Autonomy at All Costs: An

Ethnography of Metacognitive
Self-Assessment and
Self-Management among
Experienced Language Learners
WILLIAM P. RIVERS
Bryn Mawr College and the National
Foreign Language Center at the University of
Maryland
1029 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20005
Email: wrivers@nflc.org

Research in cognition has shown that expert learners in diverse fields, including chess,
mathematics, physics, and language learning, approach new learning tasks differently than
novice learners. More recent research in neuropsychology makes a strong claim that metacog-
nition is separate from cognition and consists of two types of behavior: self-assessment and
self-management. This article analyzes self-directed language learning behaviors of adult
third-language learners based on qualitative data. The data were gathered in 1993 and 1994
from 11 learners of Georgian and Kazakh at the University of Maryland at College Park. All
learners had 2/2/2 (L/R/S) proficiency in Russian according to the Federal Interagency
Language Roundtable (FILR) scale. Data were analyzed using the Grounded Method for
analyzing qualitative data (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). All learners were found to assess their
progress, learning styles, strategy preferences, and conflicts with teaching styles and with the
behaviors of other learners regularly. Based on these assessments, the majority of learners
made attempts at specific self-directed learning behaviors, focused primarily on changes to
course materials and classroom activities, and targeted specific learning tasks and strategies.

METACOGNITION, EXECUTIVE learning: Individuals can be taught to regulate

FUNCTIONS, AND THE EXPERIENCED
LANGUAGE LEARNER
Research in several disparate fields makes a
strong claim that metacognition is fundamentally
different than cognition. A recent comprehen-
sive review of the literature on educational re-
search, published by the National Research
Council, summarizes the role of metacognition in
The Modern Language Journal, 85, ii, (2001)
0026-7902/01/279290 $1.50/0
2001 The Modern Language Journal
their behaviors, and these regulatory activities en-
able self-monitoring and executive control of
ones performance (Bransford, Brown, & Cock-
ing, 1999, p. xii). One term for metacognition,
derived from research in developmental neurol-
ogy and neuropsychology, is executive functions
(Denckla, 1996). Executive functions consist of
two types of metacognition: metacognitive self-as-
sessment, i.e., the ability to assess ones own cog-
nition (Paris, Lipson, & Wixson, 1983; Flavell,
Miller, & Miller, 1993) and metacognitive self-
management, i.e., the ability to manage ones
further cognitive development (Brown & Palin-
280
scar, 1982; Flavell, Miller, & Miller, 1993). More-
over, research in neuropsychology has demon-
strated specific locations for metacognition in the
brain, and metacognitive assessment measures
have come to be used for the differential diagno-
sis of brain trauma and developmental disorders
(Denckla, 1996; Taylor, Schatschneider, Petrill,
Barry, & Owens, 1996; Dennis, Barnes, Donnelly,
Wilkinson, & Humphreys, 1996; Meichenbaum,
Burland, Gruson, & Cameron, 1985).
Of self-management and self-assessment, the
latter emerges as the more critical skill. Owings,
Petersen, Bransford, Morris, and Stein (1980)
showed that fifth-graders with better self-monitor-
ing ability performed better in self-regulated lan-
guage learning. They demonstrated that while
both of their groups were able to manage their
learning, those without accurate assessments of
their knowledge and abilities were less successful
in that management. In a study of the reading
strategies of second-graders and fourth-graders,
Walczyk and Hall (1991) demonstrated that self-
monitoring emerges before self-management. Fi-
nally, Schraw (1994) noted that college students
with poor monitoring skills were less able to man-
age their learning, and performed worse, than
good monitors.
The parallel between the attributes of success-
ful autonomous/self-directed learners and ex-
ecutive function (metacognitive self-assessment
and metacognitive self-management) is clear, if
one considers either the classic descriptions of
the autonomous learner as a learner who fixes
objectives, defines the content and program of
learning, selects the methods and techniques of
learning, and monitors and evaluates his or her
progress toward his or her objectives (Holec,
1981), or the attributes of self-directed learning:
Learning builds on experience, is internally mo-
tivated, and is task-and problem-centered, rather
than referent-centered (Knowles, 1975; also Bere-
iter, 1992, for a more general consideration of
learning as problem-centered). Self-managed/
self-directed learning requires the learner to as-
sess accurately and to manage actively his or her
learning goals, behaviors, environment, and out-
comes. Results of experiments in self-directed
language learning include increased productivity,
higher motivation, less frustration, and higher
retention rates, when self-directed language
learning is allowed (Ellis, 1994; Bachman, 1964;
Holec, 1980, 1987; Dickinson, 1987; Gardner,
Ginsberg, & Smythe, 1976; Gardner & McIntyre,
1991). Investigations of American college stu-
dents studying abroad have also shown links be-
tween self-directed language learning and in-
The Modern Language Journal 85 (2001)
creased linguistic risk taking, a factor tied to gains
in speaking proficiency (Pellegrino, 1994, 1996;
Frank, 1997). The attributes of the good lan-
guage learnera personal learning style, a tol-
erant and outgoing approach to the target lan-
guage, technical know-how about how to tackle
a language, willingness to use the language in
real communication, and strategies for testing
and revision of hypotheses about the Target Lan-
guage (Rubin, 1975, pp. 44-48)are charac-
teristic of the Self-Directed Language Learner.
