Learner Agency what does it mean?

Learner Agency is a widely used term in the education arena and seems to be gaining traction. Learner agency refers to the feeling of ownership and the sense of control that learners have over their learning (Whitten, 2019). Agentic learners are able to self-manage their own learning and autonomously engage in, and solve, challenging problems (Larsen-Freeman, Driver, Gao & Mercer, 2021).

There is however a presumption that learners are their own agents of learning and it is something that comes naturally to any learner. 

I always thought that learner agency was simply the learners being motivated and engaged to learn. After researching further I now understand it to be something that is fostered and requires nurturing and skills from the educator to help develop. There is common consensus that there are four components:

• Setting advantageous goals;
• Initiating action toward those goals;
• Reflecting on and regulating progress toward those goals and;
• Internalising self-efficacy. (Poon, 2018 )

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It is important therefore in my teaching to foster student agency to set the students up for lifelong learning and not only in the language classroom. As a teacher currently involved with preliterate ESOL learners whom have never been in a classroom environment before, the idea of agency is more of a challenge to interpret. Although the learners are very motivated to succeed they can be passive, dependant learners with little agentic learning behaviours (Whitten, 2019).

Digital technologies can support this by overcoming challenges created by physical space and class size by giving learners alternative ways of enacting their agency. An example is students that rarely participate in the classroom interaction may be more willing on an online platform. Mobile technology and apps could be utilised to enact their agency such as project based learning or inquiry based learning as these will encourage the learners to have independence, choice, ownership and create interest in topics that resonate with them (Whitten, 2019).

Another important aspect of learner agency that I feel needs to be addressed especially in an ESOL context is not viewing student agency through a dominant cultural frame of reference (Poon, 2018).

As an educator I need to be aware of all the factors involved in setting agency with my students and to encourage a reciprocal discourse and to give students time and space to be supported in creating it.

_{Larsen-Freeman, D., Driver, P., Gao, X., & Mercer, S. (2021). Learner Agency: Maximizing Learner Potential. www.oup.com/elt/expert}

_{Mercer, S. (2011). Understanding learner agency as a complex dynamic system. System, 39(4), 427–436. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2011.08.001}

_{Poon, J. (September 11, 2018)   Part 1: What do you mean when you say student Agency? https://education-reimagined.org}

_{Poon, J. (September 11, 2018)   Part 2: Toward a Culturally-Responsive Understanding of Student Agency. https://education-reimagined.org}

_{Teng, Mark. (2019). The Complexities of Learner Agency and Teacher Agency, Foreign Language Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0728-7_5. }

_{Whitten, D. (2019) Learner Agency in Adult Foundation-Level Education Exploring adults’ lifelong-learning capacity through the integration of learner agency, language, literacy and numeracy. Ako. Aotearoa. https://ako.ac.nz/}