Foreign language

Personal characteristics.Three of the participants shared some issues related to their personal characteristics while reflecting on themselves as they claimed that their personal issues played a role in their language learning processes. Participant # 9 (P # 9) reported in her reflection paper that her shyness was a barrier for her language learning and in order to overcome that situation, she decided to create a to- do list. For instance, she created some rules in order to encourage and to motivate herself to be able to participate more in the classroom. Some of her rules were as below:
You are not a native speaker, so it is normal not to know everything about English. Your aim is to beat the fear of speaking not to show off. This is an opportunity to get started.
You don‟t have a reason to be embarrassed. You teacher knows that you are here to learn not to keep in silence. She is aware of your level and she will agree to help you. Don‟t be shy!
She shared the benefits of these rules by saying that they helped her alleviate her anxiety and fear of learning English. Besides, she added that she shared her to-do list

rules with her students in her classroom teaching to establish rapport and to facilitate their learning processes.

Participant # 8 (P # 8) also touched on her personality issues, which were triggered by her classroom‟s environment. For instance, participant #8 stated in her reflection that:
Our classroom was mostly teacher centered, therefore, I and my classmates did not have enough chances to practice speaking and listening skills and that situation led me to lack self-confidence in myself and I became shy about making mistakes in public. My shyness still prevails and I still haven‟t overcome it.
To sum up, participants revealed their learner identity by identifying the problems and barriers they had during their learning processes. That way, they engaged in reflection-on-action
Autonomy.Students‟ taking the responsibility for their own language learning was another code that can be illustrated under the category of reflection-on-action.
Four of the participants talked about autonomy and some of them defined their own autonomous learner profile both implicitly and explicitly throughout their reflection papers and the discussion sessions. For instance participant # 5 (P # 5) noted that she took responsibility for her language learning when she had the chance of talking to native English language speakers. She stated in her reflection that:
During the summer time, we were spending the whole summer in Fethiye and it was the first time when I spoke to a native speaker. I realized that the way Turkish people speak English is totally different from the way a native speaker does. As soon as we went back home, I made my father set up some English channels on TV like BBC, CNN and Discovery Channel.

Regarding her learning experience, she was an autonomous learner in terms of observing other speakers and defining techniques to facilitate her language learning process as she went on learning out of school and took advantage of authentic materials such as TV channels. In the following part of her reflection paper she also stated that she created vocabulary journals and tried hard to deepen her vocabulary knowledge.

Participant # 1 (P # 1) was another autonomous learner. Contrary to P # 5 he explicitly stated that in his reflection paper and his third language learning process was a proof of his autonomy. He presented himself as an autonomous learner by stating the sentences below:
In those years, I was a real autonomous learner.I wanted to be a research assistant; therefore, I had to get the compulsory grade, 50, on the German proficiency exams, which included only multiple-choice questions about vocabulary and grammar. In order to achieve that aim, I started to keep a vocabulary journal and developed some vocabulary learning strategies called mnemonics via which I associated sounds, objects or similar words in Turkish to keep new words in my mind. My efforts ended in success, as I was able to get the score I had aimed for. I found those strategies really, really successful, so I still share them with my students especially to enhance students‟ vocabulary knowledge in English.
Considering participants‟ language learning experiences, it can be concluded that learner autonomy was a crucial factor and had a huge positive impact on some participants‟ success.