The general notion that the expert in any field
approaches learning differently than the novice
is well established.1 In fields as diverse as chess
(de Groot, 1965; Chase & Simon, 1973), mathe-
matics (Brown & Burton, 1978; Lewis, 1981; An-
derson, Green, Kline, & Neves, 1981), computer
programming (McKeithen, Reitman, Reuter, &
Hirtle, 1981; Adelson, 1981), and physics (Chi,
Glaser, & Rees, 1983), the expert learner ap-
proaches the learning task differently than the
novice. Each of these studies showed broad simi-
larities among expert learners: more use than
novices of cognitive or metacognitive strategies to
organize input and knowledge, including a gen-
eral tendency to reorganize learning tasks along
deeper abstract and conceptual structures and
schemata, rather than along surface structure.
The recent comprehensive review of educational
research by the National Research Council con-
cluded that experts notice features and mean-
ingful patterns of information that are not no-
ticed by novices, experts have acquired a great
deal of content knowledge that is organized, and
their organization reflects a deep understanding
of the student matter, and experts have varying
levels of flexibility in their approaches to new
situations (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999,
p. xiii).
Turning to language learning, several studies
reinforce the general findings on expert learners.
Ben Zeev (1977) reported that bilingual children
demonstrate greater flexibility in the use of learn-
ing strategies than monolingual children. Bia-
lystok (1992) supports this conclusion: In her
research on selective attention, she found that
bilinguals performed significantly better on tasks
requiring high levels of selective attention. The
bulk of studies on third language acquisition fo-
cus on some aspect of phonetic, morphological,
lexical, and syntactic transfer in closely related or
cognate languages; transfer effects in topologi-
cally dissimilar or genetically unrelated lan-
guages;2 and the global effects of prior linguistic
experience on universal grammar and parameter
setting (Zobl, 1992; Enomoto, 1994, Klein, 1995)
William P. Rivers
or proficiency gain in a third language.3 In a
study on interference from second language
(Spanish) in third language (English) among
multilingual Yaqui Indians in Arizona, Bartlet
(1989) found evidence of broad use of metacog-
nitive and communicative strategies in oral dis-
course and oral narrative. Mhle (1989) exam-
ined learning strategies in German multilingual
university students taking a variety of Indo-Euro-
pean languages (French, Spanish, and English).
Mhle hypothesized that the narration of a film
with no overt linguistic information would be in-
fluenced by cognitive processing.4 Mhle found
evidence of controlled lexical transfer, again a
metacognitive strategy.
Ramsay (1980) presented a study of 10 multil-
inguals and 10 monolinguals learning Euskera
(Basque) in self-paced, self-instructional format.
A variety of materials, including vocabulary flash
cards, audiovisual material, and a grammar
primer were available to the students. Student
portfolios of materials studied were maintained
throughout the course, providing a record of the
materials accessed by each student. An achieve-
ment test was administered at the end of the
course, and the performance of both groups was
compared. Ramsay discovered that multilinguals
tended to perform far better than monolinguals.
A group of 5 multilinguals and 1 monolingual
comprised a set of successful learners, who
scored more than one standard deviation better
than the mean score on the achievement test.
Successful learners were characterized by: the use
of more cognitive and metacognitive strategies,
including substantially more verbalization and vo-
cal practice; use of mnemonic devices; a more
positive attitude towards the learning process (an
affective strategy); use of positive affect reinforce-
ment; use of more sources of information; and
more risk taking and less fear of errors. Metacog-
nitive strategies, thus, are indicated as a primary
difference between the novice and expert
learner, across a broad set of abstract systems of
knowledge, and specifically in language, at both
a very discrete level (the processing of specific
constituent units) and at the discourse level. Wen-
den (1999) reviewed the literature on metacogni-
tion in language learning, and drew a similar
conclusion: good language learners as well as self-
directed language learners exhibit metacognitive
behaviors.
