AAA - Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik Band 34 (2009) Heft 1 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Make English a Part of Your Life: An EFL Learning Autonomy Project at University Level Dietmar Tatzl The present article introduces a method to improve the English language skills of advanced learners by means of a learning autonomy project at university level. For two months, 38 students carried out tasks they had chosen from a project handout which aimed at fostering learner autonomy and showing students ways of encountering the language in their daily lives. The assignment demanded their pro-active engagement with using the language, yet in a motivating manner. The results of the project suggest that learner autonomy may be facilitated by drawing on real-life sources that are available to students in modern cities all over the world. Even though it remains difficult to evaluate the direct linguistic gains from such a project, we may conclude that the approach discussed in this article increases students’ awareness of, interest in and engagement with the English language around them, which may also lead to linguistic gains in the long run. Introduction In our high-technology world, there is generally widespread global access to English, and this facilitates English language learning and teaching. This article aims at presenting a method to enhance the linguistic proficiency of advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). The idea of developing such a method originated in my English language courses at FH JOANNEUM, University of Applied Sciences, Graz, Austria, where students kept asking me what they could do to improve their English in the long term. These English courses are embedded in the Degree Programme in Aviation, which educates students in the fields of Aeronautical Engineering, Avionics and Air Traffic Control Technology, Aviation Management and Piloting. Since English constitutes the lingua franca in aviation, six semesters of language training are obligatory for our students. Further, in Austria pupils usually Dietmar Tatzl 126 1 The CEFR-level B2 is described as follows: “Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/ her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and independent disadvantages of various options” (Council of Europe n.d.: 24). attend English classes for eight years at secondary level, so that most of the first-year students at university already have a solid basis in this language, which in the main corresponds to level B2 in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). 1 In practice, however, their competency very often depends on the school they come from because in Austria there is no standard Matura or school-leaving examination, with the general tendency that technical schools frequently neglect English in their curriculum or reduce it to an accompanying subject, whereas grammar schools rather promote language training. Naturally, this results in a discrepancy of skills in a first-year English course at university, especially so as English is not tested during the general entry examinations that applicants have to take for a study place at FH JOANNEUM. The English in the Degree Programme in Aviation consists of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in technology, engineering and business, including meeting and presentation skills, and only a small amount of General English in the first two semesters of study. 1 The Project Outline The project discussed in this paper is suitable for advanced learners in any university context, possibly even for mature learners at secondary-school level. It was carried out in the first-semester English language course with learners who would attend five additional semesters of English language training until graduation. The reason for introducing the concept of learning autonomy in this course at such an early stage was mainly to maximize the potential outcome for students, who theoretically may profit from the awareness of learning opportunities around them and from initiating a habit of working with the English language during their whole education and beyond. For two months, 38 students participated in the project, 31 of them male and 7 female. An assignment was designed which aimed at fostering learner autonomy and showing students ways of encountering the language when no teacher was there to assist them. The assignment was integrated in the lives of the learners outside the classroom and demanded their pro-active engagement with using the language, yet in a motivating manner. Thus, the introductory handout had to stimulate learners’ interests (see Appendix). Make English a Part of Your Life 127 2 The term English is meant to include all English-speaking cultures. 3 See Cortés/ Sánchez Lujan (2005: 134) and Breen/ Mann (1997: 134-136) for characteristics of autonomous learners. According to Breen and Mann (1997: 145-148), teachers most likely to succeed in autonomous learning settings possess a sense of self-awareness, belief and trust in learners and a desire to foster autonomy. In the classroom, they are a resource, share decisions, facilitate collaborative evaluation, manage risks and show patience (also cf. Voller 1997). These interests were assumed to derive from general and typical pastimes and occupations of young people in an industrialized nation, such as going to the cinema; watching movies; listening to music; reading books, magazines and newspapers; going out with friends; and the like. The handout therefore included some photographs of city-centre spots which have a distinct relation to the English language or culture 2 as well as to potential fields of interest for learners, so that the participants in the project were prompted to look for such places and instances themselves. With regard to “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” I considered it necessary to integrate the autonomous learning gain into the regular assessment of the course because I wanted to credit the effort that students had spent on the various activities. The project was worth 30 percent of the overall grade, with the mid-term exam accounting for 20 percent, the final exam for 30 percent and students’ participation in class and an oral presentation for 20 percent. 1.1 The Rationale behind the Project It is obvious that the approach introduced here already demands a certain degree of maturity from learners, but it also fosters independent learning and autonomy at the same time. Some definitions of autonomy need to be considered. According to Kartal (2005), the concept of autonomy incorporates pedagogy, psychology and sociology. Cortés and Sánchez Lujan (2005: 134) emphasize the aspects of “self-direction and self-regulation” when individuals control the learning process. 