This poster reports on a study conducted at a university in Japan in the 2020-21 academic year, when all the courses were taught remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the pedagogical goal of helping students develop their autonomy, learning beyond the classroom was incorporated into compulsory English courses for second-year students. Besides the core part of each course, such as listening or reading, the students were encouraged to engage in English learning, following their own study plans and using resources of their own choice. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of the students’ experience of learning beyond the classroom on the development of their autonomy by comparing the results of a questionnaire survey for measuring learner autonomy administered at the beginning and end of the one-year study. Additionally, records of students’ learning such as their learning reports were also examined for a more in-depth understanding of their learning process. As this study was unexpectedly and inevitably affected by the emergency remote teaching context, this study also discusses challenges that the students faced while learning with limited access to physical learning spaces, resources, their peers, and support from the teacher.