Learner and Teacher Autonomy in language education

1
Learner and Teacher Autonomy in language education

• KWOK Chee Ying Henry 10401474
• LAM Yan Yin Felix 10401210
• LAU Tik Sang Dickson 09401482
• LEE Chi Leung Edmund 10401237
• TAM Ming Sum Sammy 09401490

2
What is your goal

• as an English Teacher?

3
Autonomy

• Creating spaces

4
Constraints
Time
Class size
Classroom Discipline
Resources
Family
Student diversity
Exams Oriented Culture
Workload
Scheme of Work
Lack of Training
EDB
School Politics
5
Teacher Autonomy

• Benson (2000) right to freedom from control

• Little (1995) capacity to engage in
• self-directed teaching

• Smith (2000) teachers autonomy as learners

6
Teacher Autonomy

• Aoki (2000) autonomous teachers
• the capacity, freedom, and responsibility to
  make choices concerning ones own teaching

7
Learner Autonomy

• Would it be great if students can learn by
  themselves?
• Misconception learning without a teacher
• Little (1991) capacity for taking control of
  learning

8
Teacher Autonomy Dimensions

• Classroom-based approach to the development of
  learner autonomy (Sinclair 2000)
• Prominence of learner autonomy as a goal
• Promoting learner autonomy
• Structuring and scaffolding reflective learning
• Learning pedagogy for autonomy
• student are to learn to take control and teacher
  may need to let go.

Reflection When to let go, when to control?
9
Teacher Autonomy Dimensions
PSYCHOLOICAL TECHNICAL POLITICAL
a strong sense of personal responsibility (continuous reflection and analysis) how pedagogical skills can be acquired uniform staff development programs classroom observations
Capacity for self-directed professional action Capacity for self-directed professional development Freedom from control by others over professional action or development
10
Linking together
PSYCHOLOICAL
TECHNICAL
In order to promote learner autonomy, teachers
may need to have
Teacher Training Pedagogy for foster autonomy
Teacher Reflection Learning together with
students as a student
1. Capacity for self-directed teaching
2. Freedom from control over their teaching
3. Capacity for self-directed teacher-learning
Capacity to grant learners freedom in learning
Able to apply to their teaching
Teachers to be an autonomous learner
POLITICAL
Exam Oriented Culture
Teacher Education (e.g. PGDE)
11
Linking together
Teacher Autonomy
Creating Spaces
TECHNICAL
PSYCHOLOICAL
Attitudes, Skills, and Knowledge (ASK)
Life-long Learning
Learner Autonomy
POLITICAL
Motivated
Better Language Learning
12
Language Teaching

• Autonomy in ELT?

13
Autonomy vs. Methods
Methods Grammar Translation Direct Method Audio- Lingual CLT TBL
Materials Design
Autonomy
14
Autonomy in Language Teaching

• Grammar translation method
• Assigned teaching materials
• Little autonomy
• Direct method
• Find examples from every day vocabulary and
  sentences
• Little autonomy
• Audio-lingual method
• Follow model dialogue and teach through
  repetition drilling
• Little autonomy

15
Autonomy in Language Teaching

• Communicative Language Teaching
• It is unified but broadly based, theoretically
  well informed set of tenets about the nature of
  language learning and teaching. (Brown H.D.
  2001)
• Design learning activities and tasks involving
  real-life communication
• Autonomy

16
Autonomy in Language Teaching

• Task based learning
• Skehans (1998) concept of TBL
• Meaning is primary
• Communication problem to solve
• Relationship to comparable real-world activities
• Task completion
• Assessment of the task in terms of outcome
• Select authentic materials
• Autonomy

17
Summary (Autonomy vs. Methods)
Methods Grammar Translation Direct Method Audio- Lingual CLT TBL
Materials Design Assigned prepared in advance Examples from every day Repetition drilling Design learning activities Authentic
Autonomy
18
Sharing
19
Henry

• After school enhancement classes (S3 S6)
• Drilling on TSA/ HKCEE / HKALE / HKDSE past paper
• No autonomy
• After school enhancement classes (S1, S2, S4, S5)
• Less Drilling on past paper
• Flexible group activities games
• Autonomy

20
Australian Primary School NET

• Syllabus and teaching materials from EDB
• (Primary Literacy Reading Program PLP-R)
• (Primary Literacy Reading/Writing Program
  PLP-R/W)
• Autonomy in group activities games with P1 P2
• touch the words
• tailor-made chess board
• baseball score card
• CVC (Consonants Vowels Consonants ) word game
• singing the left right songs, letter songs,
  etc.

