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A collaborative history of learner autonomy practice in Denmark (please add/change/edit as you like)
Courses (workshops) held by Gerd and Leni for Danish teachers should be incorporated below (suggestion by Birte Hjermind, 26/08/06)
Beginning of 1970s
Leni teaching group of disaffected boys – asked them to get more involved in deciding lesson contents. (LD)
When I first met Leni, she was first and foremost
interested in getting away from behaviorism, or rather she felt that those principles of teaching did not sit well with her. Parroting. She thought that some of the previous generation of textbooks were better to work from. At the same timt she was demanding as a teacher and trusted in the children's ability to organise themselves e.g. when practising spoken English, setting up the annual play to perform for the parents etc. (GG
24/8/06) 1973–76
Differentiated teaching and learning possibility started in 1973. (LD)
‘I began teaching English and Mathematics at Karlslunde school, a comprehensive school south of Copenhagen, where my first steps towards developing learner autonomy in foreign language learning and teaching started in 1973 with a group of 14-year-old mixed ability students. It was then labelled ‘Differentiated teaching and learning’.’ (LD Profile)
During the first years we talked about what we did as having to do with differentiated TEACHING, [.] reporting (printing costs) was [were] subsidised in a nation-wide project following/monitoring the development of mixed-ability teaching during a period of years from [when] it was first allowed on an experimental basis until [when] it was decided that the schools could now routinely decide to elect not to stream or set their classes. The project during the years from '73 to 76' we thought of exclusively in national terms as differentiated teaching (there were similar movements and projects in Norway and Sweden). (GG 24/08/06)From 1973 to 1976 [awareness-raising] was also part of some kind of experiment – we didn’t call it learner autonomy but experiments in differentiated learning. Pupils had to consider always ‘which activities did you like?’, and ‘why / why not?’. (LD) [was this the ‘Experiment in Beginning English’ – i.e. did it begin in 1973?]
Actually it was in 1973 that I started [with ‘autonomous learning’]. … I got involved with Gerd. The 73-76 group were my first experiments in reorganizing. The reason for that in 73 was the possibility to have non-streamed classes. I had two girls. One weak one and one strong one. [-> differentiated learning] [presumably a different class from the one referred to under ‘Beginning of 1970s above]
‘I was one of the first who worked on classroom practice [i.e. classroom practice for autonomy?; as a teacher educator]. And was able (and officially allowed) to follow Leni's work and in some modest measure to support it financially, to buy a few hour's time and on three occasions to send her and others to Lancaster. Encouragement has never been necessary in that context. She also secured support from her local school system and the British Council – the latter mostly spiritual. ‘ (GG, 26/08/06)
1975?
Leni Dam’s ‘Experiment in Beginning English’ began in 1975 (Legenhausen 2001) – wrong dating – should be 1973?
“We made a video of the first class of beginners I had – it was the first video we made – called ‘Beginning English’: It was an experiment; (filmed in?) black and white. What I did then was they did activities of their own choice; there were no posters in the first years” (LD)
“[The Nordic Workshops] were a natural continuation from what we did with Gerd with ‘Beginning English’. Gerd was involved, was my inservice teacher trainer – it must have been 75 or 76. She heard about what I was doing in the classroom. […] Probably we did a[nother] video recording that was never used. (LD)
1976
In 1976, as a result of the differentiated teaching and learning possibility that began in 1973, in 1976 in the [national curriculum, there appeared the recommendation that] ‘as far as possible teachers should see to it that what they do suits individual learners’.
