摘要:At first glance the two key words, assessment and autonomy in the title seemed to contradict each other. Isn't assessment typically associated with formal learning systems and autonomy with out - of - class learning. Therefore it wasn't a surprise to see that Benson, in his foreword, says as much when he refers to assessment as "the elephant in the room" (p. viii) in discussions about learner autonomy. The six chapters in this edited book bring the elephant out into the open. The contributors, all of them academics as well as researchers, are or have been based in Australia, Bahrain, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Japan and the UAE. Most chapters start with the writers' interpretations of the word 'autonomy' in particular, and as befits the term's meaning, these ideas are va ried. The book ends with a final list which combines references from all of the chapters, which makes sense, given that there was some overlap in sources from chapter to chapter