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.
Have you considered studying abroad? Moving to Canada to study? With more than 100 world-class universities across the country, there¡¯s good reason to. From coast to coast to coast, it offers many international students a safe and supportive learning environment and the opportunity to work after graduation.
Want to learn more? In this guide, we cover ten things you should know about studying in Canada:
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Language skills have become increasingly important in the workplace as the world becomes more globalized and connected. Having the ability to communicate effectively in more than one language is very valuable, and with English being a leading lingua franca for businesses across the world, language skills sit at the heart of business success.
Here we highlight four top reasons why language skills are so valuable in the workplace.
Effective communication is the number one soft skill that employers look for, . Having strong language skills enables better communication with clients and colleagues, and also helps to work effectively with people from different cultures. It builds solid relationships and reduces frustration where customers or colleagues may otherwise feel that they are not understood or listened to.
Having different languages on your CV can really help to stand out among other candidates. For some industries it is essential, such as tourism, where it is necessary to serve clients from different countries, and this is also true where companies serve clients in international markets.
Where businesses are increasingly moving to hybrid working practices that can include teams spread across different countries and timezones, it is also becoming more of an expectation and advantage to be able to connect through a central language, such as English.
Furthermore, having English language skills can provide employees with better networking opportunities, in particular through conferences, trade shows and social media platforms such as LinkedIn.
Learning a new language can be a very enriching experience that enhances personal growth and skills development. Language learning doesn't just impact communication skills; it's also been noted that learning a language helps the brain process and remember information more efficiently[1], as well as developing new cognitive and problem-solving skills.
Learning a new language requires discipline, dedication, and patience, which are qualities that can be applied to other areas of work and life.
To summarise, language skills are highly valuable in the workplace and can open up new career opportunities for employees, as well as adding tangible benefits to businesses. Investing in language skills can increase an employee's value, and this can help them succeed in today's ever-evolving work landscape.
Encouraging learners to feel more confident in the classroom is a problem often faced by teachers. Below are five simple things you can adopt in your classroom to encourage learners to feel self-confident.
Let¡¯s start with the physical comfort of our students. Having the room adequately heated or cooled, asking if they would like the window open, making sure everyone has had some water or checking to see if anyone needs to go to the bathroom or wash their hands only takes a minute at the beginning of the lesson. It helps our children to know that their welfare is our concern.
Then, make sure that everyone has their books and praise them for being organized or having their pencils sharpened and ready. These things seem trivial, but they count. They count because we are acknowledging the fact that it isn¡¯t always easy to get up and ready for school every morning, day after day and that just managing that well is an achievement.
So, starting by checking the small things helps to give our students a feeling of well-being before the lesson has even begun.
Be clear. Be clear about what you are all going to do and why you are going to do it. There is no such thing as ¡®the obvious¡¯ when it comes to learning. For example, you know that English is spoken internationally, but primary-aged students may have no concept of what ¡®internationally¡¯ means.
They may never have considered the concept of language itself. So, we must state the ¡®obvious¡¯ and do it in ways which are meaningful to the children, through videos, pictures and relatable examples. This goes for everything; what a verb is, how we form negative statements, what question marks indicate and what today¡¯s lesson aims are.
Whatever they need to know, we need to state it clearly and when they have forgotten, we tell them again without ever making them feel that they ¡®should¡¯ have remembered. They forget ¨C we remind. That¡¯s our job.
Then there is the familiarity of a routine. Apart from making us feel reassured that we know what is happening, routines also feed into the innate need for repetition. Young children want their favorite bedtime stories told to them exactly the same way each night and will pop their heads up to correct us if we do something differently. That repetition is part of practice; doing, saying or hearing something repeatedly until we are completely sure we know it.
Most teachers don¡¯t need reminding of this, but it might be helpful to remember that within that routine, one can also have surprises.
A five-minute ¡®something different¡¯ slot could be built into your routine. This could be a fun quiz, game or song and dance. A straightforward way of managing this is to write the names of different ¡®surprise activities¡¯ on pieces of card, put them into a pot and let a different student pick a card each day.
We all feel more confident if we know that we are free to experiment and, within that experimentation, to make mistakes. It can¡¯t be stated often enough that we will only ever learn something by doing it wrong, often many times, before we do it right.
This message may be even more important nowadays when we see and hear perfect versions of whatever has been created - music, cookery and writing to name but a few - especially on social media.
The learning process is not brought to our attention as often as the result, and the results are often digitally altered to look more impressive. We need to remind our children of this and make them feel good about their efforts, however small and halting.
Peer pressure often contributes to a lack of self-confidence; you only need one mocking ¡®friend¡¯ to put you off. So, we must be vigilant in noticing little glances or whispered asides and praise the majority of the students who are quietly accepting or encouraging.
Finally, confidence in our language learning abilities will soar when we know we can make the language our own and use it however we want.
This goes beyond personalizing activities, which can be done at any level ("What¡¯s your favorite food?" "Do you like tomatoes?") and is dependent on the teacher noticing and accepting what individual children are really interested in. So, for example, if we continue with the example of food, a sporty child might be interested in what famous sports people have for breakfast or which foods give us stamina.
A child who is interested in nature might want to know what birds and animals eat. For this to happen, first we need to notice their interests, show enthusiasm for what they are finding out and encourage them to share what they have learnt with the class.
