T.
Ashwell, M. Miyahara, S. Paydon, & A. Stewart(Eds.). (2014). Collaborative learning in learnerdevelopment. Tokyo: JALT Learner Development SIG.
Stewart, A., Croker, R., & Hanks, J. (2014). Exploring
the principles of Exploratory Practice. In A. Barfield& A. Minematsu (Eds.), Learner development
working papers: Different cases, different interests

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Learning Learning 『学習の学習』 25 (2): Free Space(pp. 127-145). Tokyo: The Japan Association forLanguage Teaching (JALT) Learner Development SIG.
Stewart, A., & Miyahara, M. (2016). Language teacher
associations in Japan: Knowledge producers and/or
knowledge disseminators. ELT Journal, 70(2),137-149.

The Learner Development
Journal (LDJ):
Problematising Practices
Tim Ashwell, Andy Barfield, Huw Davies, Darren
Elliott, Hugh Nicoll, Alison Stewart, & Koki Tomita
The following discussion between members ofthe LD SIG committee focuses on publicly
documenting the ongoing development of The
Learner Development Journal (LDJ) and shedding
light on important questions about the future
direction of the journal.
Launched in November 2017, the LDJ is theLearner Development SIG’s online, open-accessjournal. It is published once a year and is devoted
to practitioner-driven research, reviews andinterviews exploring learner development issues insecond language education. The inaugural issue of
the The Learner Development Journal on“Visualising Learner Development” (issue editors:Darren Elliott & Hugh Nicoll) appeared in November
2017. A year later the second issue on “Qualitative
Research into Learner Development” (issue editors:Chika Hayashi, Masuko Miyahara, & Patrick Kiernan)
is approaching publication, while writers for Issue 3of the LDJ on “Learner Identities andTransitions” (issue editors: Christina Gkonou, Jim
Ronald, & Yoshio Nakai) are currently sharing firstdrafts with the journal’s editors and Review
Network members for open or blind peer review.
Looking ahead, the first Call for Papers for Issue
4 on “Exploring the Supervision Process AcrossDiverse Contexts: Collaborative Approaches” (issueeditors: Sabine Little and Michelle Golledge) wentout in September 2018, and in early 2019 theJournal Steering Group (JSG) will be appealing for
editors to tender proposals for Issue 5 and to bring

together a group of contributors to explore adifferent learner development theme.
Unlike most other journals, the LDJ iscommitted to group-based professional
development and shared exploration wheremembers of the SIG and others can inquire into
specific learner development themes in acollaborative and supportive environment. Not
unsurprisingly, this shared commitment does notcome without a bewildering array of challenges—
and opportunities—for writers, reviewers, andeditors, as well as the Journal Steering Group (JSG)that oversees each issue.
We hope that this discussion—which took place
online between July and October 2018—helps
readers of Learning Learning and all the membersof the Learner Development SIG become morefamiliar with the range of concerns that people
working on the LDJ currently have, and why.
We warmly encourage you to share yourthoughts and questions in response to thisdiscussion (in the next issue of Learning Learning).
We hope too that SIG members will step forward
and take part in future issues of the LDJ as writers,reviewers, editors, or steering group members.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you!
Discussion
Alison (founding member of the Journal
Steering Group): We wanted to let you know that
the Call for Proposals for Issue 4 of the Learner
Development Journal resulted in 4 proposals, all ofthem from outside Japan. We have now accepted aproposal by Sabine Little and Michelle Golledge at
the University of Sheffield on Learner Developmentin Supervisor/Supervisee Relationships, and arelooking forward to meeting them on Skype in thenext week or so. We have also invited the authorsof another proposal to send in their proposal again
next spring for consideration for Issue 5.
Meanwhile, Issue 2 is coming on apace and we havejust received copies of all the articles for
proofreading.

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