MY AUTONOMY PATH: Caminhos para a Autonomização de Aprendentes no Ensino Superior

Abstract

Starting the university journey is a challenge for most people. those entering academia are highly expected to be able to demonstrate autonomy when studying and carrying out their tasks and to take an active role in the academic community. However, autonomy is a dynamic and complex system, which interacts in different ways with the different learning subsystems, such as emotions and motivation; it is also a capacity developed throughout life, and involves advances, stability, and setbacks (Borges, 2019). English undergraduate students at the School of Modern Foreign Languages (Faculdade de Letras Estrangeiras Modernas - FALEM), at the Federal University of Pará (Universidade Federal do Pará - UFPA), Belém campus, have an advantage in this journey because they have in their pedagogical project the course “Learning to Learn Foreign Languages” (AALE), whose objective is to encourage first-year students to invest in their autonomy, through reflection and action. To contribute with practical resources for the development of learners’ autonomy in the AALE classes, this paper presents a proposal for an educational product, composed of five resources to promote autonomization, entitled “MAP – My Autonomy Path”. The development of MAP was based on the “Dynamic and Complex Model of Autonomy Development” (Borges, 2019), with particular emphasis on the autonomization movements identified by the author. The MAP educational product was developed as an editable e-book in .pdf format. The five resources aim to encourage reflection, management of learning through planning, active participation in university life, and self evaluation of this process. The MAP was applied with fifteen students from the AALE morning class, who used the resources and then answered a product evaluation questionnaire, in which they made suggestions and comments. In the analysis of the data generated, pieces of evidence of participants’ autonomy were observed. the participants reported that they appreciated the opportunities for planning, reflection, self-evaluation, and identification of affordances that the product offers. It is hoped that in the future the MAP product may be used in other contexts and thus contribute to promoting the autonomy of new students.