I've just been reading Shirley's blog post on Learner autonomy and tandem learning. I really like this comment:Although learner autonomy means that learners should take control over their learning process, I think it does not mean that the role of teachers is no longer important.Peter Voller wrote an article in 1999, entitled 'Does the teacher have a role in autonomous language learning?' (in this book) and concluded that teachers have a very clear role to play, but a much different one to what they were used to. Voller describes two distinct roles for the teacher: facilitator and counselor. 'Facilitating' includes both psycho-social elements (like motivating learners) and technical elements (like assisting them in planning, monitoring and evaluating their learning process).
If you have any insights into how you might adopt these roles, especially using technological affordances, I would love to hear them. Feel free to post a comment.
