Mobile assisted language learning and language learner autonomy
In the modern age of exponential knowledge growth and accelerating technological development, the need to engage in lifelong learning is becoming increasingly urgent. Successful lifelong learning, in turn, requires learner autonomy, or "the capacity to take control of one's own learning" (Benson, 2011, p. 58) including all relevant decisions about what, when, where, and how to learn. Mobile technologies, as not only potential means for learning anywhere and anytime but also conduits to rich, multimodal content, provide unprecedented opportunities for the development of learner autonomy. However, even when learners possess adequate training in mobile technology use and autonomy itself, implementation of mobile learning devices in the classroom often seems to engender little additional autonomous behavior. This paper highlights the differing constraints on learner autonomy in formal and informal learning environments. It then proposes an approach to encouraging greater demonstration of autonomy through an explicit linking of institutional requirements associated with routine lesson assignments and the achievement of personally meaningful, individually determined learning goals. Finally, it suggests the role that mobile technology can and properly ought to play in capacitating consistently high levels of demonstrated autonomy both inside and outside the classroom.