SLA RESEARCH ON SELF-DIRECTION: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ISSUES

clips, recipes, health leaflets, tourist brochures, cartoons, etc. Most of them did not have
exercises to work with, although counsellors have developed some for specific pieces. There
also are what we called "standardised exercises". These are universal worksheets
(Carvalho: 1993, 31) that can be used with all the exemplars of a specific genre. For
instance, a standardised exercise for reading recipes contains general questions that can be
applied to any recipe.

The support materials were all the guides written with the purpose to give support to
the learners working by themselves. We defined them as

documents, written by experienced language teachers, in which they resume, in
a clear and synthesised way, their advice to learners about different aspects and
stages of the learning process (Clemente and Kissinger; 1994, 52)

In a way, we thought that this type of materials would play the role of the teacher,
“replacing” her physical presence. In fact, at this stage our operationalisation of autonomy
coincided with what Holec says about autonomy as independence of consumer (see section
2.3, p 25).

2.4.3.2 Equipment

The SAC in Oaxaca is located next to the Language Centre, in the centre of the city.
It has 400 m2 and individual working booths for more than one hundred users, which can be
doubled if the users work in pairs. It is surely one of the largest in Mexico. Equipment-wise,
however, the SAC in Oaxaca cannot claim to be the best one. When making decisions about
buying things, we realised that there were many things that were not affordable. Specifically,
we had to decide not to buy some computing hardware (and software as well) that would
have taken too much of the project money. Nevertheless, we managed to get enough to cope
with the expected demands. There are fifty audiocassette recorders, twenty of which are
interactive, twenty videotape players with TV sets attached to them, eight computers, two
with CD-ROM drives, a satellite dish connected to a macro-screened TV, a laser disc
reproducer, a photocopier and other small appliances for processing materials.

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