Let Students Decide What They Want to Learn
Senseionline
Benkyoukai/Tappedin Summer Carnival
July
17, 2002
©Kyoko
Saegusa
Senior
Instructor of Japanese
East
Asian Languages and Civilizations
University
of Colorado at Boulder
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Is what I am doing in my classes relevant to my
students?
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Am I really helping my students learn?
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What am I? What is the role of the teacher?
If you have been asking these questions, you might just
want to let students decide what they
want to learn.
I have been an instructor of foreign languages (Japanese
and ESL) for 2 decades, but have been a student of foreign languages for 4
decades. During those 4 decades, I
have attempted to learn a few languages, had numerous teachers, and have been
exposed to a wide variety of methods, but the bulk of my experience has been in
classroom settings. Most of my teaching experience has been at the college level,
with a few occasional high school special interest or summer intensive classes
and adult learner classes.
When I studied TESOL in the 70’s, in a methodology class
I was introduced to a trio of what was then called innovative approaches to
foreign language learning: The Silent Way1,
Counseling Learning/Community Language Learning2, and Suggestopedia3.
These three approaches have affected my philosophy and approach to
foreign language education ever since. One thing I took to heart from the teachings of these
three educators is summed up in Gattegno’s words below:
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Students must relate to the new language and practice it
to make it their own; to relate to anything else is a distraction and
distractions interfere with learning.
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Teachers must be concerned with what the students are
doing with themselves rather than with the language, which is the students’
concern. Teachers and students work on different subjects. (Caleb Gattegno, the common sense of teaching foreign
languages, p. vii. Educational
Solutions, N.Y. 1976)
Being a bit of a rebel, I was drawn to these three
teachers who conceived and developed the three approaches named above partly
because they were not “professional language teachers.” Gattegno started out as a scholar of
mathematics, Curran is a counselor/psychologist, and Lozanov is a
psychotherapist.
The self-learning principle led me to re-evaluate my
practice in the following areas:
1.
The role and responsibilities of the teacher (The Silent
Way, collaborative learning, CL/CLL, reflective learning and teaching)
2.
Development of learner autonomy and motivation (The
Silent Way, self-directed learning, the psychological and existential aspect of
language learning, personality types and language aptitude)
3.
Understanding acquisition/learning processes and
implementing learning strategies (2nd language acquisition theories,
strategy-based learning, language aptitude)
4.
Improving classroom environment and culture (learner
autonomy, collaborative learning, technology, task work, project work)
The following areas of concern have become obvious to me
in my quest:
1.
Research shows that the sequence in which the teacher
presents materials in the foreign language class is not necessarily the
sequence in which the student learns and acquires the language. Much research in specific languages has
to be done in this area. In the
meantime, what is the teacher’s responsibility in this area?
2.
What goes in must come out, but we must find what is the
optimal input and how to maximize the output. Most tests designed by teachers are based on what is taught
(presented) in class, and they often do not reflect what is processed by
students. It is assumed that what
“went in” would “come out” the way the teacher intends.
3.
We must understand the relationship among personality
types, learning styles, language aptitude of both learners and the instructor,
and the learner’s ulterior motive.
To that end, the teacher must observe what the learner does in the
process of learning. The teacher
must know how to assess where the learner is psychologically, developmentally,
and intellectually in the class.
4.
We must find ways in which individual students’ needs are
met in a classroom situation.
A strategy emerged as I tried to address the concerns
described above: Let students decide
what they want to learn, while the teacher becomes a “lurker” as s/he watches
learning taking place. Here, I
am not talking about students devising their own curriculum. It is more about the selectiveness any
learner demonstrates where s/he “decides” how much to take in from the input
the teacher provides. The analogy
would be that of a buffet banquet where what is on the table is the same for
everyone but each guest decides what and how much to put on her/his plate, and,
it’s totally up to the guest whether to be sensible or not. The chef’s job is
to design the banquet carefully so that it gives enough options for everyone at
the party. We assume that each
guest is responsible for her/his own well being, and that s/he knows the needs
of her/his metabolic system.
