Raising Teachers’ Awareness of Learner Autonomy: Implications for the Ukrainian Higher Education

Abstract

This study is intended to attract attention to the problem of implementation of the construct of learner autonomy into the system of higher education in Ukraine. Although the concept of learner autonomy has a long tradition in the European educational systems, it is still in the process of its formation in Ukraine due to certain cultural and historical factors that defined the development of the Ukrainian society for the last century. Therefore, the research is concerned with the investigation of the current level of teachers’ awareness and skills to enhance learner autonomy taking into account its socio-political prerequisites. The data for the study are obtained from the questionnaires filled by 167 Ukrainian university students of the 1 4 years of study majoring in translation at the Department of Theory and Practice of Translation from English, Institute of Philology, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The survey is aimed at measuring teachers’ capacity to develop students’ autonomy in learning English as a foreign language. The data analysis contributed to tracing success in implementing learner autonomy in a foreign language classroom (i.e. teachers’ flexibility and accommodation to students’ needs, high level of scaffolding and development of students’ critical thinking), as well as detecting key problems that still need to be solved in order to promote teachers’ assistance in the development of learner autonomy (i.e. provision of learning resources necessary for self-study, encouragement of peerand self-assessment, explanation of task objectives).