Learner autonomy in college ESP classes : exploring Egyptian teachers' perceptions, current practices and future prospects

Abstract EN

Learner autonomy (LA) has been a key theme in ELT research for the past thirty years.

It is an essential element in the process of language learning in general and in learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in particular.

During the process of language learning, learners are expected to reflect on how they learn, analyze their own learning strategies and make decisions on whether to improve them or not.

The language teacher has a central role in fostering LA through creating a classroom learning environment which is conducive to promoting LA.

This would entail raising the students' awareness of the benefits of independence in their own learning.

Additionally, retrospective activities such as group discussion or structured questionnaires and interviews would help learners become more autonomous which would increase their motivation.

However, only few studies in the extensive literature explored what LA means to language teachers and, therefore, this research addresses this gap.

The research focuses on Egyptian college ESP teachers' notion of LA, their current practices and strategies; it also explores their future prospects regarding LA.

A survey was conducted at the College of Language and Communication (CLC) at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (AASTMT), Alexandria, to collect the opinions of ESP teachers regarding the practices and future prospects of LA in their classrooms.

The sample consisted of 40 teachers teaching undergraduate ESP courses at different colleges at the AASTMT.

Findings have shown that ESP teachers believe that learners should be as autonomous as possible and that it is important to provide learner training and make it an integral part of the teaching process in order to help ESP learners become more autonomous.