Breaking the Chains: Autonomous Learners

This action research, conducted at Istanbul Sehir University, was designed to find out how students can be autonomous learners if they are given a chance outside the classroom to reflect on their learning process via keeping a learning journal. The questions of the study were “How do students perceive the role of the teacher? “How do they perceive the role of themselves?” and “Is it possible to make them more autonomous learners?” The participants of the study were 20 high school graduates, who recently started their university degree programs. They were asked to keep a learning journal on daily basis. At the completion of the module (seven weeks), the journals were collected and the entries were analyzed. A concordance program- Antconc, was used for text analysis.