Learner Autonomy as Coteachers

As stated in section 2.2, autonomous learners need opportunities to take responsibility. As pointed out in section 4.2, in line with Carpenter (1996), these opportunities were created for both coteachers and peer learners in the current coteaching setting. Coteachers’ feedback comments were associated with the word ‘responsibility’ when they were aware of their roles as coteachers. Not only did they get themselves prepared in order to be able to help peer learners to enhance their knowledge of Chinese but they also contributed to the preparation for coteaching sessions (Dam 1995). As examined in section 2.2, taking responsibility for learning was a key component of learner autonomy. Coteachers’ autonomous actions were related to both their control over the learning process and their active involvement in learning. They understood that they needed to share the workload among themselves. As stated in section 4.1, coteachers took the responsibility for their peers’ learning by designing engaging activities. The fact that coteachers worked together and managed to teach their peers emphasises that they were self-regulated learners (Little 2003). This also illustrates how learners as coteachers were able to take responsibility for learning. Like coteachers, peer learners also demonstrated that they were determined to take responsibility for the learning of others when they wanted to support coteachers’ teaching. However, compared with coteachers, peer learners did not provide a strong indication that they took initiatives to master the learning content.

Students’ responsible actions were generated in an interdependent learning environment. As presented in section 4.1, students in this study worked with each other within the class cohort as well as within coteaching groups. Peer learners’ knowledge was enhanced during coteaching sessions. In this sense, their progression was closely linked with and depended on coteachers’ teaching. Individual coteachers within a coteaching group shared their ideas and relied on each other’s contribution in order to achieve their teaching objectives. Within the class cohort, each coteaching group transmitted their teaching content to the rest of the class, i.e., peer learners. As a result, coteachers and peer learners formed the unity of the teaching activities during the coteaching sessions. This mutual relationship between coteachers and peer learners within a class cohort as well as among coteachers within a coteaching group emphasised the social aspect of learning and created an interdependent learning context which was an essential component of developing learner autonomy, as stated in section 2.2. As stated in section 3, the teacher met individual coteaching groups before their teaching sessions and provided coteachers necessary facilitation and support during their preparation for coteaching. The teacher’s involvement confirmed the necessity of coteachers’ interdependence with the classroom teacher (Dickinson 1987; Marshal 1996; Broady and Kenning 1996; Scharle and Szabo 2000).