3 In other words, autonomous learning “takes place in situations in which the teacher is expected to provide a learning environment where the learners are given the possibility consciously to be involved in their own learning and thus become autonomous learners” (Dam 2000: 49). For the present project, this means that students decide for themselves when they want to learn, what they want to learn and with whom they want to learn. St. Louis (2006) summarizes two classic descriptions of learner autonomy: “Holec (1981) defined autonomy as ‘… the ability to take charge of one’s learning …’ while Little (1991) sees it as the learner’s psychological relation to the content and process of learning, his or her capacity for critical reflection, detachment, decision making, and independent action”. These are also essential characteristics of our project, in which learners take independent steps towards autonomy in an Dietmar Tatzl 128 environment defined by the teacher and reflect on their learning experiences. According to Nunan (1996: 13), there are “degrees of autonomy”, which frees learners and teachers from the thought that they must achieve complete autonomy. The fully autonomous learner “operates independently of classroom, teacher or textbook” and therefore “is an ideal, rather than a reality” (Nunan 1997: 193). These thoughts form the foundation for the method presented in this article. It is further evident that developing learner autonomy depends on students’ willingness to learn and take over responsibility for their learning, which is sometimes a pedagogical challenge (Legenhausen 1999: 66-67). However, the general readiness for self-directed learning does not necessarily correlate to the effectiveness of promoting autonomy (Lai 1999: 163). St. Louis (2006) emphasizes the role of the Internet in this context: “Interest and motivation are […] two important factors in learning, and the Internet offers a wide variety of different topics suited to individual tastes and learning styles, as the information can be received through text, audio or video, images and graphics”. Especially short video news reports, film clips and advertisements may boost students’ motivation (cf. Wagener 2006: 280). A small pilot research project at the University of Chester investigating student learning with distance-learning material based on online video yielded fruitful results and indicates that “the benefits of encouraging regular independent listening practice via short video clips can be quite considerable and that these benefits are also widely perceived amongst the students themselves” (Wagener 2006: 286). In our project, the Internet plays an important part as a resource of real-life English language materials as well. Yet it also has a serious drawback: it tempts learners to plagiarism unlike any other medium (cf. McDevitt 2004: 8), so that teachers have to think of profound countermeasures, which may take up quite some time, in order to maintain common standards of academic work and sincerity. As briefly hinted before, in an autonomous learning environment it is essential that students are given the freedom of choice concerning the activities they want to engage in (cf. Legenhausen 1999: 67; Esch 1996: 39-40). This means the possibility of “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, etc.); - evaluating what has been acquired” (Holec 1981: 3 qtd. in Nunan 1996: 15). According to Nunan (1996: 21), the teacher introduces a variety of learning activities and tasks and helps learners identify their learning style preferences as a starting point. The list of “input” and “output channels” on the initial handout for “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” constitutes such an introduction of activities. In agreement with Nunan, it is preceded by an analysis of learning styles and preferences taken from Rosenberg (2001: 15-23). Make English a Part of Your Life 129 4 Cf. Breton 1999: 124-126; Marques 1999: 175; Ribé 1999: 90. Another key notion in this context is the “authenticity of social interactions”, which means that “the activities enacted in the classroom should result from the students’ interests and wants, and only be constrained by the learning objectives as defined by the curriculum” (Legenhausen 1999: 67). Similarly, McDevitt (2004: 6-7) argues for a “project-based, collaborative approach” because in this way “language is freed to assume its natural role of the medium rather than the message”. 4 If these observations are true for in-class material and interactions, they are even more so for students’ contact with the language outside the classroom. In other words, choice, authenticity and the language as the medium of communication form the cornerstones of the learning approach introduced in this article. The role of the teacher in an autonomous learning environment is to “systematically initiate awareness-raising processes which refer to all aspects of the learning/ teaching undertaking” by means of activities which focus on the learning process as such, language forms and functions, communication as a process and information gathering and processing, so that learners are put “in the roles of researchers” (Legenhausen 1999: 67). Furthermore, the teacher needs to ensure that the classroom procedures are communicated to learners and the learning process is documented and evaluated by students and the instructor, and that project and learning results are “made public, and are thus recycled as new - learner-produced - learning materials into the overall process” (Legenhausen 1999: 67). Therefore, in “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” an introductory handout was provided by the teacher, and students were asked to prepare a “Project Folder” for documenting their activities as well as a poster for presenting their project results. One of the most critical issues related to autonomy and independent learning is the question of how to evaluate the learning gain. It is difficult to measure progress for students and teachers alike. Morrison (2005: 286-287), who investigated ways of evaluating learning gain in a self-access language learning centre at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, concludes that such an evaluation will not be possible in the form of “objective measurements and scores that reflect quantifiable instances of learning by the student body as a whole which are validated by an evaluator external to the learning process”, or, in other terms, learner self-assessment constitutes the principal tool for identifying the outcome of the learning process, and the “learning gain being sought will not primarily be found in traditional types of language assessments” but will be “based upon perceptual rather than objective, verifiable data”. These findings connected with the self-access centre are valid for other areas of