In the (language) classroom, the teacher can and should
actually do more than just assume that the learner is sensible. We in fact can do all kinds of
exercises to develop learners’ awareness of selves. We can train them to see the benefit of working
collaboratively while being
self-reliant. Learning ultimately
is a very individual thing. For
this, the teacher must understand what learning entails.
Take the issue of “repetition,” for example. Humans are “programmed to learn,” that
is, we are not born with skills we need for survival, unlike other
animals. We seem to “imitate and
mimic” models, falteringly at first. It seems that we eventually get to the
point where we are authentic or near authentic. Until I encountered Gattegno’s
work, I hadn’t thought much about what “mimicry” and “repetition” meant.
Each of us is equipped with a
facility to utter what we hear.
Hence we should not be surprised that students can easily repeat but not
retain what a native speaker says.
The exercise of repetition only tells us that we are equipped to repeat,
not that repetition is our way of learning a language. Babies show us that they do not use
repetition for a good two or three years.
Every baby is aware that he must consciously utter what he wills, and
only then does he listen to it and use what he knows as an utterer and hearer
to identify what is being said by others. ( Caleb Gattegno, the common sense
of teaching foreign languages, p. 5.
Educational Solutions, N.Y.
1976)
Students learn regardless of, and sometimes in spite of,
what we teach. I think we,
teachers, have all experienced this at both sides of the podium. What we currently know as education has
a lot to do with conforming and subjugating oneself to the teachings of someone
else. That someone else may or may
not have legitimate authority over us, but “questioning authority” is for the
most part discouraged.
As I mentioned earlier, most of my foreign language learning
initiated in classrooms, and I have worked in the confines of the foreign
language curricula in US universities for the past 2 decades, and probably will
continue to do so for another decade.
I began experimenting with student-directed activities in US college
language classes in the 80’s. I
call them “projects.” I assign
them in all levels of instruction, including the very first semester of the
Japanese language curriculum. The
advantage of project work to teachers is that what learners propose and carry
out gives great insight into the workings of the learner’s mind.
I will describe two of the projects I assign
regularly.
I. Term Project: The learner has to design a project to improve one skill
(reading, writing, listening, or speaking), and work on it throughout the
semester.
A good part of the project is in the planning (just as
diagnosis is 90% of the therapy).
It is important that the student feels s/he has made the choice, that
s/he is in charge, and that s/he is solely responsible for the process and
outcome. It is hoped that the
learner develops awareness of what s/he has accomplished so far and what has to
be done to move forward as s/he becomes the teacher-learner.
Suggested activities for beginning learners include:
◇
Working with a conversation partner
◇
Keeping a journal
◇
Reading a beginning reader
◇
Exchanging letters (e-mail or long hand)
◇
Watching instructional videos
Obviously, most activities inevitably involve more than
one skill, but the learner is to work primarily on one skill. One important thing is that the learner
understand the importance of staying within certain boundaries, which are
defined by the current ability of the learner and a clear, attainable goal. For that reason, at the beginning
level, or for that matter, at any level, the scope of the project has to be
carefully defined. My experience
shows that learners with less aptitude or preparedness tend to be unrealistic,
and the instructor must somehow help such students become more efficient
learners. Self-directed projects,
if carefully designed, will be very appropriate for such individualized
instruction. For each
project a learner chooses, the goals and timeline have to be clearly and
realistically set. This is where
the instructor “interferes” the most.
The following activities are not recommended, although I
have OK’d them on occasion on an individual basis:
u Translating
a children’s book
u Reading
a children’s book
u Studying
grammar per se
u Studying
kanji per se (we have a separate kanji project for each level)
u Watching
TV programs, movies, and videos that are designed for native speaking Japanese
people
u Studying
culture
The procedure:
1.
The learner turns in the proposal within the first 2
weeks of a 16-week semester. The
instructor has an individual consultation if necessary. Form A.
2.
The learner submits a progress report half way through
the semester. Form B.
3.
The learner presents the results in a 5 minute presentation
in class(in English) at the end of the semester. Form C.
