IATEFL Learner Autonomy Special Interest Group
A website to share news and resources related to learner autonomy.
More about the first group of keepers
The following brave academics become the keepers of the worms that were unleashed into the world in June 2006 (read more). In addition to agreeing to contribute to our newsletter Independence, sending their worms on to other experts, most of them also agreed to speak at our pre-conference event in Aberdeen (April 2007).
Marina Mozzon-McPherson
(keeper of the "Counselling/ Advising" worm)Marina Mozzon-McPherson is a Senior Open Learning Adviser at the University of Hull. She has worked in this role since 1993. In 1995 she collaborated on a BT-project which explored the capabilities of a video-conferencing system for the delivery of a language programme to business people. From September 1997 to September 2001 she managed
project SMILE (Strategies for Managing Independent Learning Environments). This project focused on the promotion and development of good practices in the implementation of independent learning environments (classroom, online and self-access). Amongst its outcomes were: an online postgraduate qualification for language advisers (http://www.hull.ac.uk/languages) and a book (Beyond Language Teaching towards Language Learning). A new edition of the book is currently under consideration. She has recently been awarded a doctorate on the construction of online speech communities (The Open University).
Richard Pemberton (Keeper of the "Self-access" worm)Richard Pemberton has been an Associate Professor in TESOL in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, UK since January 2006. Before that, he spent nearly 15 years at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he was responsible for setting up and coordinating the Self-Access Centre, and helped integrate self-access
language learning into the first-year course. And before that, he taught ESL for 11 years at secondary level in the UK and Zimbabwe and tertiary level in Papua New Guinea (University of Technology).
Apart from SALL and learner autonomy, his research interests include L2 listening and vocabulary acquisition. He was co-editor of 'Taking Control' (Hong Kong University Press, 1996) and has published on self-access advising and supporting self-directed language learning in mainstream courses. He was Secretary of the Hong Kong Association for Self-Access learning and Development for many years, and project manager for VELA, the Virtual English Language Adviser [http://vela.ust.hk/] (now managed by Sarah Toogood).
Barbara
Sinclair (Keeper of the "Learner Training" worm)Barbara Sinclair is Director of Postgraduate Taught Courses at the University of Nottingham, UK. She began her TESOL career in 1974 in Cologne. Since then she has worked as a teacher, lecturer, teacher educator, materials developer, project director and manager in educational organisations in the UK and Spain, and the British Council in Germany and Singapore. She joined the School of Education in 1992 and initiated and set up a number of TESOL related programmes, including the MA in English Language Teaching.
Since the early eighties, Barbara has lectured and published widely on a number of themes related to autonomy in language learning, including ‘learner training’, teacher education, curriculum design, materials and task design, self-assessment, self-access learning and cross-cultural aspects of promoting autonomy. Her books include the prize-winning Learning to Learn English, (1989) co-authored with Gail Ellis, the Activate your English series of courses for adult learners (1996/97), published by Cambridge University Press, and Learner Autonomy, Teacher Autonomy: Future Directions (2000), co-edited with Ian McGrath and Terry Lamb, published by Longman.
Read Barbara's contribution to Independence on the topic of Learner Training (Part I, Part II)
Ema
Ushioda (Keeper of the
"Motivation" worm)Language Teacher Education, University of Warwick, having spent nine years at
Trinity College, Dublin. Her main research interests are motivation and autonomy
(among language learners and teachers), sociocultural theory and teacher
development. Publications include: Learner Autonomy 5: The Role of Motivation
(Dublin: Authentik 1996), and ‘Motivation, autonomy
and sociocultural theory’, in P. Benson (ed.), Learner Autonomy 8: Insider Perspectives on Autonomy in
Language Learning and Teaching (Dublin: Authentik 2006).
Flávia Vieira is an Associate Professor in Methodologies of Education
(Foreign Languages) at the University of Minho (Braga, Portugal), at the Institute
of Education and Psychology. She works mostly on language teacher education and
pre-service teacher supervision, and also on pedagogy at university. In her work as a
teacher educator she tries to promote a reflective approach, together with pedagogy
for autonomy in the school context promote a reflective approach, together with pedagogy
for autonomy in the school context
Hanne
Thomsen
(Keeper of the "Assessment Worm")Hanne Thomsen has been an English and German teacher at Karlslunde Skole, Denmark, since 1978. She is also Advisor to foreign language teachers at The Teachers' Resource Centre in Roskilde.
Regretably, Hanne was unable to attend the IATEFL conference this year. The assessment worm was accompanied by Viljo Kohonen.
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