THE STUDY
This study is based on open-ended, retrospec-
tive survey data collected from the students of the
281
Languages of the Former Soviet Union Project,
held in the Russian section of the Department of
Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures
at the University of Maryland at College Park
during the 1993-94 academic year. The author
was the Program Manager and an instructor in
the Russian section of the Department of Ger-
manic and Slavic Languages and Literatures at
the University of Maryland at College Park. The
students were adult learners, all of whom were
employed as translators or interpreters, and who
had a minimum oral proficiency in Russian of 2
on the Federal Interagency Language Round-
table (FILR) scale in reading, listening, and
speaking. Their ages ranged from 26 to 64 years;
all had a BA in Russian or Russian area studies;
some had additional coursework or the MA in a
variety of fields. None had studied abroad in Rus-
sia or the former Soviet Union.
They were enrolled in courses in one of three
languages: Georgian, Kazakh, and Kyrgyz. The
courses met 5 hours per day, 5 days per week. The
Georgian course met for 20 weeks; the Kazakh
and Kyrgyz courses met for 37 weeks. In all three
courses, the goal was for the participants to reach
2-level proficiency (FILR scale) in reading and
listening. The instructors were language peda-
gogues from Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzia.
There were two instructors per course, each typi-
cally teaching one-half of the day, although the
schedule varied with workload and activities. A
variety of teaching methodologies were used, in-
cluding the structural approach in the Georgian,
Kyrgyz, and Kazakh courses, with the Kazakh
course especially emphasizing a bottom-up ap-
proach to the acquisition of the language; some
use of the communicative approach, especially in
the Georgian course, and to a lesser extent in the
Kazakh and Kyrgyz courses; and the Emotional-
Semantic Method in the Kyrgyz course.5
Analytical Methodology
The approach taken for this project is a quali-
tative description of observed phenomena, based
on extensive written, self-reported data. Because
there was no control group, no claims of causality
or efficacy of treatment are made. Instead, I at-
tempt to document rigorously and describe cer-
tain behaviors and attitudes among a set of expe-
rienced language learners in a particular
environment.
The collected data were analyzed by the author
using the Grounded Method for the analysis of
qualitative data, as detailed by Strauss and Corbin
(1990). The Grounded Method requires rigorous
282
inductive analysis and verification of a given phe-
nomenon through a multistage analysis of quali-
tative, narrative data. The data were first read by
the author without any attempt to categorize
them. A second reading was performed, again by
the author, and general categories of reported
events were noted. A third reading involved the
development of systematic coding and chrono-
logical tracking of events including: learner pro-
gress self-assessments, learner style assessments,
learner-teacher style conflicts, learner-learner
style conflicts, and autonomy requests. At this
level, the events remain a set of isolated occur-
rences, unconnected through time or by other
variables. These second two steps taken together
constitute open coding. Coded events were
then re-coded by the author into axial groups of
similar events and phenomena. At all points in
the process, each narrative must be treated as a
whole and in context, to the extent made feasible
by researcher notes external to the narratives, by
the narratives of other students with whom the
given student may have interacted, and by the
conditions under which the narratives were writ-
ten.
The results presented here represent the major
observed phenomena. The narratives presented
below are presented in full, and are selected as
representative of the observed events and phe-
nomena.
Data Collection
Two survey instruments were used to elicit data
on learning behaviors. Initially, students were
given a questionnaire to complete each day. This
one-page questionnaire consisted of a grid that
students were to use to assess their progress and
the utility of various activities. A single, open-
ended question invited general comments on the
back of the form. The overall student response
rate to the grid portion of the questionnaire was
initially less than 50%. This response rate de-
clined dramatically, and after 3 weeks, the grid
questionnaire was abandoned in favor of a weekly
questionnaire. The Georgian group (3 students)
returned 11 daily questionnaires (30%); the Kyr-
gyz group returned 71 (5 students, 71% response
rate), and the Kazakh group returned 148 (8
students, 93%). In the main, the questionnaires
were not completed, save for the open-ended
commentary question. The responses to that
question form the first component of the corpus
of survey responses.
The second instrument consisted of a weekly,
six-item, open-ended retrospective question-
The Modern Language Journal 85 (2001)
naire. The Georgian group returned 11 question-
naires (3 students, 32% response rate), the Kyr-
gyz group returned 31 questionnaires (5 stu-
dents, 17%), and the Kazakh group returned 48
questionnaires (8 students, 18%). The answers to
the questions on this survey constitute the second
major component of the corpus.
The results reported here derive from an analy-
sis of the Georgian daily and weekly surveys, and
from the Kazakh daily surveys. The Kyrgyz data
were abandoned, as it proved impossible to iden-
tify and, therefore, to track individual respon-
dents from the surveys.
