What is self-directed learning?

So it’s a special form of learning, a form of language learning, in which you learn a language and learn to learn a language at the same time. This is done with the help of an advisor, an expert called a counsellor, and within an overall framework that includes what is also known as a resource centre. In other words, learners need to be able to work with resources, meet native speakers, for example, and have a catalogue, a fairly extensive choice, but one in which they are not lost or alone. So they need help to learn how to learn, and that’s what self-directed learning is all about, the aim being, little by little, to make learners autonomous in their learning.

It’s a way of learning the language that doesn’t involve teaching. Self-directed learning is the practice itself. It’s based on the idea of autonomy, autonomy being a capacity. Practice means learning by yourself and the aim of the self-directed learning system, or at least the systems I’ve been involved in, is to provide people who are learning the language with the means to learn it in a reasoned way for themselves. Each learner has a different path and so we try to provide them with the means to find their path and the means to find them consciously, voluntarily, not to find them by chance, but to find them in a reasoned way.

For me, self-direction is about the learner determining his or her objectives, taking stock of the resources at his or her disposal to achieve them, the methods that suit him or her and not the person next to him or her, and implementing evaluation systems to know where he or she stands in the learning process.

The benefits of self-directed learning

In fact, we realise that when we’re faced with groups of 25 or 30 students and we’re willing to make the effort to ask ourselves what each of them might want to learn for what purpose, well, we think that there’s an accumulation of extremely varied and diverse demands and situations, and so on and so forth, so we don’t ask ourselves the question, we decide what they need to learn, and then we go from there.

On the other hand, with self-directed work, we really start from each individual’s situation and we see the complexity of each person’s situation.

Self-directed learning is pedagogical and methodological support that helps to develop learner autonomy, and to create optimum conditions for learners to be free to choose their objectives, the work materials that suit them and then develop assessment criteria that meet their requirements.