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ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016)definitions we may be able to understandcited in Bashir, 2014.p.172).closely what learner autonomy means andautonomy enables an EFL learner to learn inaims at. Learners in EFL classrooms area self-directed way.dependent on teachers of learning and this isimposed for the learners but rather achieved.demotivating in their English learningThey are not controlled by anyone elseatmosphere.However, do these studentsrather they feel enthusiastic about takingreally prefer depending on their teachers forresponsibility of their own learning. In thistheir learning? Harmer (2007, p.394) notesway they are able to find out and solve theirthat a language teacher may be good butown problems in EFL learning by exploringstudents will face difficulty ‘unless they aimtheir hidden potentials and interests. Theto learn outside as well as during class time.’teacher plays the role of facilitator andHe also adds that ‘students need to becreatesmotivated by teachers to develop their ownenvironment for the learners. Gould (2013)learning strategies,’Thus, they becomestates that learner autonomy enables learnersautonomous learners, that is, they are ‘thenot only to take control and responsibility ofdoers rather than the recipients of learningtheir own learning but also makes studentsaction.’ Edge and Wharton opine that evencapable of self – direction and are able tothough ‘classrooms provide a relatively safedevelop an independent, pro-active approachenvironment for language discourse; theto their studies.major goal for learners is to be able tostudents are self – reliant have the potentialtransfer what they have learnt to the worldto learn better than passive learners.outside’ (Tomlinson, p.296).According to Littlewood (1996, p.97),‘autonomy is the learner’s ability andwillingness to make choices independently.’In order to have successful learning, learnersshould be reflectively engaged in planning,aSo, learnerThis learning is notcongenialandproductiveShe believes that suchFrom the discussion so far, s learners (Jamila, 2013): Learners set their objectives andare aware of their goals. Theyutilizeandexperiencemonitoring and evaluating their learning infreedom in selecting materialsthe class.according to their objectives.The skills and knowledge thelearners acquire in the classroom can beutilised in the world outside (Little, 2000,

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016) They have insights into theirResearchers understand that in order tolearning styles and can choosebecome autonomous, a learner has to worktheir own strategies.to achieve autonomy and that autonomy They can assess themselves. Learnersareguidedcomesandfacilitated by teachers in tionally1991,citedinThanasoulas, 2000).promoteslearning easily.2.2 Learning Theories and Learnerhow they are linked to learner autonomyAutonomywill be discussed.In this section three important approacheswhich influence knowledge and learning and2.2.1 PositivismAccording to Benson & Voller (cited inpassive learners. This view is contrary toThanasoulas, 2000), Teachers believe thatlearner autonomy. So, positivism inhibitsknowledge reflect objective reality.So,learners in EFL classes and demotivateslearning is the transmission of knowledgethem from setting objectives to achieve theirfrom one individual to another. Positivismgoals. This view of positivism is opposed tofavourstraditionalthe development of learner autonomy inclassrooms where teachers are considered aswhich learners are free to set their objectivessuppliers of knowledge and students arein a teacher–student friendly environment.2.2.2 Constructivismmeaning to, or construe , the perplexingConstructivism learning theory is based onmaelstrom of events and ideas in which theythe principle that students build knowledgefind themselves caught up.’ It runs counterbased upon existing ideas and it avoidsto positivism in which students receivedirect instruction. As Candy (1991,p.254)knowledge passively. The activities areobserves, ‘.one of the central tenets ofinteractive and student–centred rather thanconstructivism is that individuals try to givelesson – centred. The teacher is seen as ateachercentred

