Author :
DOI : 10.18033/ijla.3647
Year-Number: 2017-18
Language : null
Konu : English Language Teaching
Abstract
Öğrenci özerkliği ve gelişimi, eğitimde uzun bir süredir kabul edilmektedir ve özerk (otonom) öğrencilerin kendi öğrenimleri için sorumluluk ve bağımsız kararlar aldığı bilinmektedir. Öğrenicilerin özerkliğini (otonomisini) geliştirmenin yollarını bulmak amacıyla yapılan çalışmalar giderek artmaktadır, ancak İngilizce öğrenme alanında yapılmış az sayıda çalışma vardır. Bu yüzden bu çalışma, öğretmen tarafından verilen işbirliği temelli bir video çekim projesi aracılığıyla, yabanci dil olarak İngilizce öğrenen öğrencilerinin özerkliğini (otonomisini) geliştirmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Veriler, öğrencilere, proje başlangıcında ve sonunda, 20 öğrenciye verilen Özerk Öğrenme Ölçeği (Macaskill & Taylor, 2010) ve rastgele seçilmiş sekiz öğrenciyle yapılan yarı yapılandırılmış görüşmeler yoluyla toplanmıştır. Araştırmanın sonuçları, işbirliği temelli video çekim projesinin, öğrencilerin özerkliği (otonomisi) üzerinde olumlu etkileri olduğunu gösterdi. Bu proje öğrencilerin dil ve teknoloji becelerini geliştirmiş; içsel motivasyon, kendi öğrenmeleri için sorumluluk alma, kendine güven ve yeni faaliyetlerle ve zorluklarla baş edebilme becerisi gibi bağımsız öğrenme yetilerini desteklemiş ve zamanı yönetme ve bir işi zamanında bitirebilme gibi çalışma alışkanlıklarını geliştirmiştir.
Keywords
Abstract
Development of learner autonomy has been recognized as an important subject in education for a long time as autonomous learners are found to take responsibility for their own learning and make independent decisions. There have been an increasing number of studies conducted to find out the ways of fostering learners’ autonomy, but there are only a few in the field of English Language Education; thus this study aims to promote Turkish EFL learners’ autonomy through a collaborative video-shooting project assigned by the instructor. Data was collected by means of Autonomous Learning Scale (Macaskill &Taylor, 2010) given to the 20 students at the beginning and end of the project and semi-structured interviews conducted with eight randomly chosen students. The results of the study showed that video- shooting project had positive impacts on learners’ autonomy. This project developed students’ language skills and technological skills, promoted their independence of learning eg. intrinsic motivation, taking responsibility for their own learning, self-confidence and ability to deal with new activities and challenges and improved their study habits like managing time and meeting deadlines.
Keywords
- ‘Autonomy’ comes from the Ancient Greek word autonomous which means ‘self- law’, and has been an important concept in several fields such as philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences. It refers to an individual’s ability to make a rational and informed decision that is not subject to coercion (Kte’pi, 2016). The concept of autonomy has gained a central place in education in recent years as well; Holec (1981) defines learner autonomy as:
- “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning... (and)... to have, and to hold the responsibility for all the decisions concerning all aspects of this learning like; determining the objectives, defining the contents and progressions, selecting methods and techniques to be used, monitoring the procedure of acquisition properly speaking (rhythm, time, place…) and evaluating what has been acquired (p. 3). Little (1991) has expanded this definition to encompass the capacity for “detachment, critical reflection, decision making and independent action” (p.4). Both Holec (1981) and Little (1991) have indicated that autonomous learners have the ability to set their own goals, choose their own methods, techniques and materials to use, monitor themselves and evaluate their own learning and progress. According to Nunan (1997), learners progress through five stages as they develop autonomy: awareness, involvement, intervention, creation and transcendence (p.195). These levels are all based on ‘content’ and ‘process’. For instance, at the awareness level, learners are ‘made aware of the pedagogical goals and content of the materials’ and ‘identify strategy implications of pedagogical tasks’; at the transcendence level, learners ‘make links between the content of the classroom learning and the world beyond’ and ‘become teachers and researchers’ (Benson, 2007, p.23). In the progress of these stages, it is important to raise learners’ awareness and encourage them to take responsibility for their own learning, as autonomy is not innate. Learners “do not come into our classrooms with a natural endowment to choose both wisely and well. They need to be systematically educated in the skills and knowledge they will need in order to make informed choices about what they want to learn and how they want to learn” (Nunan, Lai & Keobke, 1999). The development of autonomy requires time and support as it is “a process not a product” (Thanasoulas, 2000, p.3). Teachers play a significant role in promoting learner autonomy; they should take the role of a facilitator and a supporter in helping learners to become