Teach your students to fly…without you…

 "A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary." Thomas Carruthers

This quote seems to go against everything that we learned about the role of a teacher and what we perceive to be our identity as teachers. As teachers, most of us learned that our role is to guide, to show the way, to lead. This assumes that we know better than our students, that they need us to learn and thus, that we are of course necessary!

The roles we associate with our profession become part of our identity as teachers and when something appears to challenge their relevance it might feel like a part of our identity is being taken out, and we might ask ourselves what is left of our profession.

I found the quote while searching for quotes on learner autonomy. I did not agree with it when first read it, but it caught my attention for how provocative and bold it sounds and I thought there had to be more to it.

How can a teacher be unnecessary? Why would anyone even think that it necessary for a teacher to make themselves unnecessary? My answer would be, 'only if it proved good for my students’ learning', and started reflecting on how my progressively becoming unnecessary could mean something good for my students.

In today’s world, whether we feel comfortable about the idea or not, the truth is that there is much more knowledge and learning opportunities outside the classroom than inside. Looking specifically at English teaching, in some contexts limited time, lack of resources and class size are big constraints in creating practise opportunities in the classroom. It is not easy (I am avoiding the word impossible) to give practice opportunities and monitor the performance of 80 to 100 in a 45-to-90-minute English lesson. It seems reasonably that we should take advantage of other sources and modes of learning outside the classroom, and because we will not be there, we need to help our students to use those opportunities on their own. One way this can be achieved is through the use of technology, and among others, the British Council's LearnEnglish website seems like a good option.

LearnEnglish is a self-study English learning website for adult learners which contains various sessions tailored to different language levels, skills and needs. Some resources are paid but there are also good free resources which makes it a good alternative for low resourced contexts. Sessions include language input and exposure and there also production tasks that involve online discussions and downloadable worksheets for students to practise.

There is a page on the site where learners can test their English level preferably before starting using it to help them find the appropriate material. I find this particularly useful in EFL contexts where the CEFR framework is not used and students often cannot tell what is their English level making it sometimes difficult to choose the appropriate material.

 

As useful as the website is for English learning and in helping students become more autonomous, it is important to acknowledge that learner autonomy is still not a solid concept in some contexts where teachers are culturally expected to take control. Because students look upon teachers, in such contexts the change should start from the teacher; we should believe in autonomy ourselves and then guide our students into gradually becoming independent to the point of in some moments – yes – not needing us to learn.

Because LearnEnglish is designed for self-study and targeted to adult learners, we might wrongly think that students should learn and start to use it on their own. In my experience once trying a similar tool (BBC's Learning English ) I learned that in contexts where students expect the lead to be taken from the teacher, only recommending a tool and directing students to it is not enough. The result can be students visiting and not doing any task or not visiting it at all. I thus believe that teaching autonomy in such contexts should be a gradual process where students are shown the learning opportunity or tool, how useful it can be and then how they can use it on their own.

Here are some ideas on how you could use the LearnEnglish website:

• Start with linking your lessons and the website. This can be done by designing an activity that requires the use of the website, one which can start in the classroom and progress to the website or vice versa. For example, in this Speaking session involving a discussion at the end, students could be invited to carry on the discuss in the classroom. This could be done in two or three lessons.

 

 

• The next step could be students trying to make sense of the website features and say which parts or sessions they like most. They could refer to the activities that they have being doing or other parts of the website they find interesting. By this stage students will hopefully have developed some familiarity with the website and saw the connection with their learning;
• The final step would be asking students to think of which language aspects they would like to improve, finding out their level by taking the online test on the website and making a study plan based on those. The potential in this is that they will have to reflect on their learning by identifying their needs and making independent decisions on what to learn.  This could be followed by sessions where they share what they have learned.

Some aspects to bear in mind:

• As you might have inferred, the use of the website involves internet costs, and this is something you should think about when considering using it by making sure there are opportunities for students to access the Internet outside the classroom. This could be in your school, some public spaces, or their homes or workplaces;
• Another thing, as mentioned earlier, is that autonomy is not a culture everywhere so be patient and supportive if students do not respond positively at first;
• Be conscious that using the website means adding two more aspects to English learning. In addition to learning the language, students have to learn to use the website and learn to learn independently. Bear this in mind and make sure you create room for them to become familiar with the new components and be prepared to the possibility of one interfering with another at some point.

We certainly need to be aware of challenges but we should focus more on the opportunities. The website is a rich learning source and tool, an opportunity to practise autonomy and to challenge your roles and beliefs as a teacher and your relationship with your students:

• Being so rich and varied, the website becomes an immense source of learning - isn’t it what we all want for our students, after all?
• LearnEnglish offers a safe learning environment: students can try exercises as many times as they want, they are free to get answers wrong, they can practise pronunciation as many times they want with no one checking (and without the teacher having to interrupt to give opportunity for others to practise);
• Students can decide when, where and what to study – every learner’s dream!
• By encouraging students to learn outside the classroom you do not lose your teacher identity, you are reshaping it by adapting to changing circumstances;
• When you create opportunities for students to learn without you, you show that you trust your students’ potential and you also trust yourself: that you have given the right and enough directions;
• Lastly (teacher to teacher), with the heavy teaching loads we have, sometimes you secretly just wish someone else did part of your job…Don’t you?

Let me know what you think in the comments. :) 

Thank you for reading and see you next week!

Cândida

Credits: All images included in this post are screenshots of pages from the British Council's LearnEnglish website at https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/