Elements of High-Quality Teaching in Learner Autonomy Development:
Elements of High-Quality Teaching in Learner Autonomy Development:

a Case of Undergraduate Online Linguistic Courses

Summary/Abstract: The proposed study addresses two research questions: a) what characterises high-quality teaching of English linguistics in a virtual learning environment and b) whether teacher-designed learner autonomy development is reflected in student-led progress tracking and perceived academic achievement by undergraduate pre-service EFL teachers in the specific conditions and context of two semesters constrained by the Covid-19 pandemics. Our understanding of learner autonomy and its development as a shared teacher–student responsibility is primarily informed by the conceptual frameworks of caring teaching and dialogic pedagogy. We employed a mixed-method research design drawing primarily on the quantitative data collected via three online questionnaires throughout the academic year 2020/2021 in combination with action research strategies. The gathered data focused on students’ engagement with learning and the difficulties encountered in the learning process including the state of their well-being and perceived achievement. One of the most salient trends we observed in our data samples was a consistent acknowledgement of personal responsibility for learning outcomes. However, unconstrained learner autonomy without ongoing teacher participation and overt teacher reliance on the students’ intrinsic motivation was judged by most respondents as ineffective and/or causing learning difficulties.

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