21
Felix

• Teacher
• Time limitation
• Syllabus, lesson time, assessments, etc.
• Belief
• If you believe, you will
• Encourage reflection
• Students
• Meaning
• What to express before how
• Motivation
• Need
• Cultural teachers responsibility (Sakai, Takagi
  and Chu 2010)

22
Dickson

• Scheme of work
• Form coordinators deliver the scheme of work to
  form teachers.
• Have to finish teaching the units and specific
  items within the assigned periods.
• Teachers
• Design worksheets, hangouts and any other
  teaching materials other than the textbooks in
  order to fit the needs of their own classes
• Always encourage and reinforce students that they
  are capable and smart enough to learn more
• Assign more challenging tasks and teach more
  advanced level items

23
Dickson

• Students
• believe they are capable so they are willing to
  accept extra tasks.
• develop a habit that reading Young Post and write
  down new vocabulary items on their Learning Log
  every day.
• submit news summary and reflections which are not
  assigned by the teacher.
• apply those new items in their writing and
  speaking tasks.

24
Edmund

• Teacher
• Creating spaces out of constraints
• Teach Junior High if possible
• Try to pick the essentials to teach from the
  Scheme of Work
• Spare as much free time to discuss the weekly
  news
• Learner autonomy true believer of self-directed
  learning
• Students
• Weekly reading and writing as a habit
• Reading (Authentic Materials One news article
  weekly)
• Writing (News report - encourage students
  reflection)
• Insist on marking with feedbacks on their weekly
  writings
• Exam-oriented culture as the external driver

25
(No Transcript)
26
Sammy

• Background of the school
• A Band 3 secondary school
• A connection between the local school and the
  American Lutheran Church.
• Department of International Interface
• American volunteers visit the campus by promoting
  Christianity and English learning through playing
  games, singing songs, visiting local families,
  participating in the lessons, etc.

27
Sammy

• Teacher autonomy promotes learner autonomy
  through
• Support by the Principal
• Participating several activities with the
  volunteers from the US (sightseeing, dining,
  worshipping, etc.)
• Communication gt learning English for exam

28
Sammy

• Teacher Autonomy
• Constraint (Senior secondary school)
• Society Expect HKDSE takers have certain
  proficiency level
• Parents Expect the school has more drilling and
  practice
• Curriculum Senior form ( preparing for the
  HKDSE)
• Time constraint Remedial classes for different
  subjects
• Feasible
• Junior form
• Language arts
• Appreciation and enjoyment of the language
• American studies lesson (culture, living style,
  activities)
• Facebook connection with the US volunteers

29
Sammy

• Evaluation
• Not everyone in the school has the opportunity to
  participate
• Able to create the space to enhance both teacher
  and student autonomy in junior level.
• Enhancing the autonomy in their early age would
  strength the possibility of the development of
  whole-life learning

30
Discussion

• How can you create more spaces for yourself?

31
References
32
References

• Benson (2010). Teacher education and teacher
  autonomy Creating spaces for experimentation in
  secondary school English Language teaching.
  Language Teaching Research, 14(3), 259-275.
• Benson Huang (2008). Autonomy in the transition
  from foreign language learning to foreign
  language teaching. DELTA Revista de Documentacao
  de Estudos em Linguistica Teorica e Aplicada,
  421-439.
• Brown, H. D. (2001). Teaching by principles An
  interactive approach to language pedagogy (2nd
  Edition). New York Addison Wesley Longman
• Sakai, S., Takagi, A., Chu, M.P. (2010),
  Promoting Learner Autonomy Student Perceptions
  of Responsibilities in a Language Classroom in
  East Asia. Educational Perspectives v43
• Skehan, P. (1998). A cognitive approach to
  language learning. Oxford Oxford University
  Press.
• Smith R.C. (2003). Teacher education for
  teacher-learner autonomy. Centre for English
  Language Teacher Education (CELTE). University of
  Warwick. UK.

33

• The End
• Thank you