In the previous two articles I have presented you with the answers from my students to the first three out of  four questions that I asked them at the end of the school year. The four questions were:

1.       Did autonomy work or not work for you?

2.       Were logbooks good?

3.       Was free reading good?

4.       What is most important in your learning English? Autonomy or Frank?

In this article I shall look at the last of the four questions. I have decided this time to not to give you all answers in full, because many students waxed lyrical when answering this question, and it would be too long. I do however have the full answers, if any of you are interested in seeing them.

So here the students were asked to decide which was most important in their English learning; Autonomy or Frank? These kids are of course Danish and Danes are known for their great ability to compromise (coalition governments have been the norm here for decades), so maybe that is why they have all decided not to make the choice between “Frank or autonomy” but instead opted for both.

Here are their abbreviated but otherwise unedited answers:

I think both Frank and autonomy worked for me. I learned much from autonomy but also from Frank. Frank is very motivation and have teach me many new word. Autonomy have learnt me to work in groups with some different people and have been very fun. But also I think its Frank that made autonomy work and made it good and fun.

But Autonomy is also very important as with a teacher telling you what to you will automaticly start to think that what she says is correct while with the Autonomy are you free to do whatever you like and you will then learn from you´re mistakes

I also fell like frank wants to teach me,

because I think autonomy is one way to learn English easily but at the same time I think that it has a lot to do with the teacher. That's because if we had another teacher who used the same methods but was really boring in he/her way of doing it, then I would think it would prevent me from learning as much English as I learn now.

It's kind of like the proverbs which sounds like this: Du kan trække dyret til vandtroet, men du kan ikke tvinge den til at drikke. (you can take a horse to the trough, but you can’t make him drink.)

The thing I mean with this is, that you can have all the methods of learning English in the world, but if the teacher is bad, or if you don't like him or her, then it would prevent you from learning English as you should. Therefor I think Frank is at least as important as the autonomy, if not more important.

I like autonomy and Frank as a English teacher so if another teacher was having autonomy with me and my class mates, it would properly not be as fun. Or maybe I'm just getting use to Frank and his energy when he walks into the room. Again you have to get use to things and I'm just getting use to Franks lessons.

The freedom gives us motivation to learning English and Frank is leader. He give us a hint where we can go and how we can be better to English on many ways. My point is none of these thing is better than the other thing (Frank is not a thing I mean the way he do things). 

With the Autonomy you of course have the freedom to do basically whatever you want, but if you have a bad English teacher, most people would just give up on their English classes and not be motivated for any of the lessons. But with a good teacher like you, the student can really get in dept and be open towards you and look forward towards the next lessons. You shine with so much positive energy which lightens up a student's day, quite a lot.

I would say that is group becuase we have to make a PowerPoint with all in the class even If you want with your best friend.

teachers need to believe in autonomy to make it work).

I need a direction to go there but when I have fond the direction i can go on my oven.
I do think that both are really important.

I think both. I've really learn much of autonomy, but I don't think it will work without a teacher like you. Because you are very passionate at teaching us English and this way to do it. So both.

Thanks for a great year, I really look forward to next year. I've think that this year, was the year I've learn most English, than ever. So many, many, many thanks Frank, you were the best teacher I've ever had.

I like that teaches through giving us freedom, but still being a little strict.

A popular comment was that you can’t have one without the other. This is of course not true. We all know that there are other teachers using learner autonomy, but my students’ comments are interesting in the context of my school and the Danish school system in general, because most teachers in Denmark use project work quite often and most teachers would try to involve students in decision making. So, it does surprise me that they cannot envisage other teachers working with autonomy. Not one student thought that autonomy could work with another teacher One student did though suggest that it was the group (classmates) that were most important.

I was particular interested in the comment I also fell like frank wants to teach me, this was an interesting. Do we as teachers tell our students that we want to teach them, that teaching them is for us a meaningful experience or do we take it for granted that they know that?

I regularly hold short in-service courses for teachers, where I usually am trying to persuade teachers to employ autonomy, but what I always say is that much more important than autonomy is that they are passionate about their teaching. When I with the help of Leni Dam began researching my teaching practice it was my firm belief that the teacher not the method was what was important, but all of the many questionnaires that my students answered back then, said no! My students back then clearly felt that autonomy was more important than the identity of the teacher. The 8^th class students that these three articles have been looking at, only know autonomy and Frank as a package, therefore they cannot envisage splitting the two. They do though very clearly put great importance on the teacher’s passion for what he/she is doing. I believe that this is important. Autonomy is very effective form of didactics, but the teacher must be dedicated. On my in-service courses I often say to my listeners. “remember in every school classroom worldwide only one person is there voluntarily, therefore it is that person’s duty to make it as interesting an experience as possible for everybody else (too)”.

The student answers that these three articles have given might not be rigid scientific analyses. The number of respondents is quite small, but I am sure that my other classes would have given similar answers. I personally was surprised by just how positive the students were and now very glad that I conducted the questionnaire.

Leni Dam very patiently convinced me over a period of three years that learner autonomy makes sense.

Thanks Leni 😊