Job Discussion Forums

[gaijinalways]

I see sometimes teachers discussing running or trying to run student-centered programs. What exactly does this mean to you?

A true student-centered program IMO would have students selecting the material as well as the activities and the guidelines that the teacher would use to run the classes. The teacher's job would be facilitating and assisting the students in studying what they wanted to study. You obviously need highly motivated students and students who are aware of what their real needs are.

In addition, a program of this sort would need time to do assessments and collect student data as the actual program needs to be built after communicating with the students prior to the real start of the program.
Sadly, I doubt I would be able to teach in this kind of program in Japan as opportunities of this sort are very rare.

But what does student-centered mean to you?

[naturegirl321]

While I agree that student centred should have students choosing material, it wouldn't work in my teaching situation since we have to deal with top down management.

So, for me, student centred means that students can help with rubrics, grading, and speak a lot in class as well as give feedback that causes me to change my classes for the following semestre.

[spiral78]

[Kofola]

Very timely!

Just started a course recently where the first lesson was an extended needs analysis where the students decided the content of the course in terms of topics, skills and materials - they are providing around 50% of the materials for the course with pointers as to how they actually use the materials in the workplace and what they find difficult and would like to practice/learn. They also decided issues such as homework, corrective feedback, structure of the lessons etc.

They are very motivated and as professionals acutely aware of the kinds of situations that they feel their English lets them down in, even if they may not be aware of what exactly it is they need to learn/practice in order to improve. A bit of prodding though and ongoing feedback generally produces a course that ticks most of the boxes - fingers crossed!

Love this kind of teaching - really keeps you on your toes.

[fluffyhamster]

Students capable enough of truly doing the things described (which sounds like syllabus design) are probably in no real need of any further English lessons (I would understand if they were planning to be English teachers themselves though). I'm more interested therefore in how the term 'student-centered' applies at the "lower levels" (in private "conversation schools" and the like). I think a simple but serviceable definition of it would run something like this: "A teacher who is student-centered is capable of establishing and recognizing what students are most interested in, and altering the range of topics if not stock of exemplars offered, in order to help the students talk more about those things at least some of the time. But obviously a general course cannot be built entirely around just e.g. skateboarding, especially if that would be for the benefit of only a minority of the class members." But this sort of thing would be so obvious to most teachers, even inexperienced ones, that it should hardly need stating!

I remember seeing an especially narrow definition in an advert~further details for a job in Korea: it was like the applicant would have to quote chapter and verse from Nunan's The Learner-Centered Curriculum, and from Nunan only. (It certainly seemed like quite an assumption to make, that an applicant would have bought and read that particular book). But maybe his is one of the very few books around devoted to this particular area?

[santi84]

Working with immigrants here in Canada can be completely student-directed (or centered) depending on the program. Some programs (ie. ELSA) are follow specific guidelines/textbooks/lessons based on federal government criteria.

Other programs (mostly provincial and municipal) are a "free for all" in the sense that there is no real syllabus and the topic for each day is undecided until the students walk in the door. This was the most amazing class I've ever taught. It's a tricky thing actually, and very difficult for an inexperienced teacher to do, but very effective with intermediate-advanced level students.

No televisions, no computers, no desks, no lesson plans. We would sit around one table and talk talk talk for three hours or more. The program was geared towards adult professionals who wanted to develop conversation skills. It was like debating in a coffee shop, only you get paid for it

Well, I didn't, I was a student teacher

[nickpellatt]

I work at the lower levels of EFL employers generally. My definition may not be typical of all my peers, and it may be less cerebral than some. For me, student centred generally means -

Class exists for students to share their experiences, opinions, ideas and suggestions rather than listen to how clever, wonderful and interesting I am.

Class exists for students to be educated, entertained, enjoyed or endured rather than to exist for my education, entertainment or enjoyment.

Class content is based more around their needs than mine.

Interestingly, on this last point, I tend to be the one who decides what they need a lot more than they do! This may contrast quite sharply with the idea that students decide what they want to learn.

[spiral78]

[fluffyhamster]

Spiral: the concept of negotiation is nothing new, and in many teaching situations (i.e. non-ESP, non-EAP) it isn't officially called anything LOL. Kudos to you however for zeroing in on that particular piece of "specialist" terminology. I still stand by what I said though. Those students who can more or less "teach themselves" (that is, identify what it is that they really need to learn) shouldn't be enrolled in language courses, and those who can't should (and the courses should IMHO not then use anything like a negotiated syllabus - the idea of implementing that with some of the e.g. Japanese university science majors I've met would've been almost laughable).

