Towards new roles for learners and teachers in a language learning system?

In a flexible language learning system, developed at a French university and gradually improved through Action Research, different elements are combined: individual work on a virtual learning environment (VLE), pair-work and counselling appointments. One of the objectives of the system is to help the students involved progress towards autonomy – defined as “the ability to take charge of one’s own learning” (Holec 1981: 3) or “as the capacity to take control over one’s own learning” (Benson 2001: 2) – in their learning of English. The implementation of the system involves a new conception of the different actors’ roles. Teachers become tutors, or counsellors, as defined by CRAPEL (Gremmo, 1995; Ciekanski, 2005) with new specific pedagogical goals (Bertin, Gravé & Narcy-Combes, 2010) and the learners have a new role to play. The introduction of two new guidance tools over the last years – a logbook, and specific sections in the existing forum of the VLE – were meant to help the students develop a reflexive approach and thus enhance autonomization, or developing learners’ capacity to learn (Holec 1990: 77), and, in a second time, to promote the development of collaborative learning strategies and encourage the students to use strategies which they would not primarily have thought of. The guidance tools used in this specific language learning environment such as the counselling appointments, the logbook, and the forum, may influence the roles played by the different actors, but also the representations they have of their own roles, which may have an impact on their motivation and thus on the autonomization process (Dickinson, 1995). From the creation of the flexible system five years ago, the research has studied a population of 610 students through quantitative and qualitative analyses (Chateau, 2008; Chateau & Zumbihl, 2010). Focusing on the results obtained with the last population of students, the paper discusses the differences between them and the previous populations, and in particular whether the evolution of the roles played by the different actors, as compared with traditional language teaching/learning situations, has been enhanced.