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016)guide to learning and helps each learner tothis approach makes EFL learners capable ofcreate knowledge based on information thatself-direction and enables them to play theirthey get from their world around them. So,role as active learners of knowledge.Thanasoulas, 2000).They also state that2.2.3 Critical Theorycritical theory is all about power andCritical theory agrees with constructivism inpolitics. It deals with power relations andthe sense that knowledge is not discoveredpower dominance.or learned but it is constructed (Thanasoulas,powerful groups in society which bring2000).about social change. This helps learners toAccording to critical pletingthatIt focuses on certainrealize the social context in which they learnrealityindependently, banish all sorts of falseexpressing the interests of different socialbeliefs, and can be thought of as authors ofgroups (Benson & Voller, 1997, cited intheir own worlds.2.3 Issues Involved in Developing LearnerEFL learners’ enthusiasm into practicingAutonomylearner autonomy. The learner and teacherSo far in this study, main features of learnerinteraction is essential for the learnerautonomy have been discussed.autonomy to be implemented.It isHowever,comprehended that autonomy is not aautonomy being a new concept to someproduct but as process. It is achieved byteachers, they fail to understand it. They arefulfilling certain conditions such as learningill – prepared and reluctant to allow studentsstrategies including the cognitive and theto take over their own learning. Only aftermetacognitive, motivation, attitudes, beliefsunderstandingand modes, awareness about the languageautonomy, teachers can motivate students toand the self and meta - language, that is, adevelop learning strategies through learnerlanguage analyzing another language. Onetraining in the classroom by raising theconceptoflearnerThey should realize it is worthautonomy is the role of a teacher. Learnerassimilating learner autonomy into theirautonomy cannot be achieved withoutpedagogy.teacher support. Teacher helps gear up the

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016)2.4 Learning Strategieslearner to make language learning moreLearner autonomy involves students using asuccessful,number of learning strategies which they are(Oxford, 1990 cited in Cook, 2008). Cookcapable of applying flexibly in different(2008) notes that it is a choice a learnercontexts.O’Malley and Chamot (1990,makes in SLA and which affects his l2cited in Cook, 2008) carried out an extensivelearning. Based on this concept of learnerresearchautonomy this study discusses two mainaccordingtowhichlearningstrategies is based on cognitive psychology.self–directedandenjoyablelearning strategies.Learning strategies are steps taken by the Use of repetition for imitation of2.4.1 Cognitive StrategiesThe term ‘cognitive strategies’ refers to theuse of mind (cognition) in languagelearning, that is, it involves ‘using all yourspeech. Practiceresourcingsuchasdictionaries for information.mental processes’ (Cook, 2008, p.116). Using one’s mother tongue forO’Malley and Chamot (1990, cited in Cook,translating so as to be able to2008) say that cognitive strategies involveunderstand and produce L2conscious ways of tackling learning, such asnote-taking, resourcing (using ing new information to old).They Note – taking of lectures delivered inL2. Deduction, that is to know how toapply L2 rules.further add that strategies help enhance the Using contextualization to insert alearners learning by operating and directlyword or a phrase in a meaningfulmanipulating incoming information.sequence.Thecognitive strategies increase the efficiency Transfer, that is to remember factswith which a learner learns to do a task.and sequences in L2 by utilizingAccordinginformation acquired in L1.toCook(1993,citedinThanasoulas, 2000), learners may use thefollowing cognitive strategies: Use of inference to match anunfamiliar word with a familiarword.

