Autonomy in the use of digital resources in a Legal English course

Abstract

With the aim of examining the level of students' autonomy in the application of digital resources in their learning, a ten-week research was conducted with 19 third-year English language students. The research implemented a blended learning model as an addition to a regular Legal English course. One part of the learning model was aimed at helping the students use digital resources in the process of developing their writing skills. The hypothesis was that, if the students were gradually instructed on how to search and use online resources more and more independently, they would learn how to select the proper sources and how to use them autonomously in their writing. The procedure applied was based on a form of guided writing in the first stage in order to help the students make independent use of digital resources in the third stage. The results obtained from the students' final written assignments should indicate how autonomous the students became in the implementation of digital resources after the third stage and what had influenced this outcome.