Promoting learner autonomy in young learners: Self-assessment as a means to develop more independent primary learners of English as a foreign language

• Autor(a) principal: León, Ana Araújo
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10362/143425
• topic: Autonomia; Inglês língua estrangeira; Ensino primário; 1º Ciclo; Autonomy; Learner autonomy; Self-assessment; Reflection; Young learners; Learning goals; English as a foreign language; Domínio/Área Científica::Humanidades::Línguas e Literaturas; Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Ciências da Educação

This study aimed at examining the effectiveness of self-assessment in promoting autonomy in young learners, guided by the following research question: In what way(s) does self-assessment contribute to an increase in autonomy in young learners? The participants were a class of twenty-five 4th year students of English as a foreign language, who participated in the research during the first term of the school year, a period of approximately 2 months and a half. Small scale classroom based action research was conducted, and the methodology consisted of both quantitative and qualitative tools for data collection. These were questionnaires, a teaching journal, exit tickets and a self-assessment worksheet. Traffic lights for self-assessment and reflective summary to practice reflection were also used as day-to-day practice. Over time, students demonstrated an increasing ability to reflect and self-assess, by being more and more specific when identifying their strengths and weaknesses, which are signs of increasing learner autonomy. However, results also showed that, at the end of the research, more students felt like self-assessment did not help them recognize mistakes nor improve as learners. More students also admitted to feeling a bit stressed when self-assessing and less students liked to self-assess, by the end of the term. Providing more feedback and offering suggestions on how to overcome the obstacles and weaknesses identified by students might have been valuable to counter these results. Lastly, the study reiterates the role of the teacher in helping students reflect, reminding the purpose of the practices and tools, giving success criteria and overall guiding students, as promoting learner autonomy is not a synonym of self-instruction.