The Relationship Between Teacher Classroom Leadership and Learner Autonomy: The Case of EFL Classrooms
Abstract
Learner- and learning-centered approaches have prevailed in language education for a while yet it is fallacious to claim that the roles of teachers have been totally inactivated. Quite the contrary, teacher support, guidance and facilitation have turned out to be of capital importance in the development of such learner skills as autonomy and self-regulation. This study sought to identify the relationship between classroom leadership styles of Turkish EFL writing instructors and the autonomous learning skills of their students. The Full Range Leadership (FRL) Model was the theoretical framework on which the determination of instructors’ leadership styles was grounded. Correlational survey was adopted as the research design, through which research data were collected via a questionnaire consisting of two independent scales, Classroom Leadership Instrument and Autonomous Learning Scale. The questionnaire was administered to 305 students from English Language Teaching and English Language and Literature Departments at a Turkish state university. Research data were analyzed through inferential statistical tests on SPSS. The results of the study revealed that transformational and active transactional leadership styles of instructors significantly correlated with learner autonomy and hence, it was inferred that the students of those instructors displaying such leadership characteristics appeared to be more autonomous in EFL learning.
Keywords
References
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Details
Primary Language
English
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Publication Date
September 23, 2019
Submission Date
April 4, 2019
Acceptance Date
July 29, 2019
Published in Issue
Year 2019 Volume: 8 Number: 3