6 Tips to kill learner autonomy in EFL “Learner Autonomy”;

Learner Autonomy: most of us like the concept of it. Some of us underline the importance of it. Some of us think that it is a great idea but our learners cannot become autonomous because their families didn’t raise them that way or only highly skilled/enthusiastic learners can reach autonomy. A few of us believe in the possibility and work on it consciously. Anyway, below are the six things, I believe, that does not help learner autonomy whatsoever.

1. Not considering/not empathizing with learner difficulties

Even if the learner is a highly intelligent, skillful professional with a degree, s/he is vulnerable and anxious while learning a foreign language. A foreign language teacher’s initial job is making the learners feel that they are in a safe learning atmosphere. It is not utterly easy to learn a language especially when you are an adult or a teenager. There are millions of other things on your mind, and learning a language require concentration and a strong will as well as great determination. It is our job to consider the levels of difficulty of the tasks, possible problems that can occur while learning a certain aspect of that day’s target language.

2. Spoon-feeding while presenting the language

Not letting learners discover the target language by themselves and for themselves, not trusting the learners’ skills and/ or intelligence also kill autonomy. Inductive language teaching by means of contextualised input  works wonders, but some of us love to be the ‘giver’ of the knowledge:) or controlling everything.  Or some of us use documents like this one, of which aim I have not been able to figure out since I found it next to the photocopy machine in the institution I work for. Puzzled?? Yes, me too.

Guess what? Some of the learners learn despite us.

 

3. Crushing confidence by constantly correcting errors and focusing on mistakes rather than meaningful and timely praising

Mistakes mean that the learner is trying to learn. So long as the focus is not just accuracy, we need to learn how to postpone our feedback on mistakes. In written work, who likes it when it is full of red ink correction! I remember once, I had given a composition to my Italian teacher with all my enthusiasm and belief in the best work I could have come up with. I will never forget how my heart had sunk whe nI saw all the mistakes on the paper:(. Did I ever look at that paper again? Did I try to learn from these mistakes? No! Even though I am an eager language learner in general who was willing to learn Italian at the time. How about giving focused error correction instead of correcting every single mistake?

4. Using Worksheets with Azar type exercises as class materials:

Fill in the blanks with the correct form of the verbs given in the brackets.

Remember that instruction? Exactly 🙂 All of us have given them; some of us have given them sometimes, some of us have given them when we are too lazy, a few of us have given them when it was absolutely necessary, for whatever the reason is. Those of us who wanted to make learners autonomous have taken them with a pinch of salt. Why? How can one learn how to retain the required language in real life by answering these type of decontextualised, mechanical and non- personalized exercises? See the sample on the left; who can tell me the learning objective of this material? Who can tell me the learning outcome or the communicative value of it? Please let me know if you do. I certainly cannot.

5. Not teaching strategies while teaching skills and subskills

Scan the text below and answer the questions. OR listen to the tape recorder and answer the questions below. OR OK, you two, you are working in pairs. Here are the role cards, OK. A: You have a headache and you are complaining about it to your friend. B: You give suggestions to your friend. Now go. OR OK, everybody, I’d like you to write about the most important day in your life in 10 minutes. Well, you know past tense, you can do it, no complaints, come on!

How about sparing a few minutes before showing a few different strategies/models to do the task and sparing a few minutes more after the activity for double- checking how it is achieved instead of just checking the answers with the strongest in the front seats.

6. Not teaching different ways of recording vocabulary

Different people learn lexis differently. It is our job to show them as many techniques as we can for them to choose from. Research says that students learn only 20% of their vocabulary thanks to us. Teaching them ways of recording them will help them retrieve the words when they need it. It will help them reach autonomy. After all, we will not be able to teach them 7000-8000 word families that allow them to become completely independent and fluent users of English (Schmitt, 2008)!

 

Assumption is a dangerous thing especially in the world of education

Many years ago, I heard from George Pickering that when you assume, you make an ‘Ass’, out of ‘U’ and ‘Me’. When years pass, I can’t agree more.
The literal meaning of assumption is the act of taking for granted or supposing. In other words, you choose to believe something that you suppose without proof, without double checking..

Have you ever thought how much assumption is going on in our daily lives? Well, recently I have been.. Here are a few things I came out with;

I assume my husband would read my mind and magically know what I really want, for example. When he doesn’t, I am shocked and disappointed :).

 What about the stakeholders in the educational institutions?

The higher education councils assume that everyone who graduates from the university to become a teacher is a great teacher already. They assume that the system works greatly. They assume that it is easy to teach and learn languages. They assume that the policies they made years ago have been working well for years.

