essay

Autonomy Alan Garcia Altuzar
This word is a difficult one to define due to its many interpretations depending on the context and study area, however I would like to define it in my own words as the capability that people have to take decisions and assume all the consequences that come along with taking them.
But what really concerns us as future teachers is the definition of learning autonomy in students which means the same as autonomy the only difference I would mention is that the decisions taken are just the ones concerning to the student´s learning.
Of course learning autonomy is not an inborn ability, it´s an ability supposedly acquired in a natural way even though this almost never happens that way. This leads us to the other way of acquiring it, the one where autonomy is built up in the student along with his academic life. This last one depends on many aspects, such as the teacher, the school environment, the student´s learning styles, motivation and many others.
In order to identify when a student has achieved autonomy in his/her learning we have to look for some general aspects, which are:

- Determining the objectives
- Defining contents and progressions
- Selecting methods and techniques to be used
-Evaluation of what has been acquired


All of these aspects are present in autonomous learners, and they should be all students’ goal. But in order to reach it, it is important to mention that motivation plays a really important role when talking about learning autonomy, since a student has to be motivated in order to be eager to learn, and this motivation may come from the outside environment of the student or from the inside of his person.
Once we have reached a learning autonomy, we´ll of course see how it leads us to effectiveness in the process and finally to a successful way of acquiring new information.