1. Autonomy in Education

1.7. Read what experts say

HOW IS LEARNER AGENCY DIFFERENT FROM OTHER CONCEPTS?

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 „Some teachers may be familiar with the term ‘learner autonomy’. They may also have come across ‘self-directed learning’, ‘self-regulated learning’, ‘self-access’, and ‘self-learning’, and may wonder how they differ from learner agency. One answer is that agency lies at the root of them all. Being agentive is the fundamental conviction that one’s behaviour can make a difference. In this way, it can be said that these other valuable concepts are all expressions of agency.

Another answer comes from Namgung et al., who point out that while autonomy ‘focuses primarily on an individual’s independent and free decision for action … agency entails multidimensional attributes that include intrapersonal and environmental factors’. Thus, agency is a more holistic concept. Agents are seen as embodied, thinking, feeling, social beings who have unique histories and identities as well as interests and goals that they pursue at particular times and places.

Importantly, the prefix self- is key to distinguishing agency from these other concepts. Agency shifts the perspective from simply seeing a learner as an individual ‘self’ to viewing the same learner as socially connected. In other words, agency does not reside in the individual self as a fixed quality but is invited and nurtured in relations with others. While all learners have the potential to be agentive language learners, the extent to which they choose to enact their agency will depend on how important their goals are to them and on how their agency is supported by others.“

Larsen-Freeman, D., Driver, P., Gao, X., & Mercer, S. (2021). Learner Agency: Maximizing Learner Potential [PDF]. www.oup.com/elt/expert, p.7.