Managers assume that the decisions they give are clearly understood and welcome by all the employees. They assume that all the mails they send are read thoroughly. They assume that their messages are not interpreted very very differently and speculated about. They assume that systems the establish work fairly. They assume everyone believes that they are doing their best. Sometimes they assume that long meetings are productive. They sometime assume that their promises which have not been kept are forgotten in time. They assume that when the syllabus is given to the teachers they will go and teach it as suggested in the best way. They assume that the rubrics are understood and used by everyone perfectly.

Teachers assume that the students can understand what they have been teaching in class all through the lesson, or the opposite of it. I mean, they assume that students cannot discover the language points from the contextual clues and the guiding questions. They assume that they should spoon-feed the students to make sure that the language point has been understood. Sometimes they assume that a student who comes late to their lesson is actually disrespectful and rude. Sometimes they assume that students who are bored in class are bored because of their teaching styles. Teachers sometimes believe that the managers don’t understand them at all.

Publishers assume that the books they produce are great and institutions can use them efficiently all the time. They assume that one size fits all. They assume that teachers read the preface, the teaching manuals and know the methodology behind the course books while picking the books.

Parents assume that their kids always go to school to learn and benefit from the lessons. They assume that their children ask meaningful questions to learn more and improve themselves. They assume that their children never skip lessons. They assume that when they pay more the get better education.

Students assume that teachers and the management know what they are doing very well. Or the opposite, they assume that nobody knows anything. They assume that collating enough points just to pass means they have learned everything necessary. They assume that finishing the course means they are competent. They assume that just being in class will be enough.

On the otherhand, should we never assume? Well, look at this quote and decide. Like everything, a good balance will bethe answer.. I assume:)

“If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance.”

Wright, Orville

 

 

When Sabancı eclipsed our expectations…

logosabanciIn general, when the name Sabancı University has been involved anything, you expect a certain quality without being actually there or seeing it yourself. Sabancı University 2nd International Conference on Language Education that was organized by the School of Languages on June 2-4 called Eclipsing Expectations was no exception. There was definitely certain quality from A to Z of the whole conference. Below are what I was impressed by most;
wilhelm-von-humboldt1. The former Rector’s opening speech; founding rector Professor Tosun Terzioğlu started with the quotation by Wilhelm Von Humboldt in 1820. “The diversity of languages is not a diversity of signs and sounds, but a diversity of views of the world.” Terzioğlu exemplified this spot on statement by means of a simple children’s song calle “Brother John” that has been translated into many languages from German to Thai. He underlined the fact that the translations of this song to different languages literally depicted the viewpoint and the culture of the countries in question.
2. The student Plenary speeches; I really liked hearing the voices of the most important people in the classroom, learning more about their perspective and what has motivated them most in their journey of learning languages in a conference. They were highly successful and special people for sure, still their experience and anecdotes they show langugaes are learnedhared were appreciated by the audience.
patsy3. Patsy Lightbown, whose book “How languages are learned” that she co-authored with Spada, N has been read by most of ELT people, came all the way from Canada. Just having the experience of meeting and talking to her was great. However, I was lucky enough to host her in my presentation at the conference on June 4 entitled “Size matters in teaching vocabulary in ELT”. Not only that, she was kind enough to write to me and praised my session:)
Tony Humphreys4. Tony Humphreys; That was the second time I had the chance to meet and talk to him. The first time I saw him was 2003 at BİLGİ, he was inviteThe power ofd by my former director Oya Basaran as a guest a different kindspeaker to the English Language Departmemyself my partnernt. Listening to him and thinking deeply about what he underlines as a clinic psychologist for us educators was another wonderful opportunity. I loved the idea of Breakfast with Tony. When I first met him I read his books called Myself, My Partner, A different Kind of Teacher and The Power of Negative Thinking. I am planning to read his new books now.

5. Last but not least, Dr Christine Coombe’s direct and friendly approach to the issue of assessment and testing, lovely Nur Kurtoglu- Hooton from Aston University and her incredible anecdote about her son, of course dear Deniz Kurtoglu-Eken’s speech on the different chains of perceptions in a classroom, the lively and joyful songs of the opening band, all the other cultural events such as the Japanese band and the wonderful premises and educational opportunities that Sabancı University can offer to the students and teachers.

I have to conclude with a few things to consider next time; the issue of paying for almost everything (lunch, shuttle and the activities) although you have already paid for the conference fee, the shuttle hours that have not been synchronized with the conference closing hours and the heavy conference bags.