The didactic concept of “student autonomy”, developed in the 80's of the last century, continues to be a buzzword in scientific discussions in Europe being present in theoretical debates, new school textbooks, curricula, etc.  However, the concept under discussion is rather abstruse, and therefore it is often used erroneously.  In the Republic of Moldova the use of this concept has not been widely spread yet, and the first attempts to put autonomous learning to practice in the process of teaching / learning modern languages are barely making their way. The purpose of this paper is to define with greater clarity and precision the concept of autonomy in the context of teaching / learning modern languages through the existing approaches of this phenomenon within different disciplines such as pedagogy, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, motivation psychology and constructivist theory.  The investigative approach undertaken in the paper allows the elimination of erroneous interpretations by explaining enlightening the following characteristics of autonomous education:  1. Autonomy is not a learning method; it is a skill to be developed.  2. Autonomy is gradual, the degree of autonomy is constantly changing.  3. Autonomy does not mean self-training or individual work (without a teacher).  4. Autonomy does not mean anarchy (laisser-faire, laisser-aller).  5. Autonomy is not necessarily interchangeable with the student's behaviour.