My main concern with this stuff is its implicit if not explicit claim that students are capable of selecting stuff that actually matches their (current) linguistic level rather than simply meets their "needs". I mean, imagine taking every student query these boards could throw at you and then multiplying that tenfold - that's what I imagine a (non-)"negotiated" syllabus could become like for the teacher, even when not taken to too much of an extreme (unless of course he or she just murmurs 'Nice selection of articles, students...now good luck with working through those and teaching yourselves all the language, useful or not, in them!' on the way to the coffee pot). Still, the internet, pop-up dictionaries and translators etc may be enabling students to progress in leaps and bounds through texts that would've defeated previous pen-and-paper-based generations, but that again is something that is rather after-the-fact and what a student could do without ever needing to pay a teacher for (unless of course the student needs constant appraisal - praise? - and motivating).

As for why students come to class (Nick), I believe for a lot of them, it is actually to learn (at an accelerated pace), that is, to be taught, crammed full of knowledge that might otherwise escape their attention, which is why I don't invest much in foreign language "lessons" myself, because I feel that most teachers either aren't always or yet quite up to the task, or have talked themselves out of it (and what's more managed to convince their students about what's best for them). Certainly, the quality (thin, patchy, inaccurate etc) of many language courses can be shocking.

That's not to say that I like excruciating amounts of chalk 'n' talk (much depends though on what the teacher has to say and therefore impart, and IMHO L1 text and/or L1 teachers should be used a lot more for explaining), but I feel that a lot of responsibility has been abdicated in ELT the more it has become popular (and thus lucrative, from the initial teacher-training onwards).

(And before anyone accuses me of being a grammar freak or whatever, there is a world of difference between how I discuss the language with fellow native speakers or high-level learners, and how I impart the language to low-level learners).

[johnslat]

Dear spiral,

I'm with the rabid hamster on this one

Regards,
John

[nickpellatt]

[fluffyhamster]

Hiya Nick. I think the "academic partial learning" versus "only later comes oral full mastery thanks to the wonders of CLT, communicative language teaching" dichotomy is a little overstated sometimes, especially when the people stating it are often jabbering away regardless in better English than e.g. probably either of us are in Chinese, despite our knowing all about CLT. (Could it be just that their education systems are generally better than ours, and that English has much greater exposure and currency?). And personally I've never noticed too much of a disconnect or lag between learning something about a foreign language from a coursebook or dictionary (I mean good, dependable, orally-informed ones) and applying it to good effect in a foreign country (but then, I'm speaking as a reasonably motivated adult, versus e.g. students of school age).* I take your point though about Chinese teachers lacking the "student touch" - you'd think some TCFL training had mandatory workshops on 'Selecting the best hoghair calligraphy brushes' or similar.


*Where language teaching goes wrong IMHO is in implicitly assuming that a foreign learner at any particular point in time beyond a certain level ("intermediate") should have the same "structuralist" overall grasp of the entire language that a native speaker might, which is obviously a bit too big an ask and the source of much frustration if the teacher asks the student to do that analytical work almost for the teacher.

[spiral78]

[fluffyhamster]

Doesn't sound much different to a needs analysis, to be honest, Spiral. You're fortunate compared to many teachers though in that there's likely a lot more where you are to bring to the table and offer the students, given the organized environments you appear to be working in.

The risk for teachers not working in such environments however is that they very may well appear 'unprepared and unprofessional' (to partly quote Bowen's words from the onestop link) if they start asking students what (the students want) to do, and like I say, it could be as much crisis as opportunity if the students do start coming up with all sorts of crazy stuff.

I've worked at schools where the customer was king to the extent that staff turnover was very high (to get away from the unrelenting self-centeredness of particular students or groups of students), but hey, as long as it was repeat custom the bosses weren't ever going to turn anybody away and/or institute a system whereby students moved upwards, perhaps eventually "graduated", and could then be politely told (if need be) to move on.

[nickpellatt]

Im making rough plans to do the same Spiral. I have used (with some success) the advanced series of lessons from The Guardian TEFL site. I am in the process of making 'wordclouds' based on the content of each lessons material and I plan to let the students see, or give out, the wordclouds and ask which ones interest the students etc. I quite like that kind of choice, and certainly wouldnt be comfortable giving them carte-blanche to choose things.

Fluffy - 你的中文比我的很好。My Chinese is still pretty bad.

Maybe I am too selective of my Chinese teachers, and language swap partners, because I want them to teach me in the way I imagine I teach my classes.