Up until now the instructor has evaluated the
project. My next step would be to
implement a serious peer evaluation procedure.
A variation of the term project in subsequent semesters
could be to limit the proposal to working on the weakest skill.
II. Teaching Project: We often say that the best
way to learn something is to teach it to someone else. I concur with this statement from my
own experience. Why not put it
into practice, then? There are two
kinds of “teaching project” assignments.
One is “formative,” in that the activity is simple, short, and done
while new material is still being drilled. The other is “summative,” and done toward the end of a unit.
As it turns out, the name, “teaching project”, is a bit
of a misnomer, since most of the students come to my classes with a very
conventional understanding of what “teaching” entails. I call the summative assignment “peer
review presentations” now. The requirements, proposal
format, and evaluation criteria for formative
and summative assignments are the same in principle. An example of the sign-up sheet is attached.
Procedure for a formative exercise: Typically, a student
creates a 5-minute lesson where one area of topic, a grammar point, or a
language function is practiced in a small group (3-5 students).
Procedure for a summative exercise: The student administers an 8-minute
review exercise at the end of a unit, two days before the unit exam. Topics are pre-selected by the
instructor (teacher-controlled).
The student submits a proposal/lesson plan
two days prior to the presentation. This is supposed to ensure accuracy in the
plan and also to minimize teacher interference at the time of the
presentation. The goals,
requirements, and steps to follow, along with the evaluation criteria are
handed out and also instructed in the first week of each semester.
To maximize student autonomy, at the time of the
presentation the class must direct all the questions to the presenter/teacher,
and the instructor is available as a consultant/informant. Otherwise, the teacher “lurks” around,
observing if and how the learning is happening, taking mental notes of where
students are having difficulties.
Her/his observations will be presented to the class the next day in the
form of teacher-directed review of the unit. This form of review has proven more useful and effective
than a one-way review of the unit.
I would now like to show several examples of the student
creations in the teaching project category. After a few examples, you will begin to see that teachers
really shouldn’t be generating exercises. I am showing only ones that are in
the 8 1/2 x 11 format here. Many
students make flash cards of various sorts, and also large size, full-color
maps, photo clippings, etc.
Regrettably, some gems are not readily scanned into the computer.
Level: JPNS1010 (first semester
of first year)
Level: JPNS1010 (first semester
of first year)
Topic: Spatial relationship and
position words
Level: JPNS1020 (second
semester of first year)
Topic: food, cooking, eating
out, flavors and tastes
Skills: integrative vocabulary
building
Level: JPNS2110 (first semester
of second year)
Topic: Grammar of giving
receiving
Level: JPNS2110 (first semester
of second year)
Level: JPNS2120 (second
semester of second year)
Topic: Grammar of causative
passive
(7)
Level: JPNS2120 (second semester of second year)
Grammar: Many uses of YOO
http://ucsub.colorado.edu/~fitzrand/yo.html
Level: JPNS2120 (second
semester of second year)
Level: JPNS2120 (second
semester of second year)
Level: JPNS3110 (first semester
of third year)
Task: Creating a reading
exercise using authentic reading material
Here are some comments from one class. As you can see, students react to,
respond to, and tackle the responsibility at different stages of readiness and
maturity.
The most effective aspects of this course were:
The least effective aspects of this course were:
In our program, all levels of Japanese language classes
assign student-directed “teaching projects.” Head instructors as well as teaching assistants have to
supervise and evaluate the projects.
Some have had better luck with it than others. We have not done any quantitative study of the effectiveness
of the assignment. There are too
many variables. If at all, only
qualitative research would be appropriate. I will try to articulate some of the things I have come to
understand from my experience.
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The role of grammar – attention to accuracy, student
perception of what mistakes are
You notice that I prohibit grammar drills and grammar
explanation as part of the teaching project in the
guidelines. Some teachers may
feel uneasy about not having grammar in the foreground of classroom
instruction. I can assure you that
you need not worry. Some of the teaching
project presentations are prime examples of what explicit grammar lessons do
and don’t do for learning. In one
presentation, the student explained grammar rules beautifully for a few
minutes. When it came to applying
the rules, the student ignored every rule he had explained and generated
ungrammatical sentences, and he didn’t even hear what he was saying.
