Abstract:

The need to prepare learners to meet the complex educational and social demands of our present-day society (e.g., plurilingualism, the rapid growth of knowledge, lifelong learning, and globalization) has made the notion of learner autonomy a prominent educational goal in publications on education and, more specifically, on foreign language education (García Salinas, Ferreira Cabrera, & Morales Ríos, 2012; Jiménez Raya, Lamb, & Vieira, 2017; Manzano Vázquez, 2016; Sánchez Godoy & Casal Madinabeitia, 2016). The truth, however, is that its promotion is still far from being reflected in the teaching practice of many foreign language teachers. Previous research suggests that one reason for this is the lack of teacher education programmes that help equip prospective and experienced teachers with the professional knowledge, skills and competences necessary to promote autonomous learning in their classroom (Jiménez Raya & Vieira, 2015; Manzano Vázquez, 2018). The study reported here was conducted in a module developed in a pre-service teacher education programme implemented at the University of Granada (Spain). The aim of this module was to introduce student teachers to the notion of learner autonomy in foreign language education and prepare them to foster pedagogy for autonomy in the classroom. Due to time constraints, the present paper focuses on analysing three pre-service teachers’ professional development towards learner autonomy and learner-centredness in foreign language education during the completion of the aforementioned module. To this end, different instruments were used for data collection, including ideal lesson plans, a portfolio, and cases. The findings revealed that at the beginning of the module the student teachers had a teacher-directed vision of language education due to their language learning experience as learners. However, throughout the module, they began to assume learner autonomy as an education goal and developed a learner-centred view of language education as well as different dimensions of professional competence towards autonomy identified by Jiménez Raya, Lamb and Vieira (2017), such as centring teaching on learning, developing a critical view of language education, and managing local constraints so as to open up spaces for manoeuvre towards autonomy. It must be noted that integrating learner autonomy into their vision of language education was not a straightforward process as it was a challenging and unfamiliar idea for them. The main conclusion of the study is that teacher education based on critical reflection, pedagogical inquiry into the development of learner autonomy, and teacher autonomy can contribute to pre-service teachers’ professional development towards learner autonomy and learner-centredness.

Keywords:

Pre-service teachers, learner autonomy, learner-centredness, language teacher education, teacher development.