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016)2.4.2 Metacognitive Strategiesone’s learning. It also involves evaluatingIt is an indirect strategy which involveshow well one has done (O’Malley and‘organizing and evaluating one’s knowledgeChamot, 1990, cited in Cook, 2008).for e.g. by preparing in advance what isstrategy of planning includes the setting ofgoing to come up in the next class’ (Cook,goals and selecting appropriate cognitive2008, p.116).strategy to achieve those goals (Wenden,Metacognitive strategiesconcern with planning, thinking monitoring1998, cited in Thanasoulas, 2000)).They2.5 Social and Psychological Factors:Self- esteem, Motivation and s.Coppersmith (1967, pp.4-5), states thatself - esteem is ‘a personal judgement ofAttitudesIfTheiscommunication,thenworthiness that is expressed in attitudes thatsuccessful EFL learning depends on somethe individual holds towards himself’.social and psychological factors of learningAccording to him learners having goodand teaching so as to establish meaningfulfeelings about themselves are sure toEFL in the classroom. Students’ learningsucceed.activities depends on their learner awarenessAttitude is defined by Wenden (1998,as learners, their learning context, thep.52) as ‘learned motivations, valued beliefs,language to be learnt, their learning stylesevaluations, what one believes is acceptable,and strategies and their desire to learn.or responses oriented towards approachingShumann (1978, cited in Thanasoulas, 2000)or avoiding’.and Larsen – Freeman and Long (1991, citedvitalin Thanasoulas) view that social andattitudes and beliefs about themselves inpsychological factors describe in a betterlearning process and their ability to learn.way how students react to the learningStudents’ beliefs about themselves have anprocesses. These factors include learners’impact on their performance in the EFLself – esteem, attitudes and motivation.classrooms. For instance if the students areTwo types of attitudes areaccordingtoWenden;learners’convinced that they do not possess enoughLearners have a clear idea about the purposeaptitude for language learning they may notof learning the language, the areas of theirmake any effort to learn the language. Inproblems and improvement in that language.other words, beliefs can become unfortunate

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016)in fostering learner autonomy.TeachersMotivation according to Dornyei (1998,have a role in assessing whether student’scited in Thanasoulas, 2000) is the mainbeliefs might have a negative impact onstimulatinglearning.Motivation is crucial as it enhances theSo, learners need to actorinL2learning.desire of a learner in EFL classroom.Motivation makes a learner feel optimisticabout her success in EFL learning.2.6WaysofDevelopingLearnerlanguage courses which ‘reflect the learnersAutonomygoals in its language, task and strategies.’There are different ways of developingThe course tasks should be authentic relatedlearner autonomy. Cotterall, (2000, cited into the real world and ‘promote reflection onHarmer, p.395) suggests that in order tolearning.’promote learner autonomy and create learnerdeveloping learner autonomy are:Some common ways ofawareness, learners should be assigned2.6.1 Journalspractice and helps to improve the students’According to Harmer (2007, p.400) journalgeneral writing skills and enable them towriting provides students ‘ good writingexpress feelings more freely.’2.6.2 Self –reportsquestionnairesWenden (1998) states that self- reportinformation about the learners’ feelings,writing help learners to introspect on theirskills and the problems she or he faces. Bylearning. She also adds that self – reportswriting self –reports learners can becomeprovidestrategiesaware of their learning strategies and alsolearners use at the time of report. Wendencan evaluate their goals and techniques forcategorizes self- report into two types: semilearning.informationonthebothofwhichextract– structured interviews and structured2.6.3 Note – taking and DiariesEFL learners at tertiary level study coursesin which lectures are delivered in English

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016)and for these they need to take notes.initiatives in learning because people whoHarmer (2007, p.399) observes ‘the purposetake the initiative learn more than those whoof this activity is to get students to select await passively for teachers to teach themstrategy so that they can take responsibility(Knowles, cited in Bashir, 2014, p.176.).for their own note – taking method’. SomeSo, teacher-student relationship is vital.learners take copious notes, while othersFrom the above literature review, it cannote down a few points. Diaries on the otherbe observed that learner autonomy ishand, help students to plan, monitor andpracticed worldwide. At present, it enjoysevaluate their learning, identifying anyhigh demand and is considered to beproblems they run into and suggestingimmensely fruitful. Hence, it is important tosolutions (Thanasoulas, 2000).investigate the scope of implementingAgain,though the notion of learner independenceLearner autonomy in Bangladesh.does not follow tradition where the teacherstudy investigates the factors that affect theis director of learning, yet the teacher doeslearner autonomy in EFL classrooms atnotauthority.tertiary level in Bangladesh and alsoTeachers can help students to develophopefully it will give rise to further scopeslearning strategies through learner trainingfor other researchers to work with learnerin many ways. Learners should also takeautonomy.completelyrelinquishand population in section 3.2.ThisThe3: Research Methodologysubsequent sections describe the method inEarlier, chapter two outlined the existingwhich this research was conducted in sectionresearchlearner3.3 the instruments that were employed inautonomy in learning English as a foreignsection 3.4 including the discussion of thelanguage and it mainly focused on thedata collection in section3.5 and the analysisdifferent theories and other issues includingmethods that were used in section elopautonomy among EFL learners.learnerChapterthree provides the research questions insection 3.1 and description of the sampling3.1 Research questionsthepotentialproblemslimitations are described in section3.7.and

