Language counselling: A critical and integral component in promoting an autonomous community of learning

This article describes a programme of autonomous language learning (ALMS) introduced at Helsinki University Language Centre in 1994. The programme was developed to encourage students to become actively involved in their own learning in terms of deciding what they need and wish to learn, setting goals and objectives, achieving these objectives, and reflecting upon and evaluating the outcomes. Learner support is offered in a variety of ways through the counselling system that is an essential element of the programme. The counsellors run the initial learner-awareness sessions in which the emphasis is on the learning process, strategies, needs and skills. They help the learners with their study plans and give guidance where necessary. They also meet the students in a series of one-on-one counselling sessions that foster individual contact and learner–counsellor dialogue. The ALMS programme draws from and feeds on continuous collaborative action-research projects, which address practices seen to be problematic on the basis of learner feedback or counsellor experience.