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While research on language learner autonomy and Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) is abundant, few studies have sought to systematically explore the relationship between the two. By adopting a rigorous approach that identifies transparent inclusion and exclusion criteria, this paper presents a systematic review that seeks to identify: (1) the scope of interest; (2) features; and (3) the trends that emerge at the intersection of the empirical research on learner autonomy and CALL. A dataset comprising of 41 research articles published over a span of 22 years was coded and quantified, with the data extracted, then compared over two distinct periods, 1997 to 2010 and 2011 to 2020. Results show that there is a significant increase in the number of participants targeted for studies, which are situated in non-formal and informal learning contexts with an unstructured degree of formality. Moreover, online applications, such as social media and downloadable apps, seem to be favored and can be directly linked to the ubiquitous autonomous learning experience through either mobile-assisted language learning or informal learning.

This article seeks to identify the potential and limitations of using authentic virtual reality (VR) resources to learn English by a public from the Language for Specialists in Other Disciplines (LANSOD) sector, in a self-access centre (SAC) at the University of Lorraine. The study set up, within the framework of workshops intended to discover 360° immersive videos through different digital tools, is interested in the perceptions and feedback of a cohort of students in Master 2 of French as a foreign language in an informal situation of oral comprehension in English. A questionnaire and a phenomenologically inspired methodology were used to collect the data. The results show the potential of these resources for learning extra-language knowledge as well as language knowledge in a foreign language leisure situation. They also reveal the effects of the technologies used, the resource scenarios and multimodality on the learning observed. These elements are all criteria for curating VR resources in SAC. Finally, perspectives on the necessary cognitive support needed for the relevant use of VR in SAC are suggested.

L’approche diachronique développée dans l’article rend compte de l’évolution de l’autonomisation dans les travaux du CRAPEL, au cours de la période 1980-2010. Alors que la décennie précédente a permis la conceptualisation de l’autonomisation, les travaux menés au CRAPEL dans les deux décennies suivantes ont œuvré à une « modélisation » de l’autonomisation, à travers la multiplication des expérimentations sur différents terrains formatifs. Cette modélisation s’est cristallisée dans les années 1990 autour d’un dispositif particulier : le centre de ressources en langues (CRL). Le CRL a contribué d’une part, à la diffusion de l’autonomisation sur les plans local, national et international, et d’autre part, à son institutionnalisation. Le tournant numérique des années 2000, conjugué à la transformation des enjeux sociaux et sociétaux liés à la notion d’autonomie et aux nouvelles problématiques d’accès aux ressources pour l’apprentissage des langues, ont fortement transformé l’ingénierie de l’autonomisation, en rendant plus saillants, sinon nécessaires, les choix du CRAPEL.

This article describes the rationale for pedagogical, technological and organizational choices in the design of a web-based and open virtual learning environment (VLE) promoting and sustaining self-directed language learning. Based on the last forty years of research on learner autonomy at the CRAPEL according to Holec's definition (1988), we designed a global VLE for researchers working on language learning autonomy, teachers with various degrees of practice and experience in self-directed learning, and language learners. The VLE is thus divided into three spaces for the different types of participant, each offering dedicated social networking possibilities and resources to enrich the others. Our study focuses on the space dedicated to teacher training, the main objective being to help them build knowledge and skills for a new educational role in the paradigm of language learning autonomy (LLA). This space contains specially created Web-TV resources and audio podcasts of self-directed learning advising sessions, is based on reflective analysis and relies on a professional social network, following the principles of the "community of practice" (Wenger, 1998). In line with the principles of self-directed learning, teachers acting as trainers in the VLE mainly enact supportive and facilitative functions as advisers do in face-to-face interactions. We explore how training for advisers is organized in this online environment characterized by a high degree of openness (Jézégou, 2010). We report on findings from the way teachers within their dedicated space, using quantitative and qualitative data collected from interviews, questionnaires and analysis of logs. We look at the tensions that emerge as teachers conceive their new role and engage in new training practices given the opportunities afforded by the environment. The data provide insights to how the VLE can support training practices based on reflection, participation and collaboration.

