In the article it was shown that autonomy, generally, was not seen as a method or a behavior to be taught a learner. On the contrary, it is understood as innate part of human nature which is usually exercised over different areas of life not only in the aspect of language learning. By nature, we are all autonomous from birth since we fully, however, not always consciously, control what we learn during developmental learning stages. Frequently, even young children display their autonomy clearly when they choose to learn particular undesirable behavior, for example, saying inappropriate words. As can be seen, the notion of autonomy is not a recent “fashion”, but it has always been present in a human life.
We presented facilitative aspects of learner’s autonomy: autonomy is a construct of capacity; autonomy involves a willingness on the part of the learner to take responsibility for their own learning; the capacity and willingness of learners take such a responsibility is not necessarily innate; complete autonomy is an idealistic goal; there are some main degrees of autonomy; the degrees of autonomy are unstable and variable; autonomy is not simply a matter of placing learners in situations where they have to be independent; developing autonomy requires conscious awareness of the learning process – i.e. conscious reflection and decision-making; promoting autonomy is not simply a matter of teaching strategies; autonomy can take place both inside and outside the classroom; autonomy has a social as well as an individual dimension; the promotion of autonomy has a political as well as psychological dimension; autonomy is interpreted differently by different cultures.
Facilitative aspects of learner’s autonomy amaze us with their results: learners recognize and accept the need to organize the activity in an environment of interpersonal communication, facilitating personal development and providing constructive personal changes; they develop skills of empathic comprehension; they are interested by participants in creating the conditions for the formation of meaningful learning and personal development as a whole as a result of restructuring of personal attitudes in the process of interpersonal interaction; they are aware of their self-sufficiency. All these numerous situations of interaction of people are carried out through four main methods of interaction: persuasion, imitation, suggestion and infection, which are facilitative in their context.
Persuasion is the process of rationale judgment or inference. Imitation is the reproduction by a person of certain external traits of behavior, manners and actions. Suggestion is the psychological impact of one person on another one, calculated on the uncritical perception of words, thoughts and will expressed by them. Infection is the process of transferring of the emotional state from one individual to another, in addition to semantic effect itself. When all these methods of interaction are brought into action, the educational product, as a rule, is distinguished by a creative, non-standard approach and, what is the most important, they are always in demand by students.
Aristotle on Self-Sufficiency, External Goods, and Contemplation
