(the) set of agreements, having what sort of authority, (that) provide the
justification for the activity and the rationale for interpretations of experience
in the activity...(the) principles, morals, policies, laws and the like (that)
are illustrated, exemplified or embodies in the class’s awareness of their
activity. (Thelen, 8 8-9)
These agreements need to be understood as “authoritative cultural agreements” to
use Thelen’s term (88). As I see it, the obvious question here is: What are the
authoritative cultural agreements that can enhance self-directed learning? To answer this
question it is necessary, first of all, to remind ourselves that Iegitimisation is achieved
when both parties (the learner and the educator) agree on the rules underlying the
creation of the learning culture. There are several issues that related to legitimacy in
creating a culture for self-direction:
First, the creation of a learning culture is not begun from scratch. The former
mode of learning (in this case the formal classroom context∕teacher led learning)
provides a coherent frame of reference to start with. It is unwise to think that when
creating a learning culture, one has to deny everything from the former way of doing. I
think that the key word here is selection. One has to be selective and decide what are the
principles of former learning schemes that are still valid for the new proposal.
From the data I gathered in the Oaxaca/97 project, it is easy to recognise that
there are some aspects from their learning experience that the learners would like to have
in the self-directed learning scheme. The reader will remember the participants talking
about the interaction teacher∕student, the close contact with the teacher and the
responsibility of the teacher in front of the group. Above all, they emphasised the social
relationship teacher∕student that is established inside the classroom.
On the part of the educator, the most important contribution for “authoritative
cultural agreements” is her own learning theory, that is, the rationale in which she
believes and that underlies the proposal of learning culture she is putting forward. This
learning theory, I strongly believe, has to be analysed, understood and shared. This is
part of the dialectical process of turning the unfamiliar into familiar and of bridging the
gap. It encompasses, in this specific situation, propositions for self-direction, for learning
a language and for self-regulating linguistic processes, among other things. Furthermore,
as I have realised from my own experience, it is the only way a counsellor can make
sense of the learners’ learning processes.
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