Contrastive Analysis of Vietnamese Teachers’ and Learners’ Perceptions towards Autonomous Language Learning

Abstract

The most desirable goal in tertiary education is training students to become autonomous learners to pursue life-long learning. This study investigated teachers’ and students’ perceptions about autonomous English language learning. The participants were selected from 2 national universities, and 1 regional university during the 1^st semester of the school year 2020-2021. Particularly, 370 teacher participants out of 5,000, together with 392 student respondents out of 20,000 were chosen by the judgmental sampling technique using Slovin’s formula (CL=±5%). Questionnaires were administered to 762 participants via their email addresses embedded with the active link of Google form and handouts. The questionnaires adapted from Ustunluoglu (2009) with the piloted Cronchbatch’s alpha liability ranged 0.9>α≥0.8 included 3 contrastive sections such as responsibilities, abilities, and activities. Descriptive frequencies and mean were employed to differentiate the standpoints of respondents in terms of learner autonomy. The results reveal that students surrendered their responsibilities to their teachers’ roles while teachers considered themselves as dominant figures who were responsible for students in learner autonomy. Furthermore, teachers and students mostly agreed that students had the ability to do well in autonomous language learning if given the chance. The finding shows a mismatch with teachers claiming that their students participated in autonomous learning activities at a moderate extent whereas students remarked they highly took part in them. It is necessary to transform teachers’ responsibilities to students’ accountability. Besides, the adjustment of curriculum and practical pedagogical approaches should be applied, and the encouragement for students to use authentic learning materials or communicate with foreigners in English should be promoted.