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One of the comments above also suggested that students’ learning culturepresented a challenge for developing learner autonomy. In the questionnaire wedid ask teachers about the extent that the feasibility of autonomy was a culturalmatter: almost 69 per cent of the teachers agreed that ‘Learner autonomy can beachieved by learners of all cultural backgrounds’ while over 86 per cent disagreedthat ‘Learner autonomy is a concept which is not suited to non-Western learners’.Overall, then, the teachers did not believe that autonomy was only achievableby learners from particular cultural (i.e. national or ethnic) backgrounds (seePalfreyman, 2003 for a collection of papers exploring this issue). What they didoften believe, though, was that the learning cultures of secondary schools in Omandid not promote learner autonomy.RQ5: To what extent do teachers say they actually promote learnerautonomy?Teachers were also asked about the extent to which they feel they promotelearner autonomy in their own work. In response, 10.2 per cent of the teachersdisagreed that they promote LA with their students, 79.6 per cent felt they did and10.2 per cent were unsure. Teachers who felt they did promote learner autonomywere also asked to give examples of the kinds of strategies they used to do so. Ouranalysis of these activities (for a list see the materials for Workshop 2 in Appendix4) suggested five broad strategies through which the teachers felt they encourageautonomy. These are listed below, with an illustrative teacher quote for each:■■ talking to students about autonomy and its value (‘I mainly focus on explainingand demonstrating to my students why it is important for them to beautonomous learners.’)■■ encouraging learners to engage in autonomous behaviours (‘Encouragingstudents to go the extra mile and not be afraid to make mistakes, goes a longway in making them confident to work by themselves.’)■■ getting learners to reflect on their learning (‘give them assignments thatencourage them to reflect on their goals, needs, progress, weaknesses,values.’)■■ using activities in class which promote autonomy (‘I try to give my studentsfrequent opportunities for independent (student-centred) learning in class,usually in small groups or pairs.’)■■setting activities out of class which promote autonomy (‘I assign students tasksthat require them to use internet sources outside the class time.’)These options were not presented by teachers as being exclusive and in severalcases teachers suggested that they were seeking to promote learner autonomyusing a range of strategies. Overall, both the percentage of teachers who felt they(at least to some extent) promoted learner autonomy in their work and the rangeof examples they gave of how they sought to do so was further evidence that(even given the limited manner in which some teachers defined learner autonomy)the teachers were positively disposed to the concept.234 | Teacher Beliefs Autonomy