autonomous learning as well. Dam and Dietmar Tatzl 130 Legenhausen (1999: 98) infer that it is the “constant dialogue” between learners and teacher that results in a “heightened awareness of learning and of achievement levels in the various linguistic skills”. According to Thomson (1996: 89), project-based self-assessment is highly valuable to foster autonomous learning, which is why it has been chosen as the type of assessment for “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” as well. Dam (2000: 56) summarizes the successes usually achieved with autonomous learning: “motivation and engagement on the part of the learners • socially responsible learners • the teacher’s insight into the individual learner’s needs and ways of learning • the satisfaction deriving from the fact that the teacher has become a co-learner”. The success of autonomous learning very much depends on the learning styles and degree of involvement of each individual student, yet, in the main, research suggests that teachers may expect fruitful outcomes: “By being encouraged and even forced to constantly interact in meaningful ways, autonomous learners develop not only an oral communicative competence but also an astonishingly high degree of grammatical proficiency” (Legenhausen 1999: 75). In order to measure the success of the project presented in this article, it is necessary to formulate my understanding of what constitutes autonomous language learning. This is best achieved by listing what, according to my definition of autonomy, learners are supposed to do. Thus, they • initiate independent language interaction, • use the language as a medium for real-life needs, • display confidence when speaking and writing in the target language, • are aware of the possibilities of applying the target language in their close environment, • explore new ways of entering into contact with the target language. 1.2 The Project’s Components and Tasks The project “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” consisted of three major phases: (1) the practical phase, (2) the documentation phase, and (3) the feedback and assessment phase, with the practical and documentation phases overlapping. (1) At the beginning of the practical phase, which lasted for two months, the project was introduced to the students in a regular lesson of my firstsemester English language course by means of an introductory handout (see Appendix). This handout included a short initial statement on the role of English in today’s professional world and motivational material such as Make English a Part of Your Life 131 5 The table is based on suggestions of my own and others found in various articles, e.g. Thomson 1996: 84; Ryan 1997: 217. The resident foreign community, as Ryan (ibid.) remarks, may constitute a valuable resource for English language learners as well. He expresses a note of caution concerning texts produced by the advertising and design industries often found on “T-shirts, posters and fashion accessories” (1997: 218), though. However, it is especially those items that hold a great fascination for young people, which turns them into means of strengthening learners’ motivation. But the playfulness and linguistic deficiencies of such creations must be communicated to learners. photographs and humorous quotations in order to prompt students to selfactivity. The aims of the project were described in the introductory handout as well. The project was designed to motivate and encourage learners to use the English language in different situations on a daily basis, which corresponds to a natural integration of English in the lives of learners. It aimed at promoting learner autonomy and enabling students to make their own decisions about how to learn, what to practise and in which areas they wanted to improve their English. The project was intended to help them feel comfortable and at ease with the language in instances when no teacher was there to assist them. In other words, students were asked to “live with” English, which means that they should do things they normally do, but not in their mother tongue. As Little and Dam (1998) observe, “the ultimate measure of success in second or foreign language learning is the extent to which the target language becomes a fully integrated part of the learner’s identity”, so that “autonomous learners are in the fullest sense users of the language they are learning” (Little 1990: 13). These were the thoughts which also constitute the core of this project. The next section in the introductory handout explained the concrete task for learners. They had to pick six ideas from a table or find other activities not listed and try them out over a period of two months. These activities were divided into different “input” and “output channels”, corresponding to receptive and productive skills respectively. For the communication of the task, the more common and specific terms in linguistic research, receptive and productive skills, were replaced by clearer and more easily understandable terms from a student’s point of view. For instance, students could select English as the language for the menu on their mobile phones (input) and agree to speak English with one or two close friends or colleagues on the phone (output). In this way, they employed an everyday activity to practise their language skills. The following table shows a selection of various activities 5 that are at hand for learners of English in cities and small towns in most parts of the world. They were therefore easy to employ in a learning autonomy project such as “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” Dietmar Tatzl 132 6 A warning has to be voiced concerning students’ contacts to companies, embassies or other organizations as suggested in the table above. They should only be used sparingly because the institutions affected would probably not appreciate a flood of similar requests from the same source. Alternatively and preferably, students may write to each other in groups simulating different companies. Input Channels (Reading/ Listening) Output Channels (Writing/ Speaking) menus on electronic devices (mobile phone, camera, DVD-player, computer, and the like) e-mails/ sms/ phone calls to friends or colleagues (selected group) technical manuals (any machine and device) traditional penfriends, online chat rooms daily newspapers diary magazines and journals blogs (web logs) books (English bookshops or libraries) personal website Internet (large amount of online sources) shopping lists TV news channels (BBC, CNN) to-do lists radio news notes to roommate(s)/ flatmate(s) music channels on TV and radio English/ American dinner with friends (students may cook typical meals based on original recipes and speak English) movies in English (DVDs with or without subtitles; some TV stations broadcast selected