SLA RESEARCH ON SELF-DIRECTION: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL ISSUES

4. AN ATTEMPT TO MAKE SENSE

In the previous chapters, I have described the process of understanding I have been
through since the project of Self-Access Centres in Mexico was started in 1992. The reader
will have noticed the way I started seeing things in a different way when I gained some
experience working in my role as a SAC counsellor and a researcher. As I see it, now, I feel
more assertive and confident about certain things. I can positively affirm that I have found
an answer (of all the possible answers) for some of several questions I had (I still have too
many). However, at this moment I strongly feel that I need to make sense of the knowledge I
have acquired. The purpose of the present chapter, then, is to try to make sense in three
different ways. First, I will show the reader the way I do not agree with some aspects of the
literature in this area. I will only deal with one specific book (Wenden's Learner strategies
for learner autonomy) for the purpose of this study is not an exhaustive critical review of the
literature. I only want to provide the reader with an example of some problems when
writing about learning autonomy. Second, I will try to fill a gap in the theoretical foundation
of self-directed language learning. There is the need of a cognitive model that help us to
understand the way self-directed learners learn. Third, in the section "Autonomy 3", I will
complete my definition of autonomy considering three different dimensions of it.

4.1 BEING CRITICAL

Teaching autonomy, if it is teachable, has become a very fashionable educative goal

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