Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment

Digitalised learning with its promise of autonomy, enhanced learner choice, independence and freedom, is an intuitive and appealing construct but closer examination reveals it to be a rather simplistic proposition, raising the following questions.

-What do we mean by autonomy?

-What are we implying about the role of the teacher, the classroom, and interaction between learners?

-What do we understand about the impact of technology on the ecology of the learning environment?

This book describes the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by a group of advanced English language learners in Mexico, comparing what students thought and what they did in response to the technology. The theoretical aim of the book is to work towards the construction of a theory of the development of autonomy and virtual learning in an EFL context. Enhanced understanding about the relationship between autonomy and technology has the potential to inform academics, software designers, materials writers, teacher educators, and teachers and to help learners in
their quest to acquire a foreign language.

Mark Warschauer is a Professor in the Department of Education and the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine, Director of UCI's Ph.D. in Education program, and founding director of UCI's Digital Learning Lab.