movies or series dubbed and in original) business correspondence (students may write to British or US companies for information or advertising material; to be used sparingly) 6 English cinemas theme parties (Halloween, British music) English plays (Vienna’s English Theatre) regular English table with friends public evening lectures on various topics hosted by the British Council, the American Embassy or other institutions contact British Council, American Embassy or other institutions for possible workshops they organize (to be used sparingly) book a tour in English through your home city pub quizzes listen to the English audio-guide in museums and at exhibitions English board and card games order from the English menu in restaurants any other methods you can think of pub quizzes English board and card games any other methods you can think of Table 1: The original table of activities as passed on to students in the introductory handout to the project Make English a Part of Your Life 133 It was stated that “spoken interaction is the primary mode of language use” (Mauranen 2005: 275-276), but the model of “self-access is strong in the domain of receptive skills” (Littlewood 1997: 91), whereas with regard to productive skills, it is stronger in the domains of “pre-communicative work” and “communicative language practice” than in “authentic communication” (ibid.: 91). Self-access also plays a role in our project, but not in the traditional sense of material provided in a learning centre. Instead, we needed to extend our understanding of the term so that the whole environment becomes one huge “self-access centre”, so to speak. The choice of “input channels” is almost unlimited, but the activities offered in this project had to match the individual preferences and tastes of learners. Indeed, one of the most important aspects of this approach was to let students choose areas of their lives in which they would use English. Ideally and most promisingly, any activity they enjoy doing will be best suited to combining with language learning because then motivation will be high. Ryan (1997: 223) underscores this principle when he writes that “enjoyment and interest are important criteria in selecting resources”. In other words, if somebody’s favourite pastime is riding, they could read special magazines on horses and equitation in English instead of their mother tongue. As Little (1997: 231) remarks, authentic texts are crucial for building confidence in target-language interaction and for combining language learning and language use in an effective way. He concludes that “authentic texts can help to foster learner autonomy because that too depends on the conscious interaction of learner and user perspectives” (1997: 235). It is also necessary to choose activities learners are accustomed to doing anyway but that can be easily conducted in English in order to make the learning process as attractive as possible. “Output channels” are less authentic in an environment where the language to be learnt is not used as a mother tongue by a majority of speakers. Nevertheless, there were ways of meaningfully integrating speaking and writing skills into this project, for instance by communicating with a group of colleagues in English face-to-face, on the phone or through electronic mail. Even though this may appear awkward to students at the beginning due to the lack of the extrinsic necessity of switching to English for such purposes, they will discover the merits of such tasks as soon as the activities have become a habit. Such merits may be a feeling of belonging to a global community of future professionals well versed in a foreign language, a sense of increasing one’s career chances on a competitive and international job market by speaking English, the realization of what practising the language means for each learner’s individual learning gain or simply the joy of communicating with a group of friends and colleagues. The Internet provides a huge amount of sources relevant to our purpose, but it is necessary to distinguish between reliable, professional and informa- Dietmar Tatzl 134 7 I am aware that the definition of what qualifies as authentic material is controversial, yet I take authentic to mean real-world material that has not been adapted for language learning situations in any way. tive websites on the one hand, and low-quality, dubious and even criminal websites on the other. Although even special learning sites often “lack the reflections of pedagogical scenarios and learning theories” (Kartal 2005), such learning sites do not influence the value of the Internet for our project because learners are encouraged to work with authentic material instead of prepared exercises and tasks. 7 The question of the reliability of a site, however, must be answered by learners themselves and can be considered to be part of the autonomous learning process. (2) For the documentation phase, which overlapped with the end of the practical phase, students were asked to compose a “Project Folder”. This folder consisted of a cover page, a short reflection on the reasons for learning English entitled “Why I Want to Improve My English”, an individual “Description of the Project” and a poster presenting the results. In the project descriptions, students had to discuss the activities they had selected, give reasons for their choices, explain which skills they had practised most and why, analyse which methods had worked best for them, share their experiences with the whole task and measure their progress in the form of free verbal assessment. On the posters, students were asked to briefly summarize the project results and the major aspects graphically, promoting the activities they had chosen. For motivational reasons, the posters were put up in the classroom and on a notice board outside the seminar room in order to make them publicly visible. (3) The feedback and assessment phase started on the day when learners had to hand in their written project descriptions, and it lasted for two weeks. The principal document in this phase was the “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheet (see Appendix), which was filled in by the teacher. Hence, this phase was teacher-centred and focused on the assessment of students’ achievements in the project, based on the folder that they had to hand in. The “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheet contained four categories: (a) “Project Folder”, (b) “Language”, (c) “Activities Chosen” and (d) “Students’ Personal Reflections”. In the first category, it was checked whether learners had included all the necessary parts in the project folder and had structured it appropriately. The second category dealt with language mistakes in their written English, and the third category concentrated on the activities they had chosen and their relevance to the project’s goals. In accordance with the tendency towards self-assessment in autonomous learning, the last category was especially revealing because it analysed students’ Make English a Part of Your Life 135 experiences with the activities they had selected for the project. Nevertheless, all four assessment criteria contributed equally to the project mark. The feedback and assessment phase ended with an oral feedback session for each student, in which I told them their mark, drew their attention to the language areas they might want to improve in the future and gave them a chance to make concluding comments on the whole project or certain aspects thereof. 