Learning and Teaching Corpus of the online educational experiment Simuligne (2001). Its scenario is based on a global simulation for the learning of French as a foreign language. It also includes an intercultural activity, "Interculture", based on the Cultura project. The corpus includes the pedagogical scenario, described in several formats, the research protocol, participant's online interactions and productions (structured in XML), list of participants, licences of use. The LETEC corpus associated (mce.simu.all.all-CP.zip) is organized as an IMS-CP archive. We define a Learning & Teaching Corpus as a structured entity containing all the elements resulting from a communicative on-line learning situation, whose context is described by an educational scenario and a research protocol. The core data collection includes all the interaction data, the productions of the course participants, and the tracks, resulting from the participants’ actions in the learning environment and stored according to the research protocol. In order to be able to be shared, and to respect participant privacy, these data should be anonymised and a license for its use be provided in the corpus. A derived analysis can be linked to a given set of data under consideration, used or computerized for this analysis. An analysis consisting in data annotation/transcription/transformation, accurately connected to its original data, can be merged with the corpus itself, in order for other researchers to compare their own results on a concurrent analysis or to build their complementary analysis upon these results. The definition of a Learning & Teaching Corpus as a whole entity comes from the need of explicit links, between interaction data, context and analyses. This explicit context is crucial for an external researcher to interpret the data and to perform its own analyses. This definition seeks to capture the context of the data stemming from the course in order to allow a researcher to look for, understand and connect this information whether or not he/she was involved in the original course. More details about a LETEC corpus an ist structure at : http://mulce.univ-fcomte.fr/metadata/LETECorpus-en.pdf

The study of online learning, whether aimed at understanding this form of situated human learning, at evaluating relevant pedagogical scenarios and settings or at improving technological environments, requires the availability of interaction data from all participants in the learning situations. However, usually data are either inaccessible, or of limited access to those who were not involved in the original project. Moreover data are fragmented, therefore decontextualized with respect to the original teaching/learning settings. Sometimes they are buried in a proprietary format within the technological environment. The consequence is that research lacks a scientific basis. In the literature comparisons are often attempted between objects that are ill-defined and may in fact be different. The processes of scientific enquiry, such as re-analyzing, replicating, verifying, refuting or extending the original findings, are therefore disabled. To address this anomaly, we suggest to create and disseminate a new type of corpus, a contextualized learner corpus, entitled "LEarning and TEaching Corpus" (Letec). Such corpora include not only the data that correspond to output of learner activity in online courses, but also their context. Sharing Letec corpora within the research community implies that: (1) corpora are formatted and structured according to a new model which is compatible with existing standards for corpora and for learning design specifications; (2) corpora are placed on a server offering cross-platform compatibility and free access; (3) an ethics policy is formulated as well as copyright-licences. This paper presents the answers brought by our Mulce project from a theoretical and methodological standpoint. We give examples extracted from two learning and teaching corpora (Simuligne and Copéas). We show how data structured accordingly to the Mulce format can be transformed and processed by analysis tools available in different research communities. The article sheds light on the potential of such tools for the study of polyfocalisation and multimodal writing. It concludes with the scientific benefits researchers may expect at an institutional level when collecting and structuring data.

Over the last decade, most studies in Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) have highlighted how online synchronous learning environments implement a new literacy related to multimodal communication. The environment used in our experiment is based on a synchronous audio-graphic conferencing tool. This study concerns false beginners in an English for Specific Purposes (ESP) course, presenting a high degree of heterogeneity in their proficiency levels. A coding scheme was developed to translate the video data into user actions and speech acts that occurred in the various modalities of the system (aural, textchat, text editing, websites). The paper intends to shed further light on and increase our understanding of multimodal communication structures through learner participation and learning practices. On the basis of evidence from an ongoing research investigation into online CALL literacy, we identify how learners use different modalities to produce collectively a writing task, and how the multimodal learning interaction affects the learners' focus and engagement within the learning process. The adopted methodology combines a quantitative analysis of the learners' participation in a writing task with regard to the use of multimodal tools, and a qualitative analysis focusing on how the multimodal dimension of communication enhances language and learning strategies. By looking at the relationship between how the learning tasks are designed by tutors and how they are implemented by learners, that is to say taking into account the whole perception of multimodal communication for language learning purposes, we provide a framework for evaluating the potential of such an environment for language learning.

Developments in lifelong learning and learner autonomy have given fresh impetus to the debate about learning without formal teaching. This paper concerns the educational relationship between learner and adviser in self-directed schemes. Two French self-directed language learning set-ups were observed, one situated at university level (Systeme d'apprentissage autodirige avec soutien, Universite Nancy 2), the second in a lifelong learning institution (Apprentissage en semi-autonomie, CNAM1, Paris), and both dealing with adult language learners. Observations of 31 advising sessions between four learners and four experienced advisers suggest that the latter assume multiple modified pedagogical roles when assisting learners and that they switch between these roles frequently with the same learner. To understand the nature and the purpose of these variations in advising, the study focuses on the linguistic and educational aspects which characterize the advising sessions. Interviews with the advisers and learners were also carried out. These were designed to analyze the nature of advising practices viewed as professional practice. Their analysis highlights the determinants of the advisers' educational strategies, the perception of advising standards and the maintenance and evolution of their "professional gestures". The concept of "educational reciprocity" provides a useful framework for an understanding of the specific pedagogical relationship of language advising sessions. (Contains 2 notes.)

