An Investigation into Learners' Perceptions of Learner Autonomy at Tertiary Level

Over the last three decades, the term learner autonomy has gained a great deal of attention in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). Recently, the independency in learning as well as the students active participation of becoming autonomous learners, not only in but also outside the classroom, has been highly concerned among researchers. It has been acknowledged that all traditional teaching styles are useless and do not give students adequate opportunities to reflect on their own learning process. In order to solve the conflict of whether or not students are able to undertake responsibility to become autonomous learners, it is indispensable to investigate the learners? perceptions of learner autonomy at a tertiary level, and so to find out any chances to promote learner autonomy in and outside the classroom. Hence, this study investigated the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners? perceptions of learner autonomy and to what degree their perception of their responsibilities, abilities, motivation as well as the activities and behaviours they undertake in and outside the classroom is actually applied. To achieve this, 110 EFL students, who are studying at Istanbul Aydin University in different grades, were selected to participate in this study. Utilizing a quantitative data collection method, the data were collected through a questionnaire. The findings of the study revealed the fact that the majority of EFL students are autonomous English learners. However, the minority of them rely more on their teacher to instruct their learning process.