without depending on someone else to guide them. All the materials were displayed in open
shelves with signs and codes that indicate the language, area and level of each piece. Most of
the books were processed and divided into units in order for them to be available to a larger
number of students. There were written guides that explained the catalogue system and an
options menu in which all the materials were classified according to their content and
function. And, to our eyes, all this seemed to work. The catalogue system was very user-
friendly, and with little practice SAC users managed it very well. We were really pleased to
see students helping themselves, so to speak.
Secondly, from readings on the issue, we learned that in order for the learner to be
autonomous the teacher had to change her role to be a guide and a helper and "resist
becoming a language teacher" (Dickinson; 1987, 45). Moreover, as was stated earlier, in the
second stage of making decisions the only agent is the learner, i.e. the learner was the only
person involved in the what, how, when, where and how well of the learning process (see
section 2.3.2). In other words, as we wrote it at that time, "the counsellor no longer makes
the decisions on what the learners leam, how they Ieam and how well they learn" (Clemente
and Kissinger; 1994,19). We had understood and we were aware that we had to relinquish
those responsibilities that we had as teachers. Therefore we decided that leaving the learners
to work independently from the teacher, physically distancing from them, was the best way
for them to be autonomous. Not being around was our best way of preventing our intrusions
as teachers in their own learning processes. In fact, this assumption was not only taken by us
in Oaxaca. In general, according to Little (1997a):
Open and distance learning schemes are defined partly by the fact that, unlike
classroom learning, they are not directly teacher-led, and from here it is a short
step to a definition of learners as autonomous simply because they do much
of their learning in the absence of the teacher (10).
2.4 THE SELF-ACCESS CENTRE IN OAXACA
Our understanding about autonomy and self-access was put into practice in the Self-
Access Centre in the University of Oaxaca. In this respect I consider that it is relevant to
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