Using Readers to Encourage Student

Autonomy

By Emel Ortaç

Student autonomy? You must be joking!

Preparation

What do my students need? What can I do to help them reach their goals? What kind of assessments will I do? Will my goals have been achieved? What will happen if I haven’t achieved them? What next?

Why involve students so much?

Students need:

AUDIENCE

VOICE

SPACE

to feel accepted& believing theiropinion counts.

For feeling ofownership &responsibilityin the

course design

seeing theend product

IMPACT

What do my students need?

By doing a quick self-assessment you can determine why the students is here:

Is it intrinsic? (is it because they have a passion, an interest…?)

Is it extrinsic? (is there an outside obligation like

CELPIP, IELTS...?)

Questions

What is your job? (If you’re a student, what do you study?)

What is your goal in learning English?

What do you want to improve?

Gathering data

Now what do we do with the information?

Get info

Individualize accordingto needs

Sort out students

Implement

Test

What can I do to help them reach their goals?

Support Guide Encourage Promote individual and group problem

solving Assess accordingly Step back

What kind of assessments will I do?

Self assessments (personal)

Realistic assessing (contextual-curriculum/group sensitive)

Supportive but not “spoon fed”

Keeping up-to-date portfolios (continuous assessment-personal)

Will my goals have been achieved?

Continuous assessment cuts out students lagging behind. Goals are set by the students, therefore they are motivated to work in order to achieve them.

Personalized assessment will make them feel encouraged and motivated. They have control over the end product more so than before.

What will happen if I haven’t achieved them?

Back to the drawing table. What did the student do or not do?

Set sub-goals that are more realistic and achievable in a shorter time.

Continue working towards each sub-goal.

What next?

Remember? Students need:

AUDIENCEIMPACT

VOICE

in thecourse design

seeing theend productand knowing

they wereinvolved all

the way

For feeling ofownership &responsibility

to feel accepted& believing theiropinion counts.

SPACE

Let the students decide!

Let them come up with ideas and vote on the best follow-up activities.

Suggestions: Do “reading theatre” Let them choose a part to act out in groups of three or four. Give them a creative writing activity.

So what about the teacher?

We supported, we guided, we assessed.

But before all of these things...

WE STUDIED!

The fact that the students design the course doesn’t mean we do nothing, we play a key role in this and without the teacher there would be no structure.

But where’s the “autonomy” part?

After all of the confidence building and techniques students can go home, read and come prepared more easily.

Thus resulting in smoother, quicker and more productive lessons over time.

More importantly, they can carry that independence into other areas of studying.

Only in a perfect world!

It is definitely not impossible but it does take lots of preparation on behalf of the teacher as well as the students.

Keeping attainable, positive and clear goals is the key.

Useful Resources

www.penguinreaders.com Free teacher’s resource materials Penguin Readers Factsheets Penguin Readers teacher’s guides

www.idiomconnection.com Alphabetically arranged Shows meaning and example sentences