1978, 1979
In '78 Leni went to Chris and Mike. [In] '79 she [Leni] had them [Candlin and Breen?] teach a course in Hundige. Preparing tasks for the pupils were [was] the focus. Leni, Hanne and some other local teachers (Jette, classes. Chris and Mike’s ideas on formulation/interpretation and Mike's constant answer to Leni's questions, 'Ask the children' and the ideas on teaching-learning first set forward in the Relc article (1979) by Breen, Candlin and Waters were an important inspiration (see the diagram on differentiated learning outcome) -and a help to realise that learning outcome would never be identical to teaching anyway. (GG Lancaster on one of the experimental courses run byLena, Birthe(?) ) made a collection and tried it out in their24/8/06)Then we went to Lancaster. Summer courses in 1978 and 1979, attended by Gerd and Leni? (LD). It was then that Mike Breen suggested doing with beginners (first form) what Leni had been doing with eighth formers [some confusion here – wasn’t the experiement with beginning English with first formers? No – cf. 1980 below]
There were Council of Europe things going on. Piepho, Christophe [Edelhoff?]. (LD)
Re. use of logbooks: ‘I think it’s closely connected with one of the European [Council of Europe?] conferences – it was held in Copenhagen – a Dutch teacher had brought along a logbook from his class. We could see there in one book the identity of the learner. I took that straight back to my class and said ‘we’re going to try it out’. (LD)
Re. use of posters: ‘As for posters, I can’t remember the year. It was an alternative to the blackboard. I remember clearly that I’d been to a course myself where a group of people raised the question whether we should talk deeply about ourselves. I refused for a very long time – I didn’t think we were psychologists. But then they said, now Leni, come up. I felt in the end that I was more or less stark naked, and all this had been written on the blackboard and there I was on the blackboard. I clearly remember that I had not said the last word before he [the facilitator] took the eraser and rubbed everything out.
I felt it was really disrespectful. From then on I thought whatever has been discussed in class if it’s important enough it should remain somewhere.’ (LD)
1979
Leni started teacher training work (on evaluation in context of ‘differentiated teaching and learning’). Didn’t use the term ‘autonomy’ until some time in the 1980s.
“Since 1979 I have been a pedagogical adviser and in-service teacher trainer at the Centre for Higher Education for Copenhagen and Northern Zealand.” (LD Profile)
Chalon and after him Holec were members of Council of Europe’s committee of experts: challenged role of the language teacher in adult education. Similar challenge to role of language teacher in secondary education began in 1979 with Gabrielsen and Dam in Denmark [Trebbi forthcoming]
From 1979, work of Gerd Gabrielsen at Danmarks Lærerhøjskole and Leni Dam at Karlslunde Primary School began to investigate [challenge?] new aspects of the teacher role relating to learner autonomy in the language classroom (following on from Holec/CRAPEL viz-a-viz adult education – cf. new role of teacher as counsellor there (at CRAPEL)). Led to new teacher training programmes (cf. Breen, Candlin, Dam and Gabrielsen 1988/9) [Trebbi forthcoming]
Qu.: Which version is right?
1980
“In 1980 I started out using the same principles [as used earlier with 73-76 group] with a class of 11-year-old beginners. I called it ‘Experiments in teaching and learning’. Later I took over the term ‘Learner autonomy’ from Henri Holec.” [LD profile]
1982
I read most of the Danish reports [on differentiated teaching?] when
preparing for a talk on differentiated teaching at a meeting in (1982, That's when I first met Turid). I also showed snippets of our [Gerd’s and Leni’s] first classroom video there. (GG
We made the first classroom video in 1980 and had it edited by 1982. (GG Sweden24/8/06)24/8/06) [What was the full reference for this? [RS] ]1982
email message from Gerd Gabrielsen, 27/8/06:
[I have] minutes from our workshops with local teachers during the years we ran them together[with Leni?], i.e from about 82' to '86. 1984
Probably it was in 84 that all this happened. Gerd said ‘I think it would be a good idea to have a workshop’ in 86.” (LD)
In 1984
we had a workshop in Køge within the Candlin, Edelhof, Piepho series of workshops. Leni was to present her work, and because by then her classroom work had developed to encompass all factors of the Holec definition (1980) we decided to use that within this International/European context. (GG 24/8/06)‘My advice would be to begin your account with the Nordic Workshops. That's when our [Leni’s and Gerd’s?] focus on autonomy begins, and you would avoid the mistakes in writing on the Candlin, Piepho, Edelhof workshops. They were a private venture as were our [Nordic?] workshops, and had nothing to do, institutionally, with the council of Europe work. They later were very influential in that context, of course, at the time they were rather in opposition to it. Also quite a number of later influential people took part, Legutke, Joe Shiels, Kohonen, Little, and others. We owe them, but broke away because at the '84 workshop there was quite some upset, and we felt at the time that confining ourselves to the Nordic context was easier. Huttonen had begun working at her doctoral thesis (1986), Kohonen wrote extensively and was interested. Rigmor had visited Leni, and we had Swedish participants to our [teacher education?] workshops, in Norway people had worked and reported their work along similar lines. So we did not invent everything.’ (GG 26/8/06)
1985
[This year and many other years?]