1.3 Data 1.3.1 Collecting Data The principal means of collecting data was the students’ own “Description of the Project” in the “Project Folder”. Students were asked to write a project description in which they presented the activities they had picked, gave reasons for their choices, explained which skills they practised most and why, analysed which methods worked best for them, shared their experiences with the selection of the activities and measured their progress in their own words. There were no given categories they had to rate, but learners were free to decide how they wanted to approach the description and which parts of the project they wanted to emphasize in their texts. Thus, the method chosen for gaining data was free verbal assessment. The information gathered from these project descriptions was then transferred to the teacher’s “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheet (see Appendix), according to the four categories mentioned above: the folder, the language, the relevance of the activities and the student’s personal reflection. The first two categories were not relevant for the collecting of data for this article because they served the sole purpose of assessing the organization of the project folders and learners’ language skills as demonstrated in the written project descriptions - two criteria difficult to link with linguistic learning gains derived from the project. Nevertheless, I deemed it necessary to assess students’ competence in English at some stage in the project in order to give students qualified feedback for their further improvement. The remaining two categories, however, represent the core data for the subsequent analysis. They contain the types of activities chosen (“Activities Chosen”) and students’ self-reflections on their learning progress (“Students’ Personal Reflections”). After having transferred the data from the written project descriptions to the teacher’s “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheets, I drew up two tables including all the activities that were either suggested by the introductory handout or added by students themselves. For reasons of clarity, I separated the analysis of the “Input Channels” from that of the “Output Channels” for this article. Each of the two tables contains six columns. The Dietmar Tatzl 136 first column lists all the types of activities in the project. The second column shows the number of learners who worked with these tasks (“Chosen by number of students”). The division of the remaining headings is derived from the learners’ own observations about the activities and their impact on each student’s individual improvement. In other words, students preferred to write about the usefulness of the activities (hence the columns “Useful for improving English” and “Not useful for improving English”) and their degree of difficulty, which always depends on the material chosen in each individual case, though (hence the columns “Difficult” and “Easy”). Most comments on the project tasks revolved around these four classifications, which is why they were integrated in the tables for the analysis. 1.3.2 Results of Data The data collected from the students’ “Project Folders” and transferred to the teacher’s “Project Evaluation and Reflection” sheets generated the following results: Input channel activities (reading/ listening) Chosen by number of students Considered by students to be Useful for improving English Not useful for improving English Difficult Easy menu on mobile phone 25 8 6 1 1 menu on camera 0 0 0 0 0 menu on MP3-player 1 0 0 0 0 menu on DVD-player 1 0 0 0 0 menus on computer/ laptop and programmes 8 4 1 0 0 technical manuals (any machine and device) 1 0 0 0 0 daily newspapers 7 5 0 1 0 magazines and journals 13 10 0 1 1 books (English bookshops or libraries) 13 8 0 0 1 Internet (large amount of online sources) 7 5 0 1 0 TV news channels (BBC, CNN) 12 8 0 2 1 radio news 8 4 1 2 0 Make English a Part of Your Life 137 Input channel activities (reading/ listening) Chosen by number of students Considered by students to be Useful for improving English Not useful for improving English Difficult Easy music channels on TV and radio 8 3 0 1 0 movies in English (DVDs, TV) 27 15 0 4 1 English cinemas 8 2 0 1 1 English plays (Vienna’s English Theatre) 0 0 0 0 0 public evening lectures 0 0 0 0 0 book a tour in English through your home city 0 0 0 0 0 listen to the English audioguide in museums and at exhibitions 0 0 0 0 0 order from the English menu in restaurants 0 0 0 0 0 pub quizzes 20 7 6 2 0 English board and card games 1 0 0 1 0 Suggested by students listening to air traffic radio communication 4 1 0 0 0 virtual aircraft design programme (3D Kit Builder) 1 1 0 0 0 reading specifications for the aircraft industry 1 0 0 0 0 Microsoft Flight Simulator (software) 2 1 0 0 0 TV shows 1 1 0 0 0 online open lectures on aeronautics from MIT 1 1 0 0 0 Table 2: Results of data on receptive skills Dietmar Tatzl 138 Considering the dominance of television and the cinema in modern-day societies, it is little surprising that about three quarters of the students decided to watch movies for this project (27). More than one third considered this activity useful for improving English (15), while nobody rated it as not useful (0). Of the five project participants who commented on its degree of difficulty, four said this task was difficult, whereas one found it easy. The second-favourite activity was switching the menus on mobile phones to English (25), which eight learners regarded as useful, whereas six learners were of the opposite opinion. Only two students mentioned the degree of difficulty, showing contrasting views. More than half of the learners participated in pub quizzes (20), seven of whom were convinced that this activity made an impact on their improvement, whereas six produced the contrary estimation. Two students noted that this task was difficult, and nobody mentioned that it was easy. An equal number of project participants chose reading magazines and books (13 each), yet students deemed reading magazines more effective for further developing their English (10) than reading books (8). One