Students who are actively involved in deciding what and how they learn are typically more engaged and motivated.
That¡¯s not surprising, because independent learners are extremely focused on their personal learning objectives.
, independent learning is ¡°a process, a method and a philosophy of education whereby a learner acquires knowledge by his or her own efforts and develops the ability for inquiry and critical evaluation."
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In the context of language learning, independent learners can recognize their learning needs, locate relevant information about language and develop the required language skills on their own or with other learners.
There are many advantages of encouraging independent learning among your students:
Not only will these benefits help your students while learning English, but they¡¯ll also benefit them at school, university and even in their day-to-day lives.
Some of your students may already be independent learners; however, most will need your support to become more autonomous.
Here are seven ways you can help:
Sharing learning goals with your class helps students to see what they¡¯re aiming for and they¡¯ll also be able to assess afterwards? whether they¡¯ve achieved it or not. This can be done at the beginning of a lesson or series of lessons or even as a lesson progresses.
Although many teachers set the goals themselves, if you want to create a really independent learning experience, elicit them directly from the students. A simple question could be, ¡°What do you think this activity is helping you get better at?¡±
Another thing to consider is setting different goals for different learners, depending on their strengths and weaknesses. This will be much easier if the students are setting their own goals. For example, when doing a task focused on the speaking paper in an exam course, one student¡¯s objective might be to give extended answers, while another might want to use more discourse markers.
Once your students have set their goals, they need to start thinking about how they¡¯ll reach them.
One way to help them get on track is to provide them with a set of ¡®success criteria¡¯, which acts like a roadmap for the different tasks they need to complete. If your students understand what they need to do to be successful, they¡¯ll progress much faster and be more motivated when they see how far they¡¯ve come.
If one of your student¡¯s goals is to improve their grammatical accuracy in the C1 Advanced speaking exam, for example, you could give them a rubric (like the one below) which they can use to assess their own performance.
Keep your assessment categories as positive as possible (for example, 'solid', 'good' and 'acing it') and link it to the official exam criteria where possible.
Students should constantly be encouraged to reflect on their performance and whether they¡¯ve met their learning goals. This will help them become more aware of their strengths, weaknesses and the progress they¡¯re making. Recognition of progress will help build confidence and motivation.
Opportunities for assessment and reflection don¡¯t need to take a lot of time. Spending two minutes at the end of the class asking students questions like ¡®What can you do better now than at the start of the lesson?¡¯ will help learners develop critical meta-cognitive skills.
Teacher feedback also helps students develop the skills needed to become more independent. Offer feedback in a supportive and sensitive manner, making positive observations alongside any criticism.
Effective feedback should allow learners to understand where they currently are in their learning, where they¡¯re heading and how they¡¯ll get there.
Feedback shouldn¡¯t only come from the teacher. You should also get students to evaluate each other¡¯s progress during and after an activity. Peer feedback is not only advantageous to the student receiving it, but there are also many reflective benefits of giving feedback to someone else.
It¡¯s impossible for students to become independent learners if you make all the decisions for them. Giving students the opportunity to make decisions about their learning will give them greater autonomy. However, this should be a gradual process and not all students will be ready to take 100% control from the outset.
Start with small decisions first and ask questions such as:
This devolvement of responsibility built up over time will help learners to become more independent.
It's incredible to know that there are thousands of languages spoken across the world, each with its unique set of challenges for learners. A question that often pops up is: "Which language is the hardest to learn?". Today we take a closer look at this question and consider different factors that make learning a language challenging.
Preparing students for the modern world of work can be challenging; it's constantly adapting and changing which can be hard to keep track of. Today's post is a Q&A on the teaching of employability skills and the essential skills and qualities students need to thrive in the 21st century. offers insights to answer common questions and help you improve your language teaching skills.
My advice is to push the issue back to the students by putting them in groups and asking each group to identify a different job/career that involves people working with others. Then ask "What would happen if this job was competitive?instead of collaborative?" You may have to re-explain the concepts, but let students write a little story about a situation in which the workers suddenly all turn competitive.
For example, It was chaos in the women's soccer/football game. All the members of the blue team suddenly became competitive. Each one still wanted to win, but each decided that she would shoot a ball into the other team's net. This included the goalie, who ran up to the front of the field and purposely shoved and tripped members of her team ¡.
Or for more traditional jobs, In the middle of the operation the nurse pushed the doctor out of the way and picked up the instrument. The patient also wasn¡¯t completely asleep, and he tried to do the operation himself, then ¡
It's all absurd, of course, but it can lead into other tasks asking students why collaboration is so important in each job. Then, turning it back to language, what kinds of language does each profession require to collaborate? For soccer/football players, this includes shouted requests and commands:?Pass the ball to me! Shoot!?as well as hand and body gestures. Similarly, doctors require professional jargon:?Pass me the scalpel, please.?Rather than?Give me the pointy knife thing!
One hundred years ago, in 1923, Thomas Edison predicted that motion pictures would replace teachers and books. Since then, similar predictions have been made for radio, TV and computers. It hasn't happened, and one of the reasons is that we crave the human touch in our teaching and learning. I recently read. "When it comes to getting knowledge to stick, there may be no substitute for human relationships. ¡ I've been to former students' weddings and baby showers and funerals of their parents," says Millard, the high school English teacher in Michigan. "I've hugged my students. I've high-fived my students. I've cried with my students. A computer will never do that. Ever, ever.¡±(Waxman, 2023, para. 21-22)
But, that doesn¡¯t mean teachers should stop learning about new technologies. We need to keep finding ways for them to help us and our language learners in the classroom. It can seem overwhelming, though, which is why I recommend shifting responsibility to students: ¡°Do any of you know about ChatGPT? Yes? How do you think you could use it to help you learn?¡± ??? ?
Although the world is in many ways competitive, there are countless examples of how students will do better by collaborating. Most of our students today won't be working in environments where they are competing against their co-workers. Instead, they'll be in teams and need critical thinking and negotiation skills to help them do so.
One way forward is to ensure that your classroom features more collaborative activities. Get students working in pairs and groups on all their assignments, but also create a buddy system so students always have someone else to ask for help. For example, if they're having to read a text and come across difficulties, it's often easier for them to text or call a friend than to wait until the next class. After a few collaborative activities, discuss collaboration versus competition with students and ask them which they prefer. Also, ask them for examples of what their friends and family members do regarding collaborating and competing.
As always, it's better to lead students to understand a new idea than to tell them.
If you want to learn more, make sure to check out Ken's webinar here. If you'd like to learn more about teaching future skills to students check out?21st-century skills and the English language classroom.
Ehsan Gorji is an Iranian teacher, teacher trainer and teacher educator. He also designs strategic plans, devises study syllabuses, runs quality-check observations, and develops materials and tests for different language institutes and schools in the country. Ehsan has been a GSE Thought Leader and Expert Rater since 2016.?
Reflective teaching, despite it sounding modern and sophisticated, has not yet become a common practice among English language teachers. However, the experiential??proposed by??offers a practical approach for teachers. The cycle involves teaching a lesson, reflecting on "what we did" and "how we did them," and then using that reflection to improve future English classes. By using this approach, teachers can prepare for better teaching in the long term.