Leni Dam & Gerd Gabrielsen’s course in Learner Autonomy in Foreign Languages [for in-service teachers]
(BH, 25/08/06)
1986
1986, September 18-21, Køge,Denmark (org. Gerd Gabrielsen (Danmarks Lærerhøjskole) and Leni Dam (Karlslunde skole)) [details from title of report and from TT, ed. 1990]
Report published as Gabrielsen, G. (ed.). 1987. Report: Developing Autonomous Learning in the FL Classroom, Køge, September 18-21 1986. Copenhagen: Danmarks Lærerhøjskole. (source for title: Trebbi 1990; date from PB biblio.)
[see separate Nordic Workshops file for further workshops elsewhere than in Denmark]
1988
I was asked to contribute to the CDCC collection of papers (1988) 'Autonomy and self-directed learning: present fields of application'. In there you will find quite a few of the people who have been to our workshops. (GG 24/8/06)Dam, L. and G. Gabrielsen. 1988. ‘Developing learner autonomy in a school context: a six year experiment beginning in the learners’ first year of English’, in
Holec, H. (ed.). 1988. Autonomy and Self-directed Learning: Present Fields of Application / Autonomie et apprentissage autodirigé: terrains d’application actuels. Strasbourg: Council of Europe.
1991
Thomsen, Hanne, Gabrielsen, Gerd (Project Director) and Nipper, Aage (Video Coordinator). 1991. New Classroom Practices in Foreign Language Teaching: Cooperative Teaching-Learning: Beginners in the 5th Form. Copenhagen: Danmarks Lærerhøjskole.
Wasn’t Leni’s practice described as an appendix in Wenden’s book?:
Wenden, A. 1991. Learner Strategies for Learner Autonomy.
1995
1995, 24-27 August, Copenhagen (org. Leni Dam)
Gabrielsen, G., ed. (1997) Fifth Nordic Conference on Developing Autonomous Learning in the Foreign Language Classroom, Danmarks Lærerhøjskole, Copenhagen, August 24-27, 1995. Copenhagen: Danmarks Lærerhøjskole.
‘This time we had participants from all over the world, Japan, Hong Kong, places we never even dreamed of when the whole thing started’ (Gabrielsen 1997, Introduction to Gabrielsen, ed., 1997).
List of participants (pp. 68-74) shows 36 participants, from 13 countries: Australia (2), Austria (2), Denmark (6), Finland (1), France (1), Germany (3), Hong Kong (2), Ireland (2), Japan (2), Norway (6), Poland (1), Spain (2), Sweden (6).
Qu.: The participants from Denmark, apart from Leni and Gerd, were the following. How (if at all) did attendance at the workshop influence their practice?
Dorthe Albrechtsen
Birte Hjermind
Jette Lentz
Hanne Thomsen
Dam, L. (1995) Learner Autonomy 3: From Theory to Classroom Practice. Dublin: Authentik.
1997
Birte Hjermind and Jette Lenz: Video on Learner Autonomy: We talked about what we are good at (BH, 25/08/06)
1998
Leni Dam and Jette Lentz (1998), IT IS UP TO YOURSELF IF YOU WANT TO LEARN, DLH, 1998 (Video) [in Resources Room] ******* details *********
2004?
(Rigmor Eriksson, 26/8/06): Leni became honorary doctor at our
university ( Karlstad university) a couple of years ago
Sources
Legenhausen, Lienhard. 2001. ‘Discourse behaviour in an autonomous learning environment’. AILA Review 15: 56–69.