learner labelled reading magazines as difficult, one as easy, and nobody stated that reading books was difficult. One learner found this activity easy. Finally, watching the news on TV turned out to be rather popular as well. Eight out of 12 students considered this beneficial for making progress in the English language. None of the learners mentioned that this activity was not helpful, two said it was difficult, and one felt it was easy. There are several activities of average popularity that were each selected by seven or eight students: switching the menus on computers, laptops and software programmes to English (8); reading daily newspapers (7); browsing the Internet (7); listening to the news on the radio (8); watching music channels on TV or listening to music on the radio (8); and going to the English cinema (8). Activities of low appeal (picked by one to three students each) were working with the English menu on MP3-players and DVD-players, reading technical menus and playing board and card games. Furthermore, nobody chose any of the following activities: changing the menu language on cameras, watching English plays, attending public evening lectures, booking a city-tour, listening to the English audio-guide in museums and at exhibitions and ordering from the English menu in restaurants. The majority of learners chose activities from the table, but some students built on the spirit of the project and found their own individual tasks. Considering the fact that the project was carried out in the Degree Programme in Aviation, these activities combined language learning with the field-specific interests of the students in a very harmonious way. One student, for example, used the open-source software called 3D Kit Builder for Make English a Part of Your Life 139 8 3D Kit Builder. 22 January 2008 <http: / / www.3dkitbuilder.com/ main.htm>. 9 ”Lecture Notes”. In: MIT OpenCourseWare. 29 March 2008 <http: / / ocw.mit.edu/ OcwWeb/ Aeronautics-and-Astronautics/ 16-885JFall-2005/ LectureNotes/ index.htm>. designing a virtual aircraft, 8 another two students practised basic flights with the Microsoft Flight Simulator software, which is installed on the computers in the departmental EDP-laboratories. Again another learner listened to online open lectures on aeronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). 9 A further strong aviation-related aspect is to be found in listening to air traffic radio communication, which four students decided to integrate into the project. On the side of receptive skills, the only activity without aviation-specific content added by one learner was watching TV shows. Output channel activities (writing/ speaking) Chosen by number of students Considered by students to be Useful for improving English Not useful for improving English Difficult Easy e-mails to friends or colleagues 12 9 0 0 0 sms to friends or colleagues 6 3 1 0 0 phone calls to friends or colleagues 9 2 0 0 0 face-to-face communication with friends or colleagues 16 7 2 1 0 traditional penfriends 0 0 0 0 0 online chat rooms 1 0 0 0 0 diary 0 0 0 0 0 blogs 0 0 0 0 0 personal website 1 1 0 0 0 shopping lists 6 1 0 0 1 to-do lists 5 2 0 0 0 notes to roommate(s)/ flatmate(s) 1 0 0 0 0 Irish/ South African dinner with friends 2 0 0 0 0 Dietmar Tatzl 140 Output channel activities (writing/ speaking) Chosen by number of students Considered by students to be Useful for improving English Not useful for improving English Difficult Easy business correspondence (British or US companies) 6 2 1 1 0 theme parties (Halloween, British music) 2 1 0 0 0 regular English table with friends 7 1 0 0 0 contact British Council, American Embassy or other institutions 0 0 0 0 0 pub quizzes 20 7 6 2 0 English board and card games 1 0 0 1 0 Suggested by students correcting homework for friend or colleague 1 0 0 0 0 air traffic radio communication 1 1 0 0 0 writing lyrics for songs 1 1 0 0 0 act as tour guide through home city for visitor 2 2 0 0 0 Table 3: Results of data on productive skills With respect to productive skills, the favourite activity chosen by more than half of the students was the participation in pub quizzes (20). Since learners did not always clearly distinguish between “input” and “output channels” in their written project descriptions when they evaluated the impact of a certain task, the same figures relating to pub quizzes that have already been discussed in the previous section show up in this table again. The second most popular occupation in this category was talking face-to-face with friends and colleagues, practised by 16 learners, seven of whom deemed this task effective for their improvement. Two students stated that it was useless, only one found it difficult, but none rated it as easy. Writing e-mails to friends or colleagues comes next in the ranking of popularity, with 12 project participants, of whom 9 considered the activity to be beneficial to the development Make English a Part of Your Life 141 10 In some cases, a free online telephone service provider was used, but not all learners specified this point in their descriptions, which is why no exact figures are available: Skype. 22 January 2008 <http: / / www.skype.com/ intl/ en/ >. of their language skills. None regarded it as ineffective, and nobody commented on the degree of difficulty. Activities chosen by less than ten but more than three learners were writing short messages with mobile phones to friends or colleagues (6); making phone calls 10 to friends or colleagues (9); writing shopping lists (6) and to-do lists (5); establishing business correspondence with companies (6); and joining a regular English table with friends (7). Activities of low appeal (picked by one to three students each) were writing letters to traditional penfriends, writing diaries and blogs (web logs) and contacting the British Council, American Embassy or other institutions, which nobody opted for. Only one student each decided for using an online chat room, configuring a website, writing notes to roommates or flatmates and participating in board and card games. Two learners joined an Irish and a South African dinner with friends or family, and another two learners organized a theme party. The activities invented by participants in the project and shown in Table 3 constitute appropriate additions to the original table in the introductory handout. Two learners acted as tour guides through their home city for a visitor from Sweden, which they perceived as an enjoyable as well as a valuable experience. One learner corrected homework for a friend, another one participated in air traffic radio communication, and again another one wrote lyrics for songs performed by his amateur music band. In their project descriptions, only three from a total of 38 students wrote that they were going to continue some of the activities in