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中華民國 101 年 1 月 30 日

中文摘要

本研究以個案之課室研究方法，旨在了解初進入大學的大一學生如何面對大學英文課程鼓勵自學的教學措施。本研究設計了一個一學年的教科書專案，讓六個班 180 位同學自己蒐尋、製作、教學。我們想看看學生如何決定題目，過程中如何面對這個學習活動，如何設定自己、老師與英文的角色。結果發現除了少數同學的確做出結果導向的決定，大部分所設定的主題大都是自己喜歡的休閒活動，與前人研究中學生以結果為主要考量的作為不盡相同。但是，過程中學生的抗拒心態仍強，主要原因包括作業內容太多、不了解大學教師之要求、也不太清楚大學老師視以為理所當然的文化等等。為了降低師生間之緊張氣氛，我們做了很多的調整，也提供了更細緻的獎懲制度與教學單元。這個研究凸顯出鼓勵大一新生進行英語自學的實質困難，也讓老師們有機會檢視我們對學生自學的期待。教師往往不全然清楚自己對所謂學生自學的期待，導致可能太多不實際的要求。文後提出師生合作達成自學理想的建議。

關鍵字：外語自學、學生之抗拒、課室教學研究

ABSTRACT

This study was interested in how Taiwanese university freshmen think about and go about learning English and what their attitudes toward being autonomous language learners are when they are encouraged to choose their own trajectories in a college English course. We designed a one-year course project which asked 180 students in six classes to develop readers, course materials, and eventually to teach their lessons. This project was intended to create a transition that the learners needed from being controlled as high school students to having control as autonomous university learners. The study followed qualitative case study tradition.

Through questionnaires, classroom observations, reflection journals, teaching logs, and group interviews we sought to address three sets of research questions that asked what themes or topics the students chose to use in their project and how they approached the required tasks. Finally, how they interpreted their own roles in relation to that of the teacher’s. Preliminary findings are that students chose topics that interested them, but when the project became difficult they demonstrated resistance tendency. The reasons also included that they were not familiar with the teachers’ expectations, the university academic culture, and many of the needed skills. To reduce tensions, the teachers made a lot of adjustments, including more detailed instruction and setting clear rules. These led to the suggestions that learner autonomy does not just happen; often the teacher and students need to work together to make it happen.

Keywords: language learner autonomy, learner resistance, classroom research

解析英語自學：教師之鼓勵自學與學生之抗拒

Analyzing Language Learning Autonomy:

Teacher’s Encouragement and Student’s Resistance Chin-chi Chao & Cheryl Sheridan

National Chengchi University

INTRODUCTION

Autonomous language learning has been an attractive idea to teachers. In a study investigating university English teachers’ attitude toward innovation in language teaching, Chao (2009) found that all of her university teacher participants set fostering learner autonomy as one of their instructional goals. Indeed, who would not want to teach students who are highly motivated and willing to control their own learning? One concern for encouraging autonomous language learning with university freshmen in Taiwan, however, is that students may have become too used to being taken care of. The fact that they were admitted to a reputable higher education institution often has a lot to do with some high school teacher who took it upon her/himself to set strict study schedules for the student to follow for as long as one to two years prior to university entrance examinations.

Typically the teacher would give frequent quizzes and examinations which served to lull the student to study a designated amount of material at a designated speed. Many students were successful in the university entrance examination because of their reliance on such teachers. Relying on these teachers in their previous stages of schooling may make it difficult for students to accept the learner-centered culture and expectation in the university English classroom. They may have problems managing their time and effort as well as controlling and pacing their learning.

Another potential problem for encouraging autonomous language learning with Taiwanese university freshmen is that students may have some confining assumptions about what language learning is all about and how one should go about doing it. In the years leading to college, English learning was often taken as

accumulating actions: There are vocabulary words to be memorized, sentence structures to be drilled and mastered, a large amount of reading passages to be studied, and sample essays to be submitted to memory as a way to develop test taking skills for writing. These assumptions about English learning becomes the dominate conceptions of and strategy for language learning. They may not be aware that becoming fluent English users needs much more than the familiar accumulation methods. Indeed, research has shown that although

productive skills (i.e., speaking and writing) are regarded as important and that university freshmen often express a high preference for developing listening and speaking skills, many students have problems identifying ways to do so on their own (Chen, 1993, Deng, 1997, Yang, 1985, Yao, 1996). Thus, the

over-emphasis on accumulation as part of the language learning and test-taking strategy before university also has the danger of limiting students’ capability to be autonomous learners.