RESULTS
Students in both the Georgian and the Kazakh
groups exhibited similar behaviors in three gen-
eral areas: (self-)assessment, learner autonomy,
and self-directed language learning. Learners
gave ample evidence of their assessment of sev-
eral areas: learner-teacher style conflicts (see Ox-
ford & Lavine, 1992); learner style conflicts
within the group, and the effects thereof on the
class; self-assessment of learner style; and individ-
ual learning strategy preferences. All students re-
peatedly exhibited learner autonomy, in the form
of demands for the modification of some aspect
of the courses, including methodology, teacher
feedback, classroom environment, sequencing,
and activities. Most importantly, various students
demonstrated different self-directed language
learning behaviors, directed at the amelioration
of the learner-teacher and learner-learner style
conflicts, and at the individuals need for learner
autonomy. Self-directed learning behaviors in-
cluded the prioritizing of classroom and home-
work assignments, selection of classroom and
homework tasks, and inclusion of an inde-
pendent study day into the program. In this sec-
tion, I will examine each of these three phenom-
ena with respect to the corpus of survey responses
from the Languages of the Former Soviet Union
Project. I will start with the Georgian course, and
then proceed to the Kazakh course.
Learner-teacher style conflicts arise when the
teaching methodology in a given classroom ill
suits the cognitive style of a particular learner
(Oxford & Lavine, 1992; Leaver, 1993). In the
Georgian class, one of three students reported
that the emphasis on translation during the read-
ing portion of the class was a source of stress and
tension. The student correctly identified the
source of this stress, namely, that there was a
learner-teacher style conflict in those two por-
tions of the course. The student writes:
William P. Rivers
A week ago Thursday and Friday we had some
trouble. Wed. we had begun to experience the classic
Soviet-trained teacher w/American students syn-
drome when [Instructor A] expressed irritation that
we did not know the material well enough, which led
into the classic I read it, I didnt/couldnt memorize
it rut (Georgian student 1, Daily survey 6).
Here, the student refers to the instructors empha-
sis on rote memorizationa common pedagogi-
cal method in the Soviet Union. This insistence on
rote memorization, and American students un-
willingness to do it, is a possible source of conflict
in classes with Soviet-trained instructors and
American students with little exposure to Soviet-
trained instructors (Leaver & Flank, 1987). It
should be noted that the majority of learners had
little exposure to Soviet-trained instructors, be-
cause none had studied abroad. Any such expo-
sure presumably came during the students under-
graduate careers. The same student continues:
I brought in a Georgian art book that related to a
book [Instructor A] showed me Thursday re [sic]
Georgian history. [Instructor A] told me right off the
bat [that Instructor A] didnt like the bookwhich
was disconcerting . . . as a teacher of Classical lan-
guages, [Instructor A] may not be used to . . . cogni-
tive, participatory teaching (Georgian student 1,
Daily survey 6).
Student 2 had a different conflict:
They try to keep us talking, which I wouldnt have
considered all that important before, but I can see
how it is activating a lot of vocabulary (Georgian
student 2, Daily survey 4).
This response is illuminating in that the student
recognizes her preference for activities other
than speaking, the emphasis in the course on
speaking, and some benefit of the non-preferred
activity. This last traitflexibility in learner style
and learning strategy preferencesreappears
throughout the data.
Learner style conflicts within the class cohort
remain a less well investigated area in research on
cognitive styles and Second Language Acquisi-
tion (SLA). Nonetheless, some researchers, nota-
bly Leaver (1993) have recognized the potential
for problems in classrooms with divergent learner
styles and learning strategy preferences among
the class cohort.6 All parties recognized the con-
flict:
Ive become increasingly aware of the differences in
our personalities learning styles lately (Georgian
student 2, Weekly survey 1).
We waste a lot of time repeating explanations because
[Georgian student 1] was busy talking and making
283
excuses instead of listening. I know speaking practice
is important, but when one students practice gets in
the way of general progress, its too much (Georgian
student 2, Weekly survey 1).
Student 1 was also well aware of this particular
conflict:
Im global extrovert. The other two are introvert
types, and you can see that our different capabilities
come out in different activities. Im more creative in
composition, they have a better memory of vocab,
etc. (Georgian student 1, Weekly survey 1).
This learner style conflictbetween an extro-
verted learner and two introverted class-
matesgenerated considerable difficulty and
frustration:
My only concern is, now that were running short of
time, that we cant afford to spend a half hour to an
hour on [Student 1s] experiments in poetry, fairy
tales ancient history any more (Georgian student
2, Weekly survey 1).
This conflict was not resolved until the depar-
ture from the course of Student 1 (the student
left the course for job-related reasons). Both stu-
dents exhibited a keen awareness of their own
learner styles and learning strategy preferences.
