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/

WebQuests

This week’s post will be about WebQuests!

WebQuests are a tool where students work collaboratively in a series of activities to complete a task by making use of information provided to them from the web. By doing this, students practise their language, critical thinking and collaboration skills.

WebQuests seem to be linked to the notion of Task Based Learning which is a method developed from the social constructivist theory of language learning where language is believed to be better learned through social interactions and collaboration.

A good example of what WebQuests are can be found in the original website at http://questgarden.com/. The design does not look very modern but unlike most current online teaching tools, it does not contain a lot of unnecessary information that can sometimes distract users. It is simple and easy to navigate, and I find this particularly practical for contexts where students – and teachers – are beginners in the use of technology. See the image below for an illustration.

 

QuestGarden home page

 

•  How it works: task design

1. It follows the general principles of teaching, where planning is the first step. Here, the teacher will define all aspects that would be included in a common lesson plan, such as defining the topic, objectives, considering students’ profile, materials and resources available, time, etc. Special attention should be paid to assess the availability of the resources needed and students’ literacy skills as the tool requires browsing the web for specific information. The teacher also needs to make sure the task can fit into the design/format of WebQuests.
2. Think of a real word context where students would need to use language for and to find information to complete a specific task. It must be realistic and something your students will relate to.
3. Design the task and the process. Set the goal of the task, the kind of information needed and where it is to be found, the roles students need to take to find the information in an efficient way and what they have to do with the information they find.
4. Decide on how students will present (orally or written) their final product.
5. Design an evaluation sheet with clear criteria that will be used in marking.

 

• How it works: using the tool

You need to create an account on QuestGarden where you will get more information about WebQuests and learn how to create one. At this link you will find a sample WebQuest task, entitled Oh, the Possibilities!: Choosing an English Language Course Abroad.

 In this task students are asked to plan a trip for an immersion English course abroad, by completing a series of activities:

• Decide on which city to travel to;
• Assign roles and look for information accordingly (flights, accommodation, costs involved, etc);
• Write a proposal including a detailed plan of activities and budgeting;
• Present the proposal to the class and convince the audience to approve the plan.

I like the simple design of the site, with clear instructions on the left-hand side column where you can navigate through and get more details. I particularly like the Process part because it better illustrates how process shaped and collaborative WebQuests are.

  

Oh, the Possibilities WebQuest

 

The site has both Student and Teacher Page. However, apart from the Introduction, there is no information at all on the Teachers page.

 

Oh, the Possibilities WebQuest Teacher Page

 

Another aspect that does not sit well with me is the Introduction in the students page that looks more appropriate, in my opinion, to teachers. In fact, the same information is available on the Teachers’ page, as you can see in the previous picture, and I think a more student directed message should be added on the students page.

Oh, the Possibilities WebsQuest Student’s page

 

It seems that both users can access each other’s page. This is different from what we see in most learning platform today, where teachers have access to the students’ version and the opposite is not the case. I am not very sure whether this is good or bad, but I wonder if there is a specific reason for this and I would be interested to know what it is.

Another part I found interesting is the Evaluation section. Here we see information about how students will be evaluated in the task, and we can see that not only language skills per se are evaluated but other skills involved in accomplishing the task. I think it is an acknowledgement of the fact that language use is not only about using the right words and applying rules correctly, that there are others skills and it makes all the sense that those aspects are included in the assessment.

 

 

Oh, the Possibilities! WebQuest Evaluation Criteria

I hope you will agree with me that WebQuests are worth a try. They are not a new thing, but I find them very rich in the possibilities they offer to cater form different aspects of language learning and other skills associated to the process.

The advantages of WebQuests can be summed up as follows:  

• User friendly
• Process design
• Explores higher order skills
• Promotes collaboration
• There is integration of skills

Some aspects - that I would not call drawbacks - that you should bear in mind are:

• Web searching can mean internet costs.
• One has to have a paid account to make the most of the website’s functionalities, which can be an issue in context where schools are low resourced, and teachers have low income.  

Thank you for reading and let us know what you think in the comments.

 

See you next week,

 Cândida