Learner Autonomy and Tandem Learning

Learner Autonomy and Tandem Learning: Putting Principles Into Practice in Synchronous and Asynchronous Telecommunication Environments by Schweinhorst, K. (2003).
According to the article autonomous learning should not be viewed as a “laissez-faire” (French for leave it alone) approach, nor should it be viewed as self-access or self-instruction. The learner will have to have the ability to be self critical. The teacher will still have a role to play to ensure that the students are on task.

Tandem learning is where for example a German learning English would be paired with an Irish learner of German. They would use synchronous (such as Windows Live Messenger) or asynchronous (e mail) technologies. Each learner would be responsible for their own and their partner’s leaning.
Each learner has to support the other in order to accomplish their learning goals.
Both learners should use both languages in order to profit from the exchange.

It was noticed that pairing up students was not actually that easy. Often students would run out of topics. It was found that students of a similar age, with similar interests was the most useful and productive pairing. Mismatched students soon ran out of topics to talk about.

There are additional problems, there is only one hour time difference between Germany and Ireland, so synchronous technologies will not present a problem. However, if the learners are on opposite sides of the world synchronous technologies would present problems, due to the time differences. This is where asynchronous technologies would be better.

A problem arose with the asynchronous communication in that different e mails systems used slightly different systems. This is why Trinity College, Dublin set up the Electronic Tandem Resources the ETR. This was a dedicated web site where students had to log in. Their use of the L1 and L2 were logged and could be assessed by the students. Thus they could evaluate approximately how much of the L1 and L2 they were actually using.

It was found that a system such as this did have the advantage that students were aware and had prepared themselves for communication in the L2. Further they were not inundated by the irrelevant e mail messages that infest the usual e mail accounts.

A similar sort of thing was set up with synchronous communications. A logging system was set up so the students and the teacher could get a copy of the text used in each communication.
Tasks were set up again and used both synchronous and asynchronous technologies.
One example of a task was a chain story created via synchronous and asynchronous technologies, the story was edited and revised by the native speaker. The final version was submitted to the teacher. It would seem that specific goals are essential to help move the process along and assist the acquisition

According to the paper there are three areas where technology and pedagogy affect the reflection process. These are the pressures, affordances and potential to permit reflection.