Georgian student 1 was aware of a difficulty
with short-term memory and the acquisition of
lexicon, and resultant problems in activities re-
quiring the use of short-term memory and re-
cently taught lexicon:
The hard part comes when we have to translate it [a
newspaper article] on the spot in class . . . I do better
at other activities, when my inability to keep up
[doesnt interfere with the activity]. They [students 2
and 3] hear better/remember vocab better (Geor-
gian student 1, Weekly survey 1).
Student 2 exhibited an awareness of difficulties
with oral activities:
They try to keep us talking, which I wouldnt have
considered all that important before, but I can see
how it is activating a lot of vocabulary (Georgian
student 2, Daily survey 4).
Informal consultations with the instructors and
the students tended to confirm the accuracy of
these assessments. Student 1 did indeed have
more difficulty in acquiring vocabulary, and Stu-
dent 2 was more reluctant to engage in conversa-
tion.
One episode in the Georgian course stands as
a metaphor for learner autonomy. All students
repeatedly expressed their discomfort with the
pace of the course and the amount of the mate-
284
rial, either to the administration or to the teach-
ers:
We really cant do all the homework theyre asking us
to do (Georgian student 1, Daily survey 3).
The complaint was made directly to the instruc-
tors, an illocutionary first step in learner auton-
omy. The instructors responded by prioritizing
the homework tasks for the students:
It was some help today when they made an effort to
prioritize the tasks for us, after we talked it over [my
emphasis] (Georgian student 1, Daily survey 3).
Apparently, the problem recurred, as evidenced
by the responses to the problem in the later daily
and weekly surveys:
At the end of the day, [Instructor B] agreed to cut our
homework tasks back, so we have time to review vo-
cab, and to do what we can do with better quality . . .
(Georgian student 1, Daily survey 6).
We have boiled down all our activities, in class and at
home, to the kind of work we agree we need and want
most (Georgian student 2, Weekly survey 3).
The first citation above addresses an additional
issue: the students self-assessment of the quality
of the work done. The second citation above ad-
dresses an issue besides the amount of home-
work: course content. Unfortunately for the pur-
poses of research, these discussions were held in
camera, as it were, between the students and
teachers. That alone, the fact that the students
appealed directly to the instructors and left the
administration out of the loop, testifies to the
degree of autonomy exhibited by the students. A
more typical response (as will be seen in the data
form the Kazakh group) would have been an
appeal to the teachers, followed by an appeal to
the program administration.
Direct evidence of self-directed language learn-
ing appears in the corpus of survey responses
from the participants in the Georgian course.
Student 1 claimed to have found materials of
personal interest (an art book), and this student
was accused by other students of writing poetry
and fairy tales. These are evidence of self-di-
rected language learning, insofar as the student
(Student 1) engaged in activities which were not
assigned by the instructors, which reflected the
students own interests (poetry, fairy tales, Geor-
gian history), and which reflected a learning
strategy preference:
Im more creative in composition, they have a better
memory of vocab, etc. (Georgian student 1, Weekly
survey 1).
The Modern Language Journal 85 (2001)
This particular example of self-directed language
learning is the only clear instance occurring in
the corpus of survey responses from the Georgian
course.
Two final points concerning the Georgian
course: First, of the three conflicts which appear
in the survey responses, two (the learner-teacher
style conflict and the course workload and se-
quence conflict) were resolved by the learners
and teachers, with minimal intervention from the
administration. The thirdthe learner style con-
flict within the class, and an attendant personality
clashwas resolved only by the removal of one of
the learners, for reasons unrelated to the course.
The ability to resolve such conflicts within the
framework of the classroom, when coupled with
remarks such as the following, indicate that the
learners (and teachers) in this course were flex-
ible in their approach to the learning process:
I need much more practice in the areas that I like less
and tend to neglect when left to my own devices
(Georgian student 2, Daily survey 2).
On the other hand, we are getting practice where we
are weakest (Georgian student 1, Daily survey 4).
They try to keep us talking, which I wouldnt have
considered all that important before, but I can see
how it is activating a lot of vocabulary (Georgian
student 2, Daily survey 4).
That flexibility, as seen in the research literature,
is a hallmark of the experienced language learner
and the good language learner.
The Kazakh group, which consisted of 8 stu-
dents, provided a rich set of survey responses
containing evidence of: two broad learner-
teacher style conflicts; a great deal of information
on the learners self-assessment of their progress,
learner styles, and learning strategy preferences;
and a group-wide attempt to change the structure
of the course. The Kazakh students seemed less
aware of the differences in individual learner
styles, often using the survey to appeal to the
administration for a modification which would
suit the individual making the appeal, even
though the same days surveys might contain re-
sponses from other learners praising the activity
which the first respondent wanted removed. In
the corpus of survey responses, the Kazakh group
evinces little awareness of this phenomenon.
