Page 153 - Beyond Methods

Promoting learner autonomy 141
who point out that the learning-to-learn approach may be neces- sary to produce successful language learners but is certainly not sufficient to produce truly autonomous individuals. They recom- mend a broader view of learner autonomy that will help learners how to learn to liberate themselves.
Broad View Of Learner Autonomy: Learning To Liberate
The narrow view of learner autonomy treats learning to learn a lan- guage as an end in itself, while the broad view treats learning to learn a language as a means to an end, the end being learning to lib- erate (cf. Benson and Voller, 1997, p. 2). In other words, the former stands for academic autonomy, and the latter for liberatory auton- omy. While academic autonomy enables learners to be strategic practitioners in order to realize their learning potential, liberatory autonomy empowers them to be critical thinkers in order to realize their human potential. Liberatory autonomy goes much further than academic autonomy by actively seeking to help learners rec- ognize sociopolitical impediments placed in their paths to progress, and by providing them with the intellectual tools necessary to over- come them.
The idea of liberatory autonomy has been propagated by educa- tional philosophers such as Paulo Freire (1972), who emphasized the development of sociopolitical consciousness as a tool for en- gagement in social struggle, and by social scientists such as Ivan Illich (1971), who emphasized the need to liberate learning from the constraints of schooling. General educationists such as Henry Giroux (1988) and Roger Simon (1987) sought to incorporate the idea of liberatory autonomy into the school curriculum. Similar attempts have been made by scholars such as Phil Benson (1997, 2001) and Alastair Pennycook (1997) in the field of L2 education (see Chapter 1 for more details).
Pointing out the inadequacy of the learning-to-learn approach, Benson (1997) advocates what he calls a “political version” of learner autonomy that can offer alternative political frameworks for learn- ing purposes. Conscious of the prevalent opinion that students may neither want nor need to be concerned with political issues, Benson suggests a redefinition of the term politics. We are generally