(LD Profile): Profile of Leni Dam on the HKUST conference (2004) web-page: http://lc.ust.hk/~centre/conf2004/dam.html (accessed 9/8/06))
LD = RS Interview with Leni Dam, 12.3.06
Further sources which could be consulted
[Video by Dam and Gabrielsen: "Our first video was never put out for sale. The same goes for Leni's first 9th form video [what is this?]. I copied whatever was necessary.
Unfortunately I no longer have the master, but I have one copy left, which I will copy from if I see a chance." (Gerd Gabrielsen (Personal communication, 2003?))
Marilyn Taylor’s MA – interviews with teachers who took Leni’s / Gerd’s training course, 10 years later.
GG (24/8) from Gerd Gabrielsen (email, 24/8/06):
[in answer to the first question RS sent out to Nordic workshop participants: When, how and why did you personally first get interested in developing ?learner autonomy?? What were your first practical steps?]
As I remember it When I first met Leni, she was first and foremost interested in getting away from behaviorism, or rather she felt that those principles of teaching did not sit well with her. Parroting. She thought that some of the previous generation of textbooks were better to work from. At the same timt she was demanding as a teacherand trusted in the children's ability to organise themselves e.g. when practising spoken English, setting up the annual play to perform for the parents etc.
During the first years we talked about what we did as having to do with differentiated TEACHING, [.] reporting (printing costs) was [were] subsidised in a nation-wide project following/monitoring the development of mixed-ability teaching during a period of years from [when] it was first allowed on an experimental basis until [when] it was decided that the schools could now routinely decide to elect not to stream or set their classes.
The project during the years from '73 to 76' we thought of exclusively in national terms as differentiated teaching (there were similar movements and projects in preparing for a talk on differentiated teaching at a meeting in (1982, That's when I first met Turid). I also showed snippets of our first classroom video there.
In '78 Leni went to Chris and Mike. '79 she [Leni] had them teach a course in Hundige. Preparing tasks for the pupils were [was] the focus. Leni, Hanne and some other local teachers (Jette, classes. Chris and Mike’s ideas on formulation/interpretation and Mike's constant answer to Leni's questions, 'Ask the children' and the ideas on teaching-learning first set forward in the Relc article (1979) by Breen, Candlin and Waters were an important inspiration (see the diagram on differentiated learning outcome) -and a help to realise that learning outcome would never be identical to teaching anyway.
We made the first classroom video in 1980 and had it edited by 1982. Norway and Sweden). I read most of the Danish reports [on differentiated teaching?] whenSwedenLancaster on one of the experimental courses run byLena, Birthe(?) ) made a collection and tried it out in theirIn 1984
we had a workshop in Køge within the Candlin, Edelhof, Piepho series of workshops. Leni was to present her work, and because by then her classroom work had developed to encompass all factors of the Holec definition (1980) we decided to use that within this International/European context.
I was asked to contribute to the CDCC collection of papers (1988) 'Autonomy and self-directed learning: present fields of application'. In there you will find quite a few of the people who have been to our workshops. GG (26/8/06): Continuation of the above by Gerd Gabrielsen, [re. Qu. 2 (What stages did you go through as you developed your autonomy-related practice? What or who influenced you?)
in email message: ‘Second installment. As you will see I think that you give events at the Cdcc far too much influence. Of course, this may be strategic. Turid has done a lot of work in that context the last ten years or so, but I don't think that either Leni or I ever saw it as authoritative either in our local or Nordic workshops.
See ouy, Gerd’
In attachment:
Cph, 26.08.06
Dear Richard.
My spelling control has left me, so the following is st be read with care.
I will proceed to answer your second question:
My first reaction when I read it was – what does teacher want me to answer here? I believe that someone (Fuller?) wrote on this during the period when we were all into r&d, I can look up the source but I think that we are after all on thin ice here. I remember someone talking about the 'stage' theory in connection with the first workshop. She was married to a psychologist, Others have had the same feeling, of course – but how important is that? Óthers have taken to is like ducks to water – feeling relieved more than anything else.
I remember learning specific things. That you could buile up the openness and confidence you wanted and believed was essential to classroom change, and the first 'Yes, that is right' you were back to the old style. Of course you learn thengs when so much reflection is going on. I also learned to teach by non-socratic questions (not going for a specific answer). That is quite important, but stages ... no.