The first learner-teacher style conflict arose
from the drill and kill nature of the instruc-
tional techniques used, and the reaction of the
class cohort to those techniques. The reliance on
oral drills caused widespread conflict, with most
William P. Rivers
students objecting to the reliance on oral drills
and requesting more written drills:
I feel like [Instructor D] is frustrated by our slow pace
in doing oral drills and our very slow response to
questions. This may be a cultural difference, Im not
sure. Perhaps they do a great deal more oral drilling
in the former Soviet Union, but I have never had to
do so much oral drilling without extensive written
exercise first (Kazakh student 1, Daily survey 6).
We need more written practice, especially with gram-
mar. We do a lot of oral practice, but it would be
easier if we did some written work first (Kazakh stu-
dent 4, Daily survey 6).
Our instructors seem to be accustomed to oral repe-
tition and to oral exercises, with material we have just
learned, while we are more accustomed to written
exercises, perhaps corrected orally. Some adjustment
is necessary on both sides (Kazakh student 5, daily
survey 7).
The resolution to this conflict lay in a direct con-
frontation with the instructors:
[We] finally got up the courage today to tell our
teacher that we Americans almost never work orally
in school . . . oral drills are murder on us. Immedi-
ately everything started getting written out on the
board and we got to write down sentences and work
from our papers. It was great! (Kazakh student 1,
Daily survey 8).
Note as well that the resolution to this conflict
occurred only when the students expressed
autonomy, by approaching the instructor and re-
questing a specific change in the manner of pre-
sentation of new material. However, not all of the
students agreed with the new approach:
[Instructor D writes] sentences, words on the board
it takes a long time to copy it all. By the time I
finish, she has already gone on to some new words,
etc., which means I am missing things. Others have
said the same thing (Kazakh student 6, Daily survey
8).
This student was the only one who gave a negative
response to the change from purely oral presen-
tation to a mixture of written and oral presenta-
tion. (The others mentioned in the response
did not choose to do so in the surveys.) Thus, the
tentative conclusion is that for the majority of the
students in the Kazakh group, this particular con-
flict was resolved in a satisfactory manner.
A second conflict arose during the use of a
top-down approach to newspaper texts. After ap-
proximately 2 months of instruction, the teachers
introduced authentic target language newspaper
articles, and directed the students to perform a
number of tasks with the articles: scanning, gist-
285
ing, and reading for detail. The responses to the
newspaper texts and the approach used in analyz-
ing the texts indicated both apprehension and a
general preference for bottom-up processing:7
The rather lengthy newspaper article is a bit over-
whelming initially but if I keep at it, I would think that
I may learn to decipher the structures (Kazakh stu-
dent 7, Daily survey 11).
We had a long talk with our instructors today and we
are not going to do mamoth [sic] newspaper articles
anymore for a while until we sort of know the gram-
mar and structure that goes into them (Kazakh stu-
dent 2, Daily survey 15).
Again, the conflict was partially resolved by an
instance of the exercise of learner autonomyin
this case, the talk with the instructors.
Much as the Georgian cohort, the Kazakh stu-
dents actively assessed their learner styles and
their learning strategy preferences. Among the
assessments of learner style were several assess-
ments of learner type, according to no particular
taxonomy:
Even though I rate myself as a global learner, it is
hard to do that when there are so few good reference
texts or primers (Kazakh student 8, Daily survey 6).
Here, a student claimed to be a global learner.
Others claimed to be analytic learners:
Our instructor intends to spend several days (19) on
the possessive endings alone, which is a good
idea. . . . Such periodic concentration on certain as-
pects of the language is necessary, in my opinion, if
we are to really learn the language (Kazakh student
5, Daily survey 6).
The fact that we have no textbook (but numerous
global/random handouts) makes it that much harder
to study prepare the exercises (Kazakh student 8,
Daily survey 9).
Other learners classified themselves as aural or
visual learners:
While this [taped dialogues] will be useful, progress
will be slower, at least for me, since my visual memory
is far superior to my aural memory (Kazakh student
1, Daily survey 12).
Field-dependence also receives implicit mention:
reciting words without context is inherently unsatisfy-
ing (Kazakh student 2, Daily survey 9).
Our vocabulary is growing nicely, but is organized
around phonetic sounds, rather than student matter,
i.e., words beginning with y rather than words con-
nected with a certain topic. I dont mind this, but
some students are bothered by it (Kazakh student 5,
Daily survey 3).
286
Although the cited examples also make refer-
ence to affective behaviors and learning strategy
preferences, the clear result to be drawn from
them is that this particular cohort of experienced
language learners was aware of their individual
learner styles and learning strategy preferences,
even where they could not name the style or
strategy.
