Autonomous Language Learning When Language Is a Social Practice: Implications for Teacher Educators

Christian Faltis

doi:10.32870/vel.vi5.44

Authors

Christian Faltis Stanford University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32870/vel.vi5.44

Keywords:

Autonomous language learning;, learning strategies;, self-regulation;, socio-cultural learning;, language practices

Abstract

This article presents a discussion of autonomous language learning within newer understandings of language and language development. After providing a brief literature review of what good language learners do and the onset of autonomous language learning in the 1980s, the article moves forward to
present-day understandings of language, and the role that autonomous language learning has within socio-cultural views of language. The article ends with implications for teacher educators who must prepare the next generation of language learners.

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Author Biography

Christian Faltis, Stanford University

Christian Faltis is Professor of Language, Education, and Society and Chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning. His research interests include teacher education for emergent bilingual users, bilingual and dual language education, and critical arts-based learning.

Faltis has been a Fulbright Scholar. He was the recipient of an AERA Distinguished Scholar Award in 2001. He was inducted as an AERA Fellow in 2016. Among his many publications are Preparing Teachers to Teach in and Advocate for Linguistically Diverse Classroom: A Vade Mecum for Teacher Educators (2016) Secondary Bilingual Education: Cutting the Gordian Knot (2015); The Arts and Emergent Bilingual Youth, (2013): Education, Immigrant Students, Refugee Students, and English Learners (2011), and Teaching English Learners and Immigrant Students in Secondary School Settings (2007).

He holds an MA degree in Mexican American Graduate Studies from San José State University and an MA in Second Language Education and PhD in Curriculum & Teacher Education with an emphasis in Bilingual Cross-Cultural Education from Stanford University. Professor Faltis is an artist who integrates political art concerning Mexican immigration with educational policy and practices. His work has been shown in published in multiple venues across the United States

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