autonomous (Lennon, 2012). According to Leaver et al. (2005), the teacher needs to be “a provider of scaffolding, a role model, a guide, a motivator and a cheerleader” (p.210-214). The aim is to help the learners to develop the capacity for independent learning. However, “independence” does not mean students’ making progress by studying on their own, but rather that, they learn through “interaction, negotiation, collaboration, etc. which are important factors in promoting learner autonomy” (Bhattacharya & Chauhan, 2010, Melda YILMAZ TÜLEK & Derin ATAY p.376). Through interdependence, learners can develop their independence. As Little (1999) suggested, “individuals’ gradual expanding capacity for independent behaviour arises from but also feeds back into the interdependence that underpins social interaction” (p. 82). Learner autonomy has been explored and studied in the field of language teaching. Little (2007) links learner autonomy with language use and states that “the development of autonomy in language learning is governed by three basic pedagogical principles: learner involvement, learner reflection and appropriate language target language use” (p.2). Within the emerging literature, there are some descriptive studies focusing on autonomous learning. For instance, Koçak (2003) conducted a descriptive case study to investigate the readiness of Turkish students for autonomous learning at English Preparatory Programme of a private university in Ankara, Turkey. This study included 186 students and quantitative research methods were used to collect the data. The findings of the study showed that most of the students possessed a high degree of motivation, and a tendency to use metacognitive strategies like self-monitoring and selfmotivation. However, Koçak found that the students had a perception of the teacher as more responsible for most of the tasks, and most of them were reluctant to take responsibility for their own learning outside of the classroom. Similarly, Demirtaş & Sert (2010) conducted a study with 173 students enrolled at the English Language Preparatory Programme of a private university in Ankara, Turkey to investigate the level of autonomy of Turkish learners. They also aimed to explore the extent of learner-centred activities used to develop learner autonomy. Data was collected by means of the Learning Needs Scale developed by the researchers and semi-structured interviews and observations. The results of the study revealed that student-centred activities were ineffective and that Turkish students’ level of autonomy was not sufficient for them to ‘take responsibility for their own learning’ as stated in the earlier study by Koçak (2003). Hozayen (2011) conducted a similar study of autonomy among Egyptian students. The participants were 265 freshman students studying English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in the college of Engineering at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport in Egypt. The data was collected by means of a questionnaire and analysed using quantitative methods. As in Demirtas’ (2010) study, the result of the study indicated that Egyptian students were not ready to be fully autonomous, the underlying reason being that most of the students were teacher dependent. In a more recent similar study, Abdel Razeq (2014) investigated the readiness of Palestinian university students for autonomous learning of English as a foreign language in Birzeit, Palestine. This study used both quantitative (questionnaire) and qualitative (interviews) research methods, and the results of both the quantitative and qualitative data analysis displayed that students had a perception of teachers as being primarily responsible for most of the tasks related to their learning; students perceived themselves as capable of being autonomous if they were provided enough opportunity outside of the classroom. Interestingly, the findings also suggested that gender and level of achievement did not have a significant effect on students’ perceptions of their abilities to engage in autonomous learning activities. Overall, these studies have shown that most of the EFL learners have low autonomy to take responsibility for their own learning, and have tendency to see the teacher as the person primarily responsible for most things related to their own learning. There are also some studies that aimed to promote learner autonomy of EFL learners via out of class activities. For example, Bayat (2011) aimed to find out the effects of out-of-class use of English on the perception of autonomy among Turkish university students studying in English Preparatory classes of a state university in Turkey. Her study included 34 students and lasted for ten weeks, during which learners were anonymously paired and exchanged letters with each other. An Autonomy Perception Scale was used as a pre and post activity questionnaire, and 6 randomly chosen students were interviewed to get data. As a result of the study, it was found out that the letter writing activity increased students’ level of autonomy and helped their language learning. Another study to promote the learner autonomy was conducted by Mede, Incecay & Incecay (2013) in the language preparatory program