the future, but in the oral feedback sessions all of the students answered the question if they would do the project again with yes. As can be seen from Table 2, reading newspapers, magazines and books were perceived as very helpful for improving their language skills by the majority of the students who had picked those activities (5, 10, 8, in this order). In their project descriptions, three of them remarked that they were encouraged to work with a dictionary for extending their vocabulary, and four students who had worked with some sort of lists made a similar statement. Five learners who had watched movies and TV news mentioned that the variety of accents, topics and situations they were faced with proved effective for the learning process. Dietmar Tatzl 142 2 Evaluation and Conclusions It becomes clear from Tables 2 and 3 that practising listening and speaking skills were the favourite choices for students, despite a potential lack of authentic linguistic situations and an absence of a real need to use the language in mostly non-native speaker conversations, which shows that such conversations can work outside the classroom. Another striking feature is the preference for working with technical devices when practising reading skills, which may be explained by a certain enthusiasm for electronic equipment by young learners in general and engineering students in particular. Yet also traditional reading materials, such as books, magazines and newspapers were selected by a large number of project participants. For developing writing skills, electronic mail enjoyed the highest popularity, which confirms the dominance of this medium in today’s business and private correspondence. With respect to students’ comments on their individual progress during the project as stated in Tables 2 and 3, several activities were contradictorily rated as helpful or useless by different learners, which probably says more about the expression of learning preferences than the feasibility of a certain task. Similarly, in the oral feedback sessions, three students esteemed the pub quiz a fun activity with great social but little linguistic effect. On the other hand, five students also confirmed that it was an interesting cultural experience, as they felt as if they were in a pub in Ireland, due to many native speakers on both sides of the counter. This demonstrates that even activities that appeared to be less profitable linguistically still carry the potential for promoting social and cultural dimensions relevant to the target language. The results of “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” suggest that learners can demonstrate autonomy within a rather short period of time (two months), according to the definition of autonomous learning for this project. As Tables 2 and 3 indicate, learners initiated independent language interaction, which was probably facilitated by the fact that they had the choice of activities, locations and periods. They used the language as a medium for various tasks, such as watching a movie for enjoyment or listening to the news for information. And they explored new forms of contact with the target language. Furthermore, they became aware of the possibilities of applying the target language in their close environment, and, as may be inferred from their project descriptions and comments during the oral feedback sessions, they displayed confidence when writing and speaking in English. The major drawback of the learning approach described in this article is probably the difficulty of evaluating direct linguistic gains, yet we have to trust our learners when they reflect on their own progress through the different tasks and activities. We should never forget that even among its support- Make English a Part of Your Life 143 ers, evaluations of autonomy “are by no means universally positive” (Benson 1996: 27). We also need to concede the following: The nature of autonomy and the characteristics of the autonomous learner remain matters for research and debate. We still know relatively little about the ways in which practices associated with autonomy work to foster autonomy, alone or in combination, or about the contextual factors that influence their effectiveness. We are also unable to argue convincingly, on the basis of empirical data, that autonomous language learners learn languages more effectively than others, nor do we know exactly how the development of autonomy and language acquisition interact. (Benson 2001: 224) No matter how nebulous the concept of autonomy is, this should not stop teachers from promoting and students from trying to achieve it. Or, put similarly by one of the leading researchers in autonomy, who hopes that his work has at least “demonstrated the validity of the construct, its validity as a goal and the possibility of moving towards it in practice. Researchers and practitioners need to show, however, that autonomy is not only desirable but also achievable in everyday contexts of language teaching and learning” (Benson 2001: 224). As learners’ written descriptions underscore, the project discussed here leads to gains in interest, motivation and autonomy, and as a by-product it may eventually lead to linguistic gains as well. The findings presented in this article support the conclusion that a project-based learning-autonomy approach boosts motivation, generates enthusiasm and facilitates linguistic interaction in learning a foreign language. English lends itself well to this purpose because of the wealth of authentic materials available to students all over the world. It should further be noted that such a project remains somewhat limited by the constraints of grading achievements, satisfying sponsors and administering course time, which makes it probably difficult to base a full course on autonomous learning. On the other hand, the project is easy to integrate into a traditional course system relying on regular lessons, for the autonomy part may be assigned as a task instead of conventional homework. Moreover, a mix of different approaches and methods offered by a course promises to be more successful than pursuing a single teaching philosophy, ignoring the various needs and learning styles of participants. Since some of the major goals of autonomous language learning are also to encourage maturity, independence and freedom of choice among learners, the project “Make English a Part of Your Life! ” may be considered to be a springboard into this direction. Dietmar Tatzl 144 Appendix Make English a Part of Your Life! A Learning Autonomy Project English has become the global language for travellers, businessmen and -women, researchers, scientists, diplomats and numerous other professionals. Even if you decide to work in your native land after your studies, you will discover that many companies and organisations