Tracking students' autonomization through emotion traces in logbooks
Résumé
Following the publication of Bandura's work on self-efficacy (1997), researchers have tried to understand what could make learners more successful in their language learning. The impact of emotions has however often been ignored and "the nature and contribution of positive emotions and beneficial emotional states deserves further attention." (Bown and White 2010: 433). Our study will focus on a flexible language learning system developed in a French university and gradually improved. The system combines different elements: work on a virtual learning environment (VLE), group work, counselling sessions and a logbook. One of its objectives is to help the students progress towards autonomy - defined as "the capacity to take control over one's own learning" (Benson 2001: 2) - in their learning of English. The logbook has been shown to be particularly useful to help students become conscious of the new role they have to play in such a system (Chateau, Zumbihl 2012). The analysis of 100 logbooks shows that the traces of emotions contained in two-thirds of the students' logbooks may enable us to identify important steps in the development of autonomy, as well as make hypotheses on the links between emotions, students' self-efficacy and the development of learner autonomy.