of a private university in Istanbul, Turkey. Unlike in Bayat’s (2011) study, in this study, extensive reading was used to foster autonomy and the researchers investigated the relationship between these two variables. Data was collected by means of learner narratives and semi-structured interviews held with 5 randomly chosen learners and two teachers. The results of the study indicated that oral book reports had positive effects on learners’ autonomy. They enabled the learners to take responsibility for their own learning, developed their reading and speaking skills and fostered their motivation in learning English language. There are also a small number of studies on the use of technology and promoting learner autonomy. For instance, Bhattacharya and Chauhan (2010) designed a study to investigate the interrelationship between learner autonomy and Blog Assisted Language Learning (BALL), reporting on a month-long social networking project conducted with the MA (ELT) students of H M Patel Institute of English Training and Research, Gujarat, India. The data was collected through reflective reports and interviews with students. Qualitative analysis of the reports and interviews showed that BALL fostered learner autonomy by developing students’ cognitive skills and independent- decision making skills and there was a relationship between intrinsic motivational factors and independent decision making skills. Similarly, Arıkan and Bakla (2011) aimed to find out the effects of blogging on learners’ autonomy, and reported 17 Turkish university preparatory class learners’ experiences of blogging over an eight-week period. The data was collected through observations of the class teacher, a questionnaire and a post-task structured interview. The results also showed that blogging had a positive effect on learners’ independent acting and decision making skills and motivation, and that students liked the experience of blogging despite encountering some problems related to technology. Then, different from Bhattacharya and Chauhan (2010) and Arıkan and Bakla (2011), who investigated the effects of blogging on learner autonomy, Wach (2012) conducted a research study to investigate the effects of out of class involvement in different forms of computer mediated communication (CMC) on learner autonomy in English language learning. The study included 201 Advance Learners of English at a university in Poznań, Poland, and the data was collected through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research techniques. Questionnaire 1 included 6 closed questions eliciting the participants’ internet use habits and 16 Likert type items on autonomy related issues. Questionnaire 2 consisted of 2 open-ended questions sent to the learners via e-mail two weeks after Questionnaire 1 for the purpose of in-depth analysis of quantitative data. The results indicated that most of the participants were eager to use CMC opportunities to practise English, and that CMC had potential to enhance autonomy in language learning. However, to the best knowledge of the researcher, there is only one study on promoting learner autonomy in language learning through a collaborative video-shooting project (Hafner & Miller, 2011). This study was conducted on the English for Science Technology (EST) course at an Englishmedium university in Hong Kong with a mixture of science students in different studies. Qualitative research methods were used and the data was collected through questionnaires (59 students), focus group interviews (21 students), and Weblog comments (62 students). The result of the study indicated that this project fostered learners’ autonomy, increased their motivation, developed their authenticity and independent learning, taught team work and managing the learning process, created opportunities for peer teaching and allowed them to reflect on their learning. Based on these empirical studies, it can be concluded that although there have been some studies to promote autonomous learning of university students in the context of English language teaching, there are few studies on improving learner autonomy by using technology-based tasks and there is only one study to foster the learner autonomy through a collaborative video shooting project. On the other hand, the descriptive studies have showed that EFL learners have a low level of learner autonomy and they are reluctant to take responsibility for their own learning. In this respect, one way of promoting learner autonomy of students is to create opportunities and assign projects and tasks that can provide opportunities to integrate students’ technological skills and language skills in a meaningful context with their peer group members. Accordingly, this experimental study aims to fill the gap in the literature via a collaborative video shooting project to help EFL students to improve their learner autonomy, by enabling them to use technology and language skills to create videos in collaboration with other group members. The impact of this collaborative video-shooting project on their language learning autonomy is investigated via the following research question: To what extent does collaborative video shooting project affect EFL students’ autonomy?
