Learner Autonomy and Tandem learning: Putting Principles Into Practice in Synchronous and Asynchronous Telecommunications Environments

This paper examined the three different approaches to learner autonomy: an individual-cognitive, a social-interactive, and an experimental-participatory perspective. Moreover, it discussed how these approaches converted into tandem learning. The idea of tandem learning is new to me. It is desirable to pair up L1 and L2 learners to learn together since it promotes their own responsibility for self-learning and helping each other. However, it is difficult to conduct this kind of learning in practice since monitoring learners’ progress may be problematic. Besides, how can we find learners who share similar learning ability and show interest in learning each other’s language? Is it possible to collaborate with local international schools?