İngilizce dili eğitiminde kullanılan ders kitaplarında öğrenen özerkliği temsili

Learner autonomy has been a very popular research area in language learning and teaching for a long time. Holec (1979) defines learner autonomy as "the ability to take charge of one's own learning" (p. 4). Fenner (2000) believes that all materials provided by textbooks are significant because of their potential for teaching when learners have the opportunity to take responsibility for their own learning. Significantly, Reinders and Balçıkanlı (2011) suggest that language courses, and surely, textbooks used in that course are the most possible contexts in which learners encounter the concept of autonomy. Judging from the importance of textbooks in language learning, textbooks need to be examined systematically through some material evaluation approaches if it is believed that they have an important role to promote learner autonomy (Fenner, 2000). This study examines learner autonomy representations in two different English Language Teaching (ELT) textbooks published by foreign publishing houses. 58 English instructors who work at state, private, and foundation institutions in Turkey participated in this study. Document analysis has been carried out by the author for this study. Also, a checklist for learner autonomy components in the textbooks has been created for this study by the author. In addition, an open-ended questionnaire consisting of seven open-ended questions has been conducted with ten participants. The results reveal that ELT textbooks contain recent, interesting, common, authentic, and daily contents and subjects, which motivate learners to be engaged with the textbooks and the contents and subjects consider learners' experiences. Also, they promote self-study for all different skills. It is also found that ELT textbooks include a detailed overview page to make learners follow the textbooks easily and monitor their learning and the layouts of the textbooks are convenient and easy to follow. Additionally, the textbooks contain informative and functional visuals and colorful and well-organized design to affect learners' preferences positively. What's more, it is discovered that ELT textbooks are easy to access and they are up to date. They provide supplementary materials and tasks, online platforms, and technology integrated materials to allow learners to study outside of the classroom. Moreover, ELT textbooks promote self-assessment for students through some sections by checking their comprehension and learning and they enhance students' self-monitoring by controlling what they have learnt and to what extent. According to the results, ELT textbooks provide learners some components related to autonomous learning such as learning management systems, self-checklists, self-evaluation, learning resources and guided activities. In addition, clear instructions and activities, comprehensible question structures, clearly given task objectives, and revision parts are considered as components that are related to learner autonomy. Especially considering Covid19 pandemic process, the results reveals that ELT textbooks assist learners to study independently and individually and they foster learners' out-of-class learning through the characteristics related to learner autonomy as mentioned all above. Keywords: textbook, learner autonomy, learning foreign language, ELT, autonomous learning, out-of-class learning, independent learning, learner autonomy components