- Methodology Participants and Setting This present study was conducted at an English Preparatory Programme of a private university in Istanbul, Turkey in the fall term of 2016-2017 academic year. The study lasted for four weeks and the participants included 20 students: 5 Arab, 1 Kazak and 13 Turkish students (6 females/ 14 males). Their ages were between the ages of 17 and 26. The participants were pre-intermediate level students who were placed in their classes according to the results of English Proficiency Exam conducted by the university at the beginning of the academic term. Data Collection and Analysis In this single subject experimental study, a mixed methods-approach was used as it provides a broader analysis of the research problem and “employs strategies of inquiry that involve collecting data either simultaneously or sequentially to best understand research questions” (Creswell, 2003, p.18). Thus, the data was collected through a mixture of quantitative and qualitative research techniques, and was integrated for overall results. Quantitative data was collected by means of Autonomous Learning Scale (ALS) (see Appendix A) which was developed by Macaskill & Taylor in 2010 to measure the autonomous learning of the university students, and it was analysed by means of SPSS 23. ALS is a 12-item measure with two subscales, Independence of Learning, ‘I take responsibility for my learning experiences’ [item 11], and Study Habits, ‘I plan my time for study effectively’ [item 9]. Independence of learning includes seven items reflecting “the elements of responsibility for learning, openness to experience, intrinsic motivation, with an element of self-confidence in tackling new activities” and study habits consists of five items which “relates more to learning and study practises reflecting issues of time management, procrastination and attitude to lone working” (Macaskill & Taylor, 2010, p. 6). The scale is a five-point scale ranging from 1 (very unlike me) to 5 (very like me) and higher scores indicate “greater levels of autonomy, more independence and more positive attitudes to learning” (p. 8). There are two negatively worded items to prevent responses bias in students. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient reliability was reported as .81 and the face validity of the scale was measured by experienced academics and concurrent validity of the scale was found to be satisfactory. Demographic information (age, gender, English experience years) was included on the scale to get background information about students. Students were asked to use pseudonyms for the scale so that they could feel confident while choosing the options which define them best. The scale was given to the students once at the beginning of the study and once at the end of it and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test ( Non-Parametric Test) was applied to the data to find out whether there was a significant difference in the autonomy level of the students after the study. Quantitative Data was measured by means of this test as the number of the students was less than 32 and not enough to be measured by a T-test. Quantitative data was supported by follow up semi-structured interviews. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 randomly chosen students (4 males and 4 females). The interviews, in 5 to 10 minutes in length, were audiorecorded and transcribed. All the students provided consent for recording and transcription of interviews. The interview questions (6 questions) were open-ended and included questions adapted from ALS (see Appendix B). Therefore, the interview questions refer to the themes included in ALS: Independence of learning eg. “the elements of responsibility for learning, openness to experience, intrinsic motivation, with an element of self-confidence in tackling new activities” and study habits eg. “learning and study practises reflecting issues of time management, procrastination and attitude to lone working”. The data obtained through semi-structured interviews was analysed by means of pattern coding as suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994). Procedure The video–shooting project was conducted in a Listening and Speaking skill lesson, and was assigned and explained to the students by the teacher in the 5th week of the semester. The project lasted 4 weeks and was part of the syllabus. Students were graded on their progress, videos and their presentation (5% progress checks, 5% presentation of final product) in the assessment. The project was on students’ creating their own videos as weekly programmes of a TV channel and presenting them as a final product (see Appendix C for a detailed guideline of the project handed out the students before the project started). Students were free to choose their own group members (5 groups/4 members in each group), materials, content of their videos, place to work, and time to study and to set their own goals. They founded a TV channel with their group and every week, they worked on one section of the project. They were asked to create at least 3 programmes and to work together with their group to shoot their own videos for these programmes. The topic of the programme for each week was parallel with the unit theme of Skillful Books Level 2 (Reading& Writing and Listening& Speaking), which were used as course books at the university. Before the students shot their videos, they wrote the script of their programmes as a first draft and submitted it to their teacher on the progress check every week for getting feedback. They named their channels and in the last week, the 4th week of the project, students introduced their channels and the programmes (their final product) to their class mates through a presentation. They displayed their videos, talked about them and shared their reflection during the videoshooting project. To illustrate, for the first week’s programme on nourishment, one group made a cooking television programme, which was a 8 minute video, to introduce a traditional dish in Turkey. The other two groups preferred to make a talk show on health and healthy life styles and interviewed with doctors who gave helpful tips and healthy recipes to the audience for a healthy life. That was a role play and each groups’ videos were about 10 minutes. While the groups were showing their programmes to their friends, they also talked about their feelings, thoughts and the challenges that they faced during the video-shooting project and received feedback from their classmates. After presentation, they were encouraged to share their videos on social media like on YouTube and Facebook and they were asked to make comments on each group’s videos. Findings and Results The data was collected through quantitative and qualitative research techniques.
- video shooting process (Can, December 5, 2016).
