From a synchronic perspective, looking at present cultures, he affirms that
in different ways and mixtures, these factors (the ones that have contributed to the
emergence of the ideas of autonomy) are to be found all over the world now,
including South East Asia, so that many of the contingent pressures pushing
language teaching provision towards autonomy and self-direction are just as present
here and not certainly exclusive to Europe (ibid.).
And he gives the particular example of a remote culture in Venezuela, the Piora, who show a
clear orientation to autonomy. One of their goals, he explains, is to acquire the knowledge
"to take conscious responsibility" for the capacities that make up their cultural competence,
which according to Western terms, could be called metacognitive awareness
(Riley; 1996b,20).
As I stated before, the argument of this discussion is not against cultural diversity.
Cultures vary and their beliefs and values vary as well. And it is in this variation where we
may find the reason for the inappropriateness of the self-directed learning approach in
certain contexts. Before the reader thinks that I am contradicting myself, let me make
reference to two of the discussions I have previously carried out in this study. First, the
reader will remember the difference that Holec makes between two stages in the self-
directed learning scheme (see fig. 2.1). These were identified as learning to Ieam and
learning. It was stated that different agents may be involved in the learning to Ieam stage,
whereas, in the learning stage the only agent was the learner, with not external intervention.
Second, when dealing with the concepts of alertness and orientation (fig. 4.2) again the
stages of learning to Ieam and learning were related to external and internal elements. With
these discussions in mind, it seems very natural to relate the anthropological and
ethnographic perspectives with the learning and learning to Ieam stages respectively (Fig.
4.6). As Riley states, on the one hand, working at an anthropological level, that is to say,
seeing learners as human beings, autonomy is widespread and "it is so because it is an
inevitable, universal part of human nature"(1996b,22). On the other hand, at an ethnographic
level, considering the differences between cultures,
learner's beliefs vary and different beliefs give rise to different behaviours
and attitudes to, amongst other things, self-instruction in language
learning (ibid).
However, this difference does not mean that self-direction is not an attainable
educational goal, for we are not talking about the internal, or learning stage, but about the