Rubena St. Louis's List: Autonomy in Language learning

This handbook is one of six CIEL handbooks dealing with good practice in the area of independent language learning. It introduces key concepts in learner autonomy and learner independence and a discussion of the benefits and challenges associated with independent learning. The handbook gives an overview of six elements crucial to the success of independent learning, these are then covered in more detail in the other handbooks. The final section of this handbook presents a paper relevant to independent learning by Gill Sturtridge, an international figure in the area of learner autonomy and in the design and use of self-access centres.

This article defines the autonomous learner; summarises arguments in favour of helping language learners to become autonomous; briefly considers the process of 'autonomisation' in language classrooms and self-access learning schemes; identifies some principal lines of research; and concludes by suggesting that the Council of Europe's European Language Portfolio may bring 'autonomisation' to much larger numbers of learners than hitherto and in doing so may provide an important focus for research.