Listening to local voices: Teachers’ representations on learner autonomy

Abstract

This exploratory study is situated in a context of educational changes in which learner-centered pedagogy and learner autonomy were introduced in response to the reform in the university curriculum. The study is interview-based and was conducted with seven female teachers in order to explore how teachers view learner-centered teaching and learner autonomy, how they implement these principles in practice, what constraints they meet and how they respond to them. The qualitative, interpretive method of analysis based on a sociocultural perspective reveals insights about how teachers learn to teach and to become autonomous in the absence of a framework for professional development. Despite their difficulties, which are largely related to the students’ deeply rooted preference for relying on the teacher or the person who knows better, the teachers were committed to implementing this educational innovation, and understood it as something in the making, in construction, in action. They “re-invented” and “domesticated” the concept, adjusted their old practices and co-constructed their own autonomy by involving their learners in classroom activities that they enjoyed doing. Therefore the apprenticeship for autonomy was carried out simultaneously with and through their peers and with their students. The new curriculum and the innovation it has brought resonated in these teachers and was perceived as “ecologically appropriate” to their needs and aspirations.