were all doubts. Nevertheless, it also made me realised that I needed to read more and carry
out some research on the subject.
3.3 MORE READING AND EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
In this section I will try to summarise the second stage of my understanding of self-
directed learning. It consisted of a combination of dealing with the literature and the carrying
out empirical research. The first stage of reading, my introduction to the field (see 2.2,
p.16), was very general and intended to give me an overall idea of what self-directed
learning was. The second stage though, had different objectives. Above all, it responded to
my own particular needs at that time. In that sense, it was more specific and intense. It was
also more productive, for I was reading with my already-acquired own individual schema of
self-learning, something I lacked in the first readings. It was also more open in the sense that
I did not deal only with self-directed learning literature, but also with research and
knowledge in others areas of applied linguistics and learning in general. I have to admit that
for the second stage I needed to reread some of the literature. Obviously, I understood better
some things but also, I was more critical and assertive. This allowed me to carry out
empirical research and draw some conclusions about my own context. I did research on
several areas. For the purposes of this study, I will only summarise the most important of the
following: counselling, learner strategies, learner training and teacher education.
3.3.1 Counselling
Very little has been written about counselling in self-directed learning. Basically,
researchers only have dealt with the functions of the counsellor. In his book Self-instruction
in Language Learning (1987), Dickinson hardly mentions the role of the SAC counsellor.
Although he states that "the teacher has a vital role to play in supporting learners in a self-
instructional mode"(102), it seems to me that he understands this support more in the way of
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