13th Nordic Workshop on Developing Learner Autonomy in Language Learning and Teaching

A LETTER FROM HELSINKI

Dear organisers of the Hannover Nordic Workshop 2019,
Thank you so much for the invitation to the 14th Nordic Workshop. How time flies, it feels like we had ours in Helsinki just yesterday!In planning the workshop, you’ve taken Gerd Gabrielssen’s seminal words as your guideline and beacon. And these were the words that Leni reminded us of in her talk in Helsinki, 2017.

It’s indeed essential that we always remember where we come from in order to understand where we’re headed. We wish you luck and we know that Hannover will be just as uniquely inspiring as all the previous workshops.

See you soon! Bis bald!

Leena and Sandro

THE NORDIC BLOG
In this BLOG, we ask you, dear participants, to reflect on your Nordic Autonomy experiences. We ask you to spend some unhurried time and to write about, to story, your thoughts, feelings, memories, your lived and felt experiences during and after our workshop hours and days.

THE NORDIC PROGRAMME

SANJA WAGNER’S ARCHIVES
After the Workshop, we were happy to have Sanja Wagner open up her autonomy ARCHIVES for the participants. There are a million autonomy stories out there by members of the global autonomy community.

A PERSONAL STORY OF AUTONOMY FROM THE WORKSHOP

STORIES OF AUTONOMY, DOWN MEMORY LANE
In the workshop finishing the Helsinki event, Fergal Bradley and the ALMS team invited the participants to share their autonomy stories. And so we listened to and told our unique professional stories of autonomy: our passions, dreams, concerns and worries; how we have been travelling the autonomy road, how we are coping and what we see on the horizon. This was a wonderful experience of the power of stories!

KEEPING STORIES ALIVE
“Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are and why we’re here” (Sue Monk Kidd).
Our brilliant friend Naoko Aoki (1954-2018) was always reminding us of the importance of “defending stories and sharing one”. In the article in Independence, she was, together with Anja Burkert and Sandro John Amendolara, looking back on the Helsinki Workshop. Let’s keep her story alive!