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016)The primary focus of this study is on1. How autonomous are the tertiarylearners and the factors that affect learnerlevel EFL learners in Bangladesh?autonomy in EFL learning in Bangladesh2. What are the factors that affectand the research question for this study are:learner autonomy at tertiary level inBangladesh?3.2 Sampling and population(USTC), Southern University BangladeshThe sample population in this study(SUB), International Islamic Universitycomprises of fifty undergraduate studentsChittagong (IIUC), Port City Internationalfrom first to eighth semesters of differentUniversityfaculties studying in five universities ofInformationBangladesh.(UITS).variousThese students belong eThe participants for this study are chosenofusing random sampling, that is, samples areBusiness Administration (BBA), Pharmacy,selected randomly. Selection is based onBSc in Textiles and Economics and Bankingchance and it is unbiased. Conclusions canand have taken English as the prerequisitebe made pertaining to the population fromcourseforthe results obtained from the sample,are(Dornyei, 2007). 50 participants are chosenselected for the study are University ofthrough random sampling for world. Quantitative research is a very useful3.3. Adopted Methodology with Rationaleresearch methodology because it is less timeSince the present study aims to respond toconsuming and less costly because the datathe research questions of a quantitativecan be analyzed using statistical computernature, quantitative method is used tosoftware. This inquiry is rigorous, focusedexplore the issue.and tightly controlled, involving precisemeasurement and producing reliable andQuantitative research is a formal objectivereplicable data that is generalizable to otherand systematic process where numericalcontexts (Dornyei, 2007).data is used to collect information about thequantitative method in this research, it isBy employing

ELK ASIA PACIFIC JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESISSN 2349-2317 (Online); DOI: 10.16962/EAPJMRM/issn. 2349-2317/2015; Volume 2 Issue 4 (2016)expected that the result that would emergewould be acceptable to a large audience.3.4 InstrumentsThe instrument, a written questionnaire isthey are often designed for statisticalused to collect a quantitative data. Aanalysis of the responses this is not alwaysquestionnaire is a research instrumentthe case.consisting of a series of questions and otherThe following table is an overview of theprompts for the purpose of gatheringrelation between research questions andinformation from respondents. Althoughitems in the questionnaire:Table 1: Relation between research questions and items in the questionnaireResearch questionsRelated items in the questionnaire1) How autonomous are a) I cannot learn English with/without my teacher/myself.the tertiary level EFL b)I should learn English within my institution/athome/outside the class.learners in Bangladesh?c) I can evaluate my learning/plan my learning.d)Self-study gives me confidence/ interest.e) I do not understand when I read alone.f) Ican organise my learning materials with/ without teachershelp.g) I can plan my learning schedule.2) What are the factorsa) I use the resources available at the university library.that affecting learnerb) I use computers/audio-visual equipment for learningEnglish activities.c) I do not know how to use technology/online learningactivities for learning English.autonomy at tertiarylevel in

EFL learning at tertiary level education in Bangladesh. Likert scale questionnaire is used to collect data from fifty students of five private universities in Chittagong, Bangladesh. The findings reveal factors including different learning strategies and learning styles that affect learner