On the other hand, with the advance of the Internet and mobile computer technology, educators and researchers interested in net-generation and their learning patterns developed by computer games and other Internet applications (e.g., Gee, 2003) often advocate that today’s students as the so-called computer natives and net-generation need to learn in ways very differently from what we teachers are used to as the generation of computer immigrants. For example, students of the current generation are often described as being more used to image literacy and information navigation, discovery and experiential learning, concrete learning and

actions, learning by trying things out and learning from each other (John Seely Brown). Focusing on cognitive skills and learning patterns encouraged by computer games, Gee discussed 36 principles of learning design of good computer games, including encouraging active, critical learning and allowing people to form bonded groups with all races and nationalities to share efforts, objectives, and practices. This line of work is inspiring because many of the Taiwanese learners are highly exposed to network computers and computer games, and it is possible that students here would flourish if similar conditions are provided. Our challenge as language educators then is to give them sufficient opportunity to learn in ways that they feel most comfortable and most confident, with or without the technology. As Gee (2003) puts it, "The key is finding ways to make hard things life enhancing so that people keep going and don't fall back on learning and thinking only what is simple and easy" (p.6). This argument is in many ways consistent with the rationale for developing learner autonomy, but the fact is not many teachers are successful in providing such opportunities since complaints about students’ being passive or lack of motivation still prevail.

The two pictures painted by the net-generation observers/game-based learning researchers and many language teachers discussed above seem conflicting to each other. On the one hand, students are said to experience difficulties in being active and autonomous learners perhaps due to previous classroom

experiences; on the other hand, as net generation they may also have difficulty engaging in learning if there is not sufficient space to allow them to be who they are. Both of these pictures actually point to one

phenomenon that can be observed in many university English classrooms in this country: Student resistance which could lead to tensions and sometimes conflicts between teachers and learners. In the spring of 2011, a news story was published in all of the major newspapers in Taiwan: A university student placed a post on a popular BBS¹ saying that her English language professor was “one of the most @#$% teachers in the whole university” together with many expressions of anger about the professor because this student and many

“well-behaved” students in the class had failed to get a passing grade. The professor sued the student, who was then sentenced to a fine of NT$ 214 (New Taiwan dollars, about US$7) by the court, one for each of the 214 days that the student’s post was seen on the BBS. There is no knowing what exactly happened between the teacher and the student, but such conflicts in university English classrooms are not unheard of. What such stories reveal is that there are clear mismatches between the teacher and the learners’ agendas. There may also be missing pieces in our understanding of the learners and our classroom practice. A better understanding of our learners and their resistance is expected to make it possible to provide proper opportunities for learners to learn autonomously in ways they feel motivated and to reduce conflicts in the classroom.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Autonomy or controlling one’s own learning is said to be a right of learners (Benson, 2000), but it may not always be happily embraced by them. A review of literature finds that there are psychological and sociocultural reasons for resistance (Huang, 2006). Psychologically, Hiemstra and Brokett (1994) point out that resistance to learner autonomy is linked to self-concept and self-awareness: Learners who are low in confidence or whose previous educational experience is more teacher controlled may find it difficult to be responsible for their learning or to be aware of the power that they possess as learners. In terms of

sociocultural reasons, resistance may happen because of mismatches between the teacher’s and learners’ goals.

1 BBS is the “Bulletin Board System,” an online communication tool which, despite all the other more well-known social networking tools such as Facebook, is still highly popular among Taiwanese university students. (is it necessary to say why?)

Tsang’s study (1999) in a self-access center in Hong Kong pointed out that learners did not feel autonomy would make any difference to their learning, and that they could not see the relationship between developing autonomy and their learning goals. Students basically wanted short-term results, not to develop autonomy.

Similarly, Huang (2006) found students’ preoccupation with an influential national test made it difficult for them to be engaged in a metacogintion-training project which aimed for reflection and autonomy. Shi (2009) also found learner resistance to native-speaking teachers of English who may not understand what is required of learners to learn English in that particular context and what challenges learners have facing the structural oriented high-stake examinations. Indeed, Canagarajah (1993) and Tsang (1999) in two different

socio-cultural and political contexts found that product- and result-oriented learning is associated with learner resistance. Obviously, learners who think they are aware of some challenges that their teacher is not would develop resistance to the autonomy that the teacher tries to encourage.

All of the above studies are located in contexts where examinations are the learner’s focus of attention. In our own context, Taiwanese university students do not usually have such high examination pressure for

English anymore, but resistance is still common. One possible reason is face issues. Young (1992, 1999, cited in Barcelos 2003, p. 14) in investigating Taiwanese students’ belief to English learning using Horwitz’s (1988) Belief about Language Learning Inventory and her own open-ending questions found that face is important to our learners. High school English focused so much on written and examination skills that upon entering university many students would find that their English listening and speaking capabilities are clearly impaired.

