LEARNERS’ PERSPECTIVE OF AUTONOMOUS LEARNING
Abstract
Autonomy has been of great interest and is watched keenly in different educational areas. A Japanese educational theme also fore grounded the importance of ability to think and learn of one’s own accord. This ability has closer resemblance with autonomy and according to Japanese society we need this autonomy in order to get succeeded in every walk of life. Umeda (2000 p.61-69) identified three basic reasons which shows the importance of autonomy from general educational perspective.
- Promoting survival capacity to deal with fast societal changes.
- Flourishing learners distinctiveness
- Upgrading the learner’s educational and cultural background.
According to Benson (2001) it is of great benefit to develop such capacity with which one can take control of his or her own learning. Knowles (2001) said that in education our main purpose is to help individuals in developing attitude that to learn something is long lasting process so they should acquire the skill of autonomous learning.
William and Burden (1997 p. 147) cited that In ESL and EFL different scholars and researchers indicate the importance of autonomy from different point of views including pertinence to strategies of language learning.
Scharle and Szabo (2000) in language learning success mostly depend on the responsible attitude of language learners (p.4). Autonomy is also very important in learning language effectively. Takauchi (2003, p.113) did his investigation on how to learn language effectively and he reported that those students who were highly achieving and highly skilled people in English language whom he interviewed, dedicated themselves to learn more independently and who were having their own way of learning.
Onozawa Trans, particularly this person does not use the word autonomy but according to him those learners are the most effective learners who try and find their own way of learning.
