University language centres, self-access learning and learner autonomy

Abstract

Self-access learning and the concept of learner autonomy have played a central role in the history of university language centres. Since the late 1970s, language centres’ understanding of learner autonomy has tended to be constrained by the link with self-access learning and the limitations imposed by available technology. For me, language learner autonomy is in evidence whenever L2 user-learners exercise their agency, including the management of their own learning, through the medium of the target language. For more than two decades it was necessary to embed self-access language learning in face-to-face interaction in order to give reality to this version of learner autonomy: available technology allowed only very limited interactivity. Now, however, Web 2.0 provides a multitude of affordances to support the exercise and development of language learner autonomy, and the challenge facing language centres is to find ways of configuring these affordances to meet the academic needs of their students.