Struggling for Autonomy in Language Education

Pedagogy for autonomy is a continuous struggle for transformative and empowering education. That struggle entails reflecting on what fosters or hinders teacher and learner development, acting towards challenging and reshaping oppressive forces and circumstances, and being willing to deal with complexity, uncertainty and risk-taking, without losing one's hopes and ideals. Our main purpose is to present and discuss ways in which critical reflecting, acting, and being emerge in contexts of teaching and/or teacher education, not as realisations of a grand theory of pedagogy for autonomy, but rather as local, idiosyncratic struggles to grasp and enhance the meanings that autonomy may (not) take in diverse educational settings. Although from different angles, the chapters highlight the central role of teacher and learner development as interrelated aspects of pedagogy for autonomy in language education.

Autorentext
The Editor: Flávia Vieira is Associate Professor at the University of Minho (Portugal), and has worked and published in the fields of pedagogy for autonomy in language education and reflective teacher education. She coordinates a professional community of schoolteachers and teacher educators/researchers that seeks to understand and explore pedagogy for teacher and learner autonomy in schools.

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Contents: Flávia Vieira: Introduction - Flávia Vieira: Pedagogy for autonomy and teacher education - putting teachers centre-stage - Ana Martins: Making learning journeys through reflective portfolios - Maria Alfredo Moreira/Deolinda Ribeiro: Then the I becomes Us... on collaborative supervision journals and the development of professional autonomy - Margarida Castro/Filomena Semião/Margarida Maia: Task-based English language teaching and learning - evaluating the impact of tasks on students - Leslie Bobb Wolff: The 'good language learner', learner autonomy and the teacher - Sultan Erdogan: Learner-centred teaching - teachers' personal theories and perceived constraints - Flávia Vieira/Isabel Barbosa: Investigating contexts for autonomy - a study of learner readiness and beyond - José Luís Silva/Isabel Barbosa/Maria do Céu de Melo: Researching the curriculum - what images of autonomy do syllabi convey? - Manuel Jiménez Raya: On inquiry, action and identity in professional development towards pedagogy for autonomy.