Autonomy and culture

The concept of autonomy arising in Europe entails individualism and active participation by nature. However, whether it is appropriate to take learner autonomy as a universal goal of language education across different cultures has been hotly debated. Palfreyman and Smith (2003) summarized three uses of culture in their widely-cited book to speculate the interaction of autonomy and culture. First, national or ethnic culture was the most common connotation of culture, underlining the substantial influence of culture differences between East and West on the implementation of autonomy in non-Western societies. Second, culture connoted

“values and customary ways of behaving in different kinds of community” (p. 1).

Namely, it was the culture of specific kinds of learning environment such as a classroom or a school that marked a difference in autonomy. Moreover, the third interpretation of culture opposed the idea of leaner in isolation and related autonomy to the sociocultural context. Precisely, this trend pointed out the grandness of sociocutural context and collaboration with others when it came to education and our lives.

In addition to Palfreyman and Smith’s (2003) abundant accounts of culture and the potential of learner autonomy around the world, a large number of studies have also kept arguing the appropriateness of learner autonomy. Some complained that the cultural attributes of Asian societies resulted in the reticence and passivity of learners, and that learners from Confucian-heritage cultures were particularly resistant to developing autonomy and were overly dependent on their teachers (Biggs, 1996;

Cheng, 2000; Ho & Crookall, 1995; Palfreyman & Smith, 2003). On the other hand, some argued that depending on others could be a responsible way to learn and that group-oriented activities as well as collaboration fostered the autonomous learning of students from ethnic cultures such as Japanese culture, Arab culture, African culture and Chinese culture (Chanock, 2004; Little, 1991; Smith, 2001; Sonaiya, 2002). That is, they tried to turn the shift from independence to interdependence, emphasizing the value and importance of working together with others and sharing responsibility to pursuit mutual benefits. Autonomy therefore meant setting one’s own goals and developing one’s own standards instead of simply pursuing learning activities without others’ assistance.

In line with the alternative interpretation of autonomy in particular cultures, Littlewood (1999) focused on the traditions of East Asian education system and examined three sources of influence on students’ learning approaches, including the collectivist orientation of East Asian societies, learners’ acceptance of teachers as the authority figure and fount of all the knowledge, and the belief that success could be achieved through effort as effectively as through innate ability. At the same time, he considered which aspects of autonomy might be the most strongly rooted in East Asian culture and how they could be fostered to support English learning. After one year, Little (2000) carried out a follow-up study investigating Asian students’ learning attitudes with a comparison to European students’. Surprisingly, the results did not indicate significant differences between the East and the West, but a greater difference was shown between individuals within the same country, guiding us towards a better understanding of Asian students and their autonomous learning.

Aside from theories and review articles, several empirical studies have been done to get a further look at the cultural appropriateness of autonomy as a learning

objective, especially in Asian contexts (Gieve & Clark, 2005; Ho & Crookall, 1995;

Nakata, 2011; Sanprasert, 2010). Although their findings were mixed, a pervasive phenomenon was observed; that is, most Asian learners valued freedom in language learning and appreciated the opportunity to direct their own learning. Take Sanprasert’s (2010) study for example. Two groups of Thai college students, who were believed to be obedient and uncritical under the influence of their cultural and educational contexts, participated in an English foundation course accompanying with a course management system. They were acquired to fill in questionnaires concerning their perception of the course management system and to write journals to keep a record of their reflection and learning process during the whole semester. The results showed that Thai university students held a positive attitude towards autonomous learning with the help of the course management system. Additionally, they demonstrated their autonomy development through their behavior, strategy use and working with their peers, albeit the stereotype that autonomous learning would be hindered due to the negative effect of Eastern culture.

Chinese undergraduates enrolling in a British university also embraced and enjoyed autonomy by adopting self-directed and tandem learning, as Gieve and Clark (2005) stated. In their study, Chinese college students and their European counterparts studying English as part of their university degree both expressed appreciation of such kind of autonomous learning in their written reflections, though they had different learning needs, language abilities, and cultural backgrounds. Gieve and Clark (2005) therefore asserted that autonomy was not a culturally-determined term; instead, it was a flexible approach could be adopted worldwide. Their commentary echoed Cheng’s (2000), who strongly claimed that the obstacles in our way to autonomy did not result from culture itself, but from the adverse effects of teaching methodologies and

learners’ insufficient language proficiency. In other words, it was unfair to overgeneralize the Eastern passive stereotype to all Asian learners and the so-called cultural impediments to autonomy development in EFL contexts were actually situation-specific factors.

The researcher therefore concluded that with training and practice, language learners in non-Western learning environment could cultivate their autonomy as well as those in Western countries. As for students in Taiwan, incorporating the spirit of autonomy into our education can definitely promote and sustain their lifelong learning and simultaneously solve the educational problem we always encounter, the phenomenon of bimodal distribution. In brief, it was suitable and worthwhile to take learner autonomy as a universal goal of language education across different cultures because of the recent decontextualization and globalization of it (Schmenk, 2005).