Introduction: The LAALE Project (1992–1996)

Why carry out empirical research?

From the beginning, our pedagogical practice has been rooted in research of various kinds. In Chapters 1–4 we focused in turn on four key features of the autonomy classroom: TL use; the collaborative construction of knowledge; planning and managing learning; and evaluating and assessing the learning process and its outcomes. In each chapter we explained the principles that underlie our practice before describing that practice and illustrating it with examples of learners' work. Although many of the examples are themselves clear evidence of successful learning, one of the questions we have been asked most frequently when presenting our work at conferences is: Can we be sure that learner autonomy works? This prompted two of us (Leni Dam and Lienhard Legenhausen) to launch the LAALE project (Language Acquisition in an Autonomous Learning Environment), a longitudinal empirical exploration of different dimensions of learning by members of one of Leni Dam's mixed-ability classes. In this chapter we present the project's findings relative to the learning of vocabulary, the acquisition of TL grammar, the acquisition of pragmatic competence, and the validity of learners' self-assessment.

Participants in the research and data collection

The autonomy class comprised 21 mixed-ability learners, 10 girls and 11 boys, who began learning English in Grade 5 (age 11); eight of them had received remedial teaching in reading and writing Danish and/or in maths. The class had four 45-minute lessons a week (two double periods) on Mondays and Wednesdays (after two years the number of weekly lessons was reduced from four to three). All other subjects were taught in the conventional, teacher-directed way. When investigating vocabulary learning and the acquisition of grammar and pragmatic competence it was possible to compare data collected in the autonomy class with data collected in a class (31 learners) in a German Gymnasium.