SLA RESEARCH ON SELF-DIRECTION: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ISSUES

It is clear that, for Dickinson, the psychological level of learner education, which can be
identified as a need of awareness-raising, is more important than the technical one, which is
included only in the first area.

2.2.2.2 The Second Stage: learning

As was stated earlier, the stage of learning in a self-directed scheme equals a
decision-making process in which the learner decides on objectives, resources, methods and
techniques and the process and product of learning.

One good example of research on decision-making is Holec's article "The learner as
Manager: Managing learning or managing to leam?" (1987) in which he proposes to "look
more closely at what 'active involvement' in learning entails" (146). The author describes the
way learners made decisions on the five aspects mentioned before (p. 19). However, apart
from this, the research on the actual process of self-directed learning is scarce. Most of it has
been devoted to the "learning to leam" stage.

I will deal with this aspect later (Chapters 4 and 7), however, I want to stress the fact
that the lack of information in this area did not bother me at the time I first came in contact
with the relevant literature on self-direction. I was so worried about technical and logistic
issues that I took it for granted and I am not sure why. It was maybe that I thought that
learning was that cognitive process that happens in the "black box", and I was contented
with the idea that teachers can help learners to leam but we cannot leam for them, on line
with the belief that

we must always remember that teaching never causes learning but
rather creates....the conditions in which learning can occur.

(van Lier; 1988,32)

Or maybe I assumed that self-directed learning was not different from other-directed
learning, and thus, it was already, although not fully, explained by psycholinguists. Thus, I
might have thought, most of the things that applied to second language acquisition applied

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