EFL learners' perceptions of factors influencing learner autonomy development

Together with recent technological advances in a variety of tools (such as Facebook,Twitter, Google, YouTube), learners have been provided with freedom and openness tocommunicate with each other and to become proactive and independent in their learning.It is believed, however, that Asian learners seem to possess reactive autonomy so thatwhile they can organize their resources autonomously to achieve their learning goals, theyare unable to take responsibility for their own learning. Therefore, the aim of this paperwas to explore the factors that influence Vietnamese EFL learners' support for or resistanceto promoting learner autonomy within a 15-week, portfolio-based writing course. The datawere collected using semi-structured interviews and writing logs in this qualitativeresearch and analyzed through content analysis. The findings showed three major factors(personal, academic, and external) supporting and resisting developing learner autonomyin the portfolio-based writing course.