Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment (Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching)

Hamilton, Dr Miranda

ISBN 10: 1441150641 / ISBN 13: 9781441150646

Published by Bloomsbury Academic, 2013

About this Item

Seller Inventory # V9781441150646

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment (Advances in Digital Language Learning and Teaching)
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1441150641
• ISBN 13: 9781441150646
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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.

About the Authors

Miranda Hamilton is a Researcher in Cambridge looking at Learning Orientated Assessment with a focus on the use of technology. She recently completed her PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK.

Michael Thomas is Professor of Education and Social Justice and Chair of the Centre for Educational Research (CERES) at Liverpool John Moores University, UK.

Mark Peterson is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Kyoto University, Japan.

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.