Then again my job was different. I have a Danish aversion to the term 'teacher trainer'. It reminds me of dog training. What we were doing we referred to as teacher education. We believed in education. Very open-ended. I was one of the first who worked on classroom practice. And was able (and officially allowed) to follow Leni's work and in some modest measure to support it financially, to buy a few hour's time and on three occasions to send her and others to Lancaster. Encouragement has never been necessary in that context. She also secured support from her local school system and the British Council – the latter mostly spiritual.
My advice would be to begin your account with the Nordic Workshops. That's when our focus on autonomy begins, and you would avoid the mistakes in writing on the Candlin, Piepho, Edelhof workshops. They were a private venture as were our workshops, and had nothing to do, institutionally, with the council of Europe work. They later were very influential in that context, of course, at the time they were rather in opposition to it. Also quite a number of later influential people took part, Legutke, Joe Shiels, Kohonen, Little, and others. We owe them, but broke away because at the '84 workshop there was quite some upset, and we felt at the time that confining ourselves to the Nordic context was easier. Huttonen had begun working at her doctoral thesis (1986), Kohonen wrote extensively and was interested. Rigmor had visited Leni, and we had Swedish perticipants to our wokshops, in Norway people had worked and reported their work along similar lines. So we did not invent everything.
Generally the debate in schools and more specifically in other school subjects were a general inspiration. Wenger 1998, 'Communities of practice. Learning, meaning, and identity' (CUP)
gives a summary (263-77) which is not far from our general background at the time. The Council of Europe, because more diverse in background references was definitely less influential.
Wenger is also interesting his research and discussion on why our teaching often does not take.
Coping in practice is the real issue.
If you want to discuss this further (e.g the stages theory), you may be interested to know that I have kept all our workshop minutes, some of them in English.
I will leave you here. As Leni has probably told you I am going to look for points of similarity/common foci in our work. It is a question I first mentioned in the 1995 introduction (more interesting than our geographical diversity, I find). We think that it may be appropriate now at 'twenty years after' to see to what extent the ideas we had at the outset are still valid and what we see today as 'the autonomous learner'. Given our different contexts of work.
I will look forward to seeing you again.
Gerd
BH, 25/8/06: responses by Birte Hjermind to RS emailed questions:
Re. time-line: According to the time-line I think also the courses that Leni and Gerd held in Denmark over the years (workshops etc.) for Danish teachers should be mentioned.
Qu. 1: When, how and why did you personally first get interested in developing ?learner autonomy?? What were your first practical steps?
Answer:
When? in 1985
How? I applied for and attended Leni Dam & Gerd Gabrielsen’s courses in Learner Autonomy in Foreign Languages, and I was lucky that my school/head accepted to let me follow not one, but several courses!
Why? I wanted to re-educate myself, felt my education as a teacher was growing ”old”, I was educated as a teacher in 1973, teaching English being my favourite subject
My first practical steps? Difficult to remember! Together with fellow teachers at Leni & Gerd`s courses I developed different material and activities in order to differentiate.
Activities in the classroom like: “The good learning situation”, “the good pupil”, “the good teacher”, rules in the classroom as to how to cope in this new setting of a learning room. These activities I developed in cooperation with my learners.
Qu. 2: What stages did you go through as you developed yourautonomy-related practice?
a long process and never ending…
Some of the highlights:
What or who influenced you?
Answer:
What: A motivation to become better as a foreign language teacher. New demands according to individuality and differentiation had turned up. Letting one class go through one course book simply didn’t work, even a mother of a strong pupil complained, why did I not give him the challenges he needed?
Who:
Especially Leni and Gerd. Theywere involved and committed both practically and theoretically. They were dynamic, experimenting and persuading. They made me go home and try out for myself, and sometimes they even used my little examples – learner diaries - and ideas, I mean they were really interested in the matter, and open.
I once went to Leni’s classes to observe.
Teachers who attended the courses. We worked together, were creative together and exchanged experiences. There was always something new to be aware of and develop further.
My learners. They became enthusiastic and creative. They produced a lot of language and in various ways.
Drafts
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