Leni Dam, CV

From 1973 till 2007, Leni Dam practised language learner autonomy in her own English classes at a Danish comprehensive school near Copenhagen. From 1979 she was in addition employed by University College, Copenhagen, doing INSET and being in charge of innovative, pedagogic projects at school level. She has thus been personally involved in reforming language learning and teaching, not only for school children, but also for immigrants and refugees. Her specific interests are language learner autonomy and related issues such as evaluation, differentiation and inclusion. Together with Lienhard Legenhausen, Germany, she carried out the LAALE research project (Language Acquisition in an Autonomous Learning Environment) from 1992-1996. From 1993-1999, she was co-convenor of the AILA Learner Autonomy in Language Learning Scientific Commission, and from 2008-2016 she was co-coordinator of the IATEFL Learner Autonomy Special Interest Group. She has published widely. Especially her first book (Dam 1995) and her latest one together with David Little and Lienhard Legenhausen (2017) are landmarks in her publications. After her retirement in 2007, she has continued to publish, to give talks and to run work-shops - in this way continuing to increase her insights into the development of language learner autonomy and its related areas.