Teaching and Researching Autonomy provides a comprehensive account of how language learners take charge of their learning, why this matters, and how teachers can support it. This substantially revised edition charts the development of learner autonomy from its early foundations to its emergence as a major international field of research and practice, incorporating contemporary perspectives and evidence from diverse learning contexts.
The book moves beyond traditional views of autonomy as independent or self-directed learning. It presents autonomy as a dynamic process that develops through learners’ interactions with teachers, peers, technologies and the wider environments in which language learning takes place. It examines motivation, emotions, identity, agency and self-regulation, alongside learning in classrooms, self-access settings and the increasingly important worlds of informal, mobile and online learning. In the book, Reinders and Benson combine theory with practical approaches and research case studies, paying particular attention to how artificial intelligence is changing opportunities for learners to shape and manage their own learning. They ultimately offer a contemporary framework for understanding learner autonomy as a central capacity for language learning and lifelong learning in a rapidly changing world.
This book is essential reading for postgraduate students in applied linguistics and TESOL, advanced undergraduates, language teacher educators, and researchers. It is also valuable for teachers and curriculum designers.