The first example of self-assessment of learning
strategy preferences analyzed abovethe strong
and negative reaction to oral presentation, cou-
pled with the universal request for written presen-
tationis a clear example of the students assess-
ments of their learning strategy preferences with
respect to the mode of presentation of new mate-
rial. Other preferences expressed included a de-
sire for repetition:
Review, review, review! This is very good for me
(Kazakh student 1, Daily survey 12).
Another student expressed the desire for tran-
scripts, to accompany taped dialogues (Kazakh
student 5, Daily survey 13). A third student stated
a preference for gisted dialogues with glosses of
key vocabulary:
Give us a loose summary of what is going on, a few of
the key phrases and any new vocabulary, then send us
home to see how we do recovering the whole dia-
logue ourselves (Kazakh student 1, Daily survey 17).
At the level of learning strategies, especially at
the level of cognitive strategies, this cohort of
learners had a clear conception of their own pref-
erences and the interaction of those preferences
to the course as a whole.
The students of the Kazakh group had one
singular, collective assertion of learner autonomy.
Beginning in the first week of class, a request was
taken up to add independent study time to the
course schedule:
I would suggest that the week be cut back to 4 days a
week with one day set aside for catching up on all the
material. If we had Wednesdays off, we would be
fresher for the remaining class days (Kazakh stu-
dent 8, Daily survey 3).
I do not wish to have an entire afternoon off but
would welcome taking 1 hour a week having each
of them take two of us for 1/2 hour each . . . (Kazakh
student 7, Daily survey 4).
This request appeared in the survey responses a
total of 24 times in the first 3 weeks of class. All
students are represented at least once in that tally.
The instructors denied the initial request. An ap-
peal was made to the program administrators,
The Modern Language Journal 85 (2001)
who intervened and convinced the instructors of
the worth of an independent study day.
Other examples of learner autonomy included
a request for an American-trained Turkic linguist
to deliver a lecture on Kazakh verbal morphol-
ogy:
Were having some problems understanding the
manner and usage of certain verb tenses. Perhaps
[Instructor G] can help (Kazakh student 5, Daily sur-
vey 11).
Students also made requests for dictionaries, text-
books, and primers. A recurrent request was to
slow the pace of the course and reduce the
amount of homework. This, too, required inter-
vention form the program staff, in careful con-
sultation with the instructors. Throughout the
course, the Kazakh cohort, both collectively and
individually, was quick to express learner auton-
omy.
In terms of learner autonomy, a pattern of re-
liance upon administrative intervention to
achieve the particular goals of the cohort became
clear. In general, there were two possible out-
comes to any assertion of learner autonomy:
either the adoption of the students suggestion or
the rejection of it. In the latter case, the students
tended to continue pressing their request rather
than seeking alternatives. Some individual stu-
dents did occasionally demonstrate some self-di-
rected language learning behaviors, especially in
the latter stages of the course. A source for the
relatively low incidence of self-directed language
learning behaviors may have been cultural. The
two instructors in this course tended initially to
reject any assertion of autonomy; the perceived
lack of autonomy may have contributed to both
the lack of self-directed language learning behav-
iors, and to the students stubborn persistence in
asserting their autonomy. Thus, the lack of auton-
omy for the experienced learner created a feed-
back mechanism, which only served to exacer-
bate the overall situation. A tentative conclusion
to be drawn from the Kazakh daily survey re-
sponses is that autonomy is a prerequisite for
self-directed language learning.
DISCUSSION
The experienced language learners in the Lan-
guages of the Former Soviet Union Project at the
University of Maryland all exhibited three com-
mon types of behaviors: self-assessment of pro-
gress and learner style/learning strategy prefer-
ence issues; learner autonomy; and self-directed
language learning. These experienced language
William P. Rivers
learners accurately assessed: their learner styles,
any learner-teacher style conflicts, and any
learner style conflicts within the class.
These experienced language learners demon-
strated a high tendency towards learner auton-
omy, requesting and demanding substantive
changes to every aspect of the course, and espe-
cially to course content and structure. These
demonstrations of autonomy were based upon
the learners self-assessments of learner style,
learning strategy preferences, and their progress
in the language. These experienced learners
tried to take control of the entire learning pro-
cess.
Also, when given the opportunity, these experi-
enced language learners used self-directed lan-
guage learning strategies to modify the learning
environment and aspects of the learning process,
including: type of input, mode of input, work-
load, and course structure.
These observations deserve fuller investigation
and replication in different environments (such
as typical college classroom instruction) and with
different types of learners (e.g., adolescents, col-
lege students, and study abroad participants). In
addition, the effects of cultural dissonance be-
tween the students and the teachers cannot be
fully accounted for here; that is, these observa-
tions may or may not obtain in a classroom with
a teacher trained in the US. All of these questions
suggest further avenues for research.