“Bad” presentations are a great tool for fostering peer
correction and collaborative learning.
I changed the name of the assignment from “teaching project” to “peer
review presentation” when I realized that students’ perception of what teaching
was and what the teacher was expected to do were very conventional. I am reminded by such students that I
must explicitly explain my philosophy, approach, and methods in every class
every semester.
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Creativity vs. discipline
Some students, particularly those who are not “good
language learners,” tend to be too ambitious. They are not patient enough to build up their proficiency in
the target language. They tend to
think it an accomplishment to try to express what they can in their first
language using the new language they are just beginning to learn. They have to be instructed and trained
that they must forget about their ability in the first language when they work
on the new language, that they need to be (almost) a different person when they
try to express themselves in the new language. Spending too much time on non-linguistic aspects of the
presentation is another sign that the learner doesn’t know what it takes to
learn a new language.
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What to do with students who do not see the value of this
activity – student perception of what teaching is and what the teacher does
There are always a few students who do not and would not
understand the value of self-directed study and collaborative work. Their “problems” are not
linguistic. Oftentimes, I feel
sorry for them, as I see them as being beaten down by school, society, and
parents. You need to work with
such students outside the class, one at a time. Show genuine interest in what is going on in their lives,
and find out where they are stuck.
Don’t be afraid of confrontations.
If your concern is genuine, oftentimes there is a breakthrough.
As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, students’ idea of
what teaching entails, and what the teacher is supposed to do, are very
conventional. Do not assume that,
just because you do certain things that are based on humanistic principles,
students automatically understand where you are coming from. You must discuss this explicitly and
deliberately at the beginning of every semester, and have activities in which
students can experience the benefit of alternative ways. It is a slow, round-about way of training
students to be autonomous, but I haven’t found a shortcut.
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What the teacher does vs. what the student does
I design and control classroom activities at different
levels. I do teacher-centered
presentations of new materials, but when the time comes for peer review
presentations, I become a lurker.
Students know I am available for answering questions when the “real
teacher” gets stuck. The real
teacher doesn’t feel embarrassed or inhibited to ask me questions, but students
know that they are encouraged to solve problems on their own as much as
possible. When students understand
the value of autonomy, peer correction emerges and develops.
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Technology
To some students, technology is part of their existence,
while others genuinely feel that they and computers are incompatible. Most students fall somewhere in
between. I encourage students to
become “literate” in basic skills such as word processing, e-mailing, and searching the Net, all in the
target language. Beyond that, it’s
up to the student how much technology s/he incorporates into the project.
I have wavered between sticking with this assignment and
abandoning it altogether all along.
I believe that whatever I do for my students as a teacher ultimately has
to do with their personhood, and not with their language skills. I believe the teaching project
assignment fosters all kinds of values that I believe in: independent thinking,
autonomy and self reliance in learning, higher self-esteem, cooperative and
collaborative learning, respect for and tolerance of others. It is, for some reason, getting
harder rather than easier to have faith in this approach. Part of it has to do with the conflict
between what the system/institution I work in requires me to do and my personal
growth and maturity as a professional and human being. Part of it has to do with the changing
student clientele.
I would welcome suggestions, testimonials, and any ideas
you may have to foster learner autonomy.
1. Caleb
Gattegno, Teaching foreign languages in schools: the Silent Way,
Educational Solutions. N.Y. 1963
______________, The common
sense of teaching foreign languages,
Educational Solutions.
N.Y.1976
Earl W. Stevick, teaching
languages: a way and ways, Newbury House. Rowley, MA. 1980
2. Charles
A. Curran, Counseling-Learning in second language.
Apple River Press. IL. 1976
Earl W. Stevick, teaching
languages: a way and ways, Newbury House. Rowley, MA. 1980
3. S.
Ostrander & L. Schroeder, Super-learning. Dell Publishing, N.Y. 1979
Earl W. Stevick, teaching
languages: a way and ways, Newbury House. Rowley, MA. 1980