Their tendency to avoid any face threatening situations may make them look disinterested in class, and it becomes even more difficult for them to develop these capabilities. Face issues also remind us of learners’

tendency of acting collectively: Researchers and sociologists agree that Asians or Confucius influenced societies such as Taiwan are basically collectives, not as independence oriented as the Westerners (Nisbett, 2003). If a few students demonstrate resistance, their attitude can influence the whole class.

Since resistance to learner autonomy can be a complex issue that involves both psychological and

sociocultural reasons, in order to cerate a motivating language learning environment, we see a need for further investigation of university freshmen in our context as they transform themselves from high school to

university students in the college English course. Research has shown that university is a critical moment for many of the students to develop interest and skill as lifelong learners of English (see Chao, van Lier, and the NCCU Viewfinder Team, in review). We suspect that the problems described earlier, including depending too much on teachers, holding on to some confining assumptions about language learning, mismatches between teacher’s and learners’ goals, as well as face issues are just part of the challenges that both the teacher and students need to overcome in order to advance their learning in the new language learning cultures. We also agree with Allison and Jing (as well as Benesch, 2001) that the goal is not to eliminate all resistance but to view learners as part of a community who may have some unique takes on the language learning ecology that makes them make the kind of choice that teachers see as resistance.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

In this study we were interested in how Taiwanese university freshmen think about and go about learning English and what their attitudes toward being autonomous language learners are when they are encouraged to choose their own trajectories in learning. We designed a one-year course project which asked them to develop readers, course materials, and eventually to teach their lessons. This project was intended to create a transition

that the learners needed from being controlled as high school students to having control as autonomous university learners. The study follows qualitative case study tradition. Through questionnaires, classroom observations, reflection journals, teaching logs, and group interviews we sought to address the following three sets of research questions:

1. Preference & Interest: What kind of themes or topics do the students choose to use in their project? How do they decide to include or eliminate certain topics?

2. Process & Experience: How do they approach the required tasks? What challenges and resistance do they have? What concepts and assumptions may be confining them?

3. Teacher-student negotiation: How do they interpret their own roles in relation to that of the teacher’s?

What kinds of adjustments or changes of plans are necessary based on the teachers’ observation?

METHODOLOGY Context and Participants

The context of this study was a university located in northern Taiwan which was known for its research in humanities and social sciences. Six College English classes taught by two teachers/researchers, with about 180 freshmen in total, were the participants for this study. In this required English course, students were asked to develop readers and learning materials in groups as a way to guide them toward autonomous language learning. The project lasted for 36 weeks (two semesters of the whole school year), with the first semester (18 weeks) for developing the reader, while the second for the student groups to teach their materials to the class.

This report focuses on the results from the first 18 weeks’ activities.

Design of the project. The project describe here is the first semester of The Textbook Project in which freshmen in six sections of the College English taught by the two researchers create their own class textbooks.

Please refer to the appendixes for assignment description and the syllabus for a detailed description of how the project flows from week to week and what the students are doing in class and for homework.

Solutions to group work problems. We tried to build into the project a few instructional strategies to make it enjoyable, yet challenging, but ultimately fulfilling for the students. One problem that often happens during group projects is that certain hard-working students do a lot more work and compensate for the others in the group who do not make an equal contribution. We attempted to lessen this situation by including three levels of responsibility: individual, group, and class so that students have to participate at all three levels in order to complete the project successfully. In other words, while the class is producing the whole text, groups of four or five students are responsible for each unit and within each unit every student is responsible for one chapter. They are encouraged to support each other and work together as a team, but each student is evaluated individually for their weekly assignments that build their own chapter. In addition there is peer critique and other interaction at the group level to help encourage consistency among unit work. At the beginning of the semester each group elects a unit representative, whose main responsibility is to communicate, on the group’s behalf, with the course assistants and me. Toward the end of the project when the units and book are in the final stages of compilation, each group elects an editor-in-chief to represent the group in a meeting with the other editors to make final decisions about the book style and order of the unit parts. Finally, they propose the final style guidelines to the class for final approval. This leads to the question of how the project is evaluated.

在文檔中解析外語自學：學生之抗拒、教師之定位、與校園自學社群之衝突問題 (頁 37-70)

□涉及專利或其他智慧財產權，□一年■二年後可公開查詢

中 華 民 國 101 年 1 月 30 日

中華民國 101 年 1 月 30 日