Autonomisation, individualisation and uses of space: Mapping out individual language learning environments

Abstract

We are increasingly thinking of language learning in a global context as a matter of multiple diversities: diversities of learner biography, background and target languages, purposes, and settings for learning in and out of the classroom. This paper suggests that the common thread within these multiple diversities is that of learners mapping out individual language learning environments within the multilingual spaces in which they live, work, study and play. The question raised by this view is how we may begin to conceptualize autonomy in terms of learners’ agentive uses of urban space.

Keywords

• language learning
• Autonomy
• time and space
• urban space