- The second question was related to the effect of the video shooting project on the motivation of the students to learn English. 6 students indicated that the project positively affected their motivation. Some students (3/8) believed their motivation increased as a result of sharing ideas and drafts and working together with their group members. For instance, a student said: “The project increased my motivation because I shared my ideas and my drafts with my group members; we helped each other to finish the project” (Sundos, December 2, 2016). Moreover, some students (5/8) stated that their motivation increased as they became aware of their mistakes and realized the improvement in their language skills. For example, a student said: “In this project…We wrote a lot of things...information...drafts..., reflective journal and scripts for our programmes. There were so many mistakes in my writing, but that was good for me because I was learning from my mistakes and tried to avoid them. The project motivated me because I realized that my writing was improving and I started to speak better” (Shaed, December 2, 2016). On the other hand, two students said that the project did not have any change on their motivation.
- organization. (Hakan, December 5, 2016). Searching and learning new information: On the other hand, some students (3/8) also stated that searching new information encouraged them to take responsibility for their own learning as illustrated below:
- 5, 2016).
- everything on time. (Shaed, December 2, 2016)
- December 5, 2016).
- did our best to finish the project (Shaed, December 2, 2016). Tackling speaking problems: 6 out of the 8 students stated that the most difficult thing was speaking in front of the class and camera. These students all emphasized that they solved this problem by practising speaking a lot, as illustrated below:
- shooting. I was like a real speaker (Sundos, December 2, 2016). Dealing with technological problems: Some students (2/8) stated that they struggled with editing videos. It was difficult for them but they learnt to handle this problem by searching some information about editing videos. For example, one of the students said:
- (Aleyna, December 5, 2016)
- how to this. That’s the best thing... (Shaed, December 2, 2016).
- lot of job. He also taught us how to make a video (Faduma, December 2, 2016). To summarize, the results of the qualitative data analysis indicated there was a significant difference in the autonomy levels of the students before the project and after the project and the analysis of the interviews supported the quantitative data. It showed that the video-shooting project improved students’ language and technological skills and it had positive effects on their independence of learning. For example, it enhanced their motivation as a result of working together with their group members, being aware of their mistakes and the improvement in their language skills. It encouraged them to take responsibility for their own learning as a consequence of shared responsibility with peers and searching new information, and developed their self-confidence and ability to deal with new activities and challenges. In addition to the positive impact of the project on the students’ independence of learning, it also developed their study habits such as managing time and meeting deadlines and independence as a result of peer scaffolding.
- researchers (Nunan, Lai& Keobke, 1999; Leaver et al, 2005; Little, 2007; Lennon, 2012).
- This project also improved the motivation of the students. Deci (1995), Dickinson (1995), Ushioda (1996), Dörnyei (2001), Little (2007) and Lennon (2012) linked intrinsic motivation and autonomy, stating that autonomy plays a significant role in promoting intrinsic motivation. In this regard, in addition to the quantitative data results, students were asked a question related to their motivation in the interview to find out whether the video shooting project had any effect on the intrinsic motivation of the students. Their answers showed that the project increased their motivation as it enabled them to take their own responsibility to help their group friends and work with them collaboratively and also improved their language skills. Their answers showed that this project supported the students’ intrinsic motivation to improve their learner autonomy, which is a common result of some empirical studies conducted for the purpose of promoting learner autonomy (Bhattacharya and Chauhan, 2010; Arıkan & Bakla, 2011; Hafner & Miller, 2011; Mede, Incecay & V. Incecay, 2013). These existing studies and this study indicated that there is a strong link between the learner autonomy and support of the students’ intrinsic motivation.
- beneficial; as Thanasoulas (2000) stated autonomy is not a product but a process and it
- In spite of some limitations, this study has proved to be significantly effective in fostering learner autonomy of the EFL students by integrating their technological skills and language skills in a video shooting project in which they worked collaboratively and cooperatively with their peers based on mutual scaffolding in a meaningful context to create their videos. It has showed that there is a correlation between use of technological skills and promoting learner autonomy and it fills the gap in the literature as there are a few studies on the use of technology based tasks to foster the learner autonomy and there is only one collaborative video shooting project. In this regard, this study can be utilized as a project in EFL classes to promote the students’ learner autonomy by using technology in a collaborative task. As it would appear, EFL learners are reluctant to take responsibility for their learning and have low autonomy (Koçak, 2003; Demirtas & Sert, 2010; Hozayen, 2011; Abdel Razeq, 2014), they can be provided this kind of project which may direct them to take responsibilities for their own learning, make wise choices and independent actions, increase their intrinsic motivation, develop their study habits, improve their ability to deal with challenges and develop independency as a result of interdependency by integrating their technological skills and language skills.
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