The accurate use of metacognitive, affective,
and social strategies to control the language
learning process and the learning environment is
the hallmark of self-directed language learning.
In order for such learning to occur, learners must
be able to determine accurately what their needs
are, and they must have the freedom to take ac-
tion to meet those needs. In the absence of either
accurate self-assessment or genuine autonomy,
self-directed language learning will not occur.
NOTES
1 The term expert is usually reserved for students
with several thousand hours of experience (there are
2000 working hours in a year). Flower & Hayes (1981)
argue that no one, not even a child prodigy, becomes a
world-class expert without at least 20,000 hours of expe-
rience (VanLehn, 1991, pp. 56061).
2 Cognate languagesthose belonging to the same
subfamily of a given language family, e.g. French and
Spanishtypically afford the learner a similar core
(phonology, morphology, lexicon, and syntax), with sys-
tematic and predictable differences between the lan-
guages. Jensen (1989) and Jordan (1991) both suggest
287
that the high degree of mutual intelligibility between
Portuguese and Spanish can be used in teaching Portu-
guese to students having Spanish as a second language.
Gribble (1987) created a Bulgarian course for Russian
speakers based on that principle. Townsend followed in
1995 with a Czech course for Russian speakers (Town-
send, 1995). Several courses at the Defense Language
Institute Foreign Language Center have retrained
speakers of one language into another closely related
language: Czech L2 speakers in Serbo-Croatian (Corin,
1994), French speakers into Haitian Creole, and Rus-
sian, Polish, and Czech speakers into Serbo-Croatian.
Thomas (1985, 1988) also reports on extensive transfer
from Spanish as a second language into French as a
third language, although this transfer is noted as a
source of error in the target language. Azevedo (1978)
provides a brief catalog of interference from L2 in the
same type of learner, while endorsing the promotion of
positive transfer. Earlier studies in transfer in Third Lan-
guage Acquisition sought to identify error as an effect of
prior linguistic experience; Ahukanna, Lund, and Gen-
tile (1981) note semantic errors in learners of French
for whom Igbo was L1 and English, L2. The latter
trendtransfer errors due to prior linguistic experi-
encecan be assigned to traditional (contrastive analy-
sis) studies of transfer errors in interlanguage from L1
(Gass, 1979; Gass & Selinker, 1992).
3 Prior linguistic experience surfaced as a predictor of
gain among missionaries in Japan (Jacobsen & Imhoof,
1974). Jacobsen and Imhoof demonstrated that child-
hood bilingualism and multilingualism correlated posi-
tively with language gain. Similar correlations surfaced
in studies of undergraduates studying abroad in Russia
(Brecht, Davidson, and Ginsberg, 1990, 1991, 1993,
1995; Ginsberg, 1992) and of Foreign Service Institute
intensive language course participants (Ehrman & Ox-
ford, 1995). Each of the studies cited analysed a data-
base of at least 600 students reporting previous linguistic
experience (proficiency in a nonnative language other
than the target language), and in each study, prior lin-
guistic experience was statistically significant for gain in
oral proficiency. A Swedish study of the performance of
more than 2700 immigrant school children in the
eighth grade showed mixed results (Mgiste, 1984,
1986); children in English classes who had a passive
command of their first language, and actively used
Swedish (their second language), performed better
than either students without prior linguistic experience,
or students who had an active command of only their
first language. However, the study did not examine oral
proficiency, but performance on an achievement test.
The results of that achievement test may be more indica-
tive of performance in a formal learning environment
than of proficiency in the target language.
4 The Pear Film (Chafe, 1980) contains no overt lin-
guistic information. The film is not silent per se, but
there is no dialogue, nor any written language (e.g.,
signage, captions). The film was designed for experi-
ments in narrative production and cognitive processing.
5 The Emotional-Semantic Method incorporates ele-
ments of the Total Physical Response and Silent Way
288
methods. See Omaggio Hadley (1993) for a description
of the latter two methods. A description of the Emo-
tional-Semantic Method may be found in Sydykova
(1989).
6 Leaver suggests alleviating this potential conflict by
distributing students across class sections according to
their learner styles. This would allow the strengths and
weaknesses of individual students, or individual prefer-
ences in learning strategies, to complement those of
other individual learners in the class. Leavers sugges-
tionthe grouping of students by learner styles to cre-
ate a complementary distribution of learner styles
within the classroomwas impractical in a course with
three students and two instructors (Leaver, 1993).
7 This is a possible example of the short-circuit hy-
pothesis in action (Clarke, 1980).
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