use English for correspondence and communication. English is all around you, even in Graz. One day this summer, I grabbed my camera and strolled through Graz for you. Here are some of the impressions I encountered. Fig. 1: A Jaguar in front of the Casino; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 “The British Press is always looking for stuff to fill the space between their cartoons”. Bernadette Devlin McAliskey (born 1947): comment, 1970; qtd. in Ned Sherrin, Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, 2nd ed. (2004), “Newspapers” 17. Make English a Part of Your Life 145 Fig. 4: A window at Chillout’s, one of many coffee bars in the city; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 Fig. 2: A newspaper stand; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 Fig. 3: The Office Pub; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Dietmar Tatzl 146 Fig. 5: Austria’s largest English Bookshop in the centre of Graz; Tatzl, 19 June 2007 Fig. 6: Interior of the English Bookshop; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Fig. 7: The Queen in the English Bookshop; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Make English a Part of Your Life 147 Fig. 9: A shop selling American magazines, books and merchandise; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Fig. 8: Advertising books in the English Bookshop; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Dietmar Tatzl 148 Fig. 10: The department store Brühl & Söhne; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 Fig. 11: The Royal English Cinema; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Fig. 12: Sign in The Office Pub; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 Fig. 13: International press at the train station; Tatzl, Graz, 25 June 2007 Make English a Part of Your Life 149 Fig. 14: A selection of magazines in English at the bookshop Moser’s; Tatzl, Graz, 19 June 2007 The Aims of the Project The project should motivate and encourage you to use the English language in different forms on a daily basis. It should promote learner autonomy, Dietmar Tatzl 150 which means the ability to make your own decisions about how to learn, what to practise and in which areas you would like to improve your English. There are different types of learners, and each individual has his or her favourite way of learning. You should find out what works best for yourself and how you can make use of that knowledge for improving your English. The project should prepare you to feel comfortable and at ease with the language for the time after your studies when no teacher is there to assist you. The Task You pick 6 ideas from the table below or find other activities that are not listed and try them out over a period of 2 months. For instance, you select English as the language for the menu on your mobile phone (input) and agree to speak English with one or two close friends or colleagues on the phone (output). In this way, you employ an everyday activity to practise language skills. It makes sense to focus on input and output channels because in this way you will cover all four skills of language learning (reading, listening, writing, speaking). “Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before”. Mae West, American actress (1892-1980): in Klondike Annie (1936 film); qtd. in Ned Sherrin, Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, 2nd ed. (2004), “Virtue and Vice” 26. Input Channels (Reading/ Listening) Output Channels (Writing/ Speaking) menus on electronic devices (mobile phone, camera, DVD-player, computer, and the like) e-mails/ sms/ phone calls to friends or colleagues (selected group) technical manuals (any machine and device) traditional penfriends, online chat rooms daily newspapers diary magazines and journals blogs (web logs) books (English bookshops or libraries) personal website Internet (large amount of online sources) shopping lists TV news channels (BBC, CNN) to-do lists radio news notes to roommate(s)/ flatmate(s) Make English a Part of Your Life 151 Input Channels (Reading/ Listening) Output Channels (Writing/ Speaking) music channels on TV and radio English/ American dinner with friends (students may cook typical meals based on original recipes and speak English) movies in English (DVDs with or without subtitles, some TV stations broadcast selected movies or series in German and English) business correspondence (students may write to British or US companies for information or advertising material; to be used sparingly) English cinemas theme parties (Halloween, British music) English plays (Vienna’s English Theatre) regular English table with friends public evening lectures on various topics hosted by the British Council or the American Embassy contact British Council or American Embassy for possible workshops or short internships they organize (to be used sparingly) book a tour in English through your home city pub quizzes listen to the English audio-guide in museums and at exhibitions English board and card games order from the English menu in restaurants any other methods you can think of pub quizzes English board and card games any other methods you can think of The Project Folder At the end of the project, you hand in a project folder in order to document what you did. Make sure that there are no loose pages in the folder. The folder contains: 1 Cover Page Including title of project/ duration of project/ course/ name of student/ group/ date of submission 1 Essay on the Topic “Why I Want to Improve My English” Use your monolingual dictionary 1.5 spacing; Times New Roman or Arial (font size 12) Approximately 250 words Dietmar Tatzl 152 1 Project Description You write an individual project description in which you present the activities you did, give reasons for your choice, explain which skills you practised most and why, analyse which methods worked best for you, share your experiences with the selection of activities and measure your progress. Divide your description in meaningful parts with a heading for each of them. 1.5 spacing; Times New Roman or Arial (font size 12) Approximately 3 pages 1 A3-Poster Advertising the activities you have chosen, presenting the project results and including title of project/ duration of project/ course/ name of student/ group/ date of submission. You should keep the text on this poster to a minimum but may use any visual aids, such as photographs, diagrams, drawings, and the like to get your point across. The posters will be hung up in the seminar room and on the notice board opposite my office. The Deadline The first week of December, regular English session The Feedback There will be a short individual discussion of the project in my office (5 minutes per student) before Christmas. The exact date and times have to be defined. 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