The importance of the affective dimension and the role of beliefs, self-efficacy and learners’ voices in language learning are recognized in the literature (Arnold, 1999; Brewer, 2006; Ogasa, 2010). Although emotions and feelings seem to play an important role in self-directed language learning (Bown & White, 2010; Candas & Eneau, 2010), little is still known about how to support the affective dimension throughout the self-directed learning process (Aoki, 1999). Clearly, the cognitive and the metacognitive, the subjective and affective dimensions of learning need to be addressed, in a self-access centre, in order to support learners on their road to autonomy. Language advising provides the appropriate arena for this. Within the professional and interpersonal relationship between advisors and learners (Ciekanski, 2007), it is easier to reflect on the affective implications of learning and to help learners to cope with them. Ongoing research into emotions and feelings in advising contexts shows that affect and subjectivity occupy a large proportion of learners’ (and advisors’) discourse. This paper makes a case for integrating reflection on the affective and subjective dimensions of learning, both in the research and in the practice of language advising.

This article describes the rationale for pedagogical, technological and organizational choices in the design of a web-based and open virtual learning environment (VLE) promoting and sustaining self-directed language learning. Based on the last forty years of research on learner autonomy at the CRAPEL according to Holec's definition (1988), we designed a global VLE for researchers working on language learning autonomy, teachers with various degrees of practice and experience in self-directed learning, and language learners. The VLE is thus divided into three spaces for the different types of participant, each offering dedicated social networking possibilities and resources to enrich the others. Our study focuses on the space dedicated to teacher training, the main objective being to help them build knowledge and skills for a new educational role in the paradigm of language learning autonomy (LLA). This space contains specially created Web-TV resources and audio podcasts of self-directed learning advising sessions, is based on reflective analysis and relies on a professional social network, following the principles of the “community of practice†(Wenger, 1998). In line with the principles of self-directed learning, teachers acting as trainers in the VLE mainly enact supportive and facilitative functions as advisers do in face-to-face interactions. We explore how training for advisers is organized in this online environment characterized by a high degree of openness (Jézégou, 2010). We report on findings from the way teachers within their dedicated space, using quantitative and qualitative data collected from interviews, questionnaires and analysis of logs. We look at the tensions that emerge as teachers conceive their new role and engage in new training practices given the opportunities afforded by the environment. The data provide insights to how the VLE can support training practices based on reflection, participation and collaboration.

review

A project of language learning digital platform for Lansad (Languages for Specialists of Other Disciplines) learners and teachers is under development at the University of Lorraine (UL) (Chateau & Bailly, 2013). The objective is to disseminate several autonomizing schemes developed over the last years (Bailly et al., 2008; Chateau & Zumbihl, 2012 ; Carette, Guély & Pereiro, 2011).Our article will use a few examples to show how these experimental schemes used digital tools to favor the empowerment of learners. The positive feedback of teachers and learners involved in these schemes naturally produced the necessity to go beyond the experimental phase and to reach progressive institutionalization, via a digital platform project. But this institutionalization has proved problematic. Obstacles and incentives that occurred during the development of the platform will be identified, through the answers to two questionnaires sent to all university language teachers. It is often said that technical innovation does not necessarily lead to educational innovation. This study tries to clarify the relationships between these two types of innovation.

This paper explores what it means to support language learning in the digital era and sheds a light on two main postures: the tutor and the adviser. Often presented as belonging to different teaching positions, tutoring and counseling are discussed in relation to how they respond the same controversial issues caused by the use of technology in language learning. The paper concludes by questioning the role and place of leaner autonomy in digital settings.

Corpora as learning resources are of growing interest in language teaching and learning. Nevertheless, there is still a gap between the theoretical consensus that emerges from research on corpora for learning purposes and the integration of corpora into teaching and learning practices. This article focuses on the direct use of corpora by learners themselves, which is often described as 'self-access'. We seek first to better understand the nature of the corpora as a learning resource: are corpora a suitable independent learning resource? We then discuss the advantages and obstacles related to the use of corpora in autonomous learning, questioning in particular the type of the mediation offered to support access to corpora and their exploitation.