each lesson is different for each learner, and as teachers know very well
already, different learners take away quite different things from the same
lesson (36).

His second argument is about "the со-productive nature of classroom lessons". According to
him, all the students' spontaneous interventions in a classroom can be considered
autonomous moves since the learner

seems to have made an individual and independent decision to intervene in
the lesson, with a question that was hardly likely to be on the teacher's
agenda (36,37)

And this is not only to the advantage (or disadvantage!) of the student who intervenes but
also of any other student in the classroom "who bothers to take advantage of the learning
opportunities so provided" (36).

This concept of autonomy clearly opposes to that one that sees autonomy
(Crabbe, 1993,443) as an "universal good thing" (Pennycook; 1997, 40) that the teachers
have the moral obligation to hand over to their students. From a psychological point of view
(Benson; 1997,24) then, autonomy cannot be given to human beings for it is already an
intrinsic feature of their cognitive system.

But still, there seems to be a contradiction between what has been said here and the
rationale for the cognitive model of self-direction in section 4.2. First, I said some
paragraphs above that not all learners are self-directed and now, Allright and Little (and I!)
are saying that all learners are autonomous. In fact, there is not a contradiction, we are just
referring to two different phenomena. On the one hand, I have referred to the natural, inborn
capacity of human beings to leam, that is, developmental learning. On the other hand, I have
described the intentional and effortful capacity of adults to acquire knowledge and skills
through different means (section 4.2.2, p. 79). Let me refer to the first one as autonomy and
reserve the term of self-directed learning for the second one. So far, I have been using them
as synonyms, but from now on, this difference will be implied in my use of these terms ¹⁰.
The reader should take into account that when I make reference to other research, the
authors may use the term ‘autonomy’ implying the two senses I have differentiated here.

There are obvious contextual differences between autonomy and self-direction, but
the most important one in terms of cognition is awareness, which the reader will remember,
is the essential factor that stands out in self-directed learning. As Little states:

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