Ask the students?

[staciholland]

How often do policy makers or even teachers ask the students for input? I strongly believe that if we continue to ignore the students and think for them we will continue to fail them. Inner city school districts and districts with high ELL population having consistently failed year after year decade after decade. Many outsiders believe there is a lack of funding, and that may be true but what about letting the students speak for themselves. When are we going to hear their voice and structure lesson based on their input? I am not saying turn education reform over to children; however, I am saying that children are smarter than we think they are and if they want to learn they will so why not hear them out and meet in the middle to draft the best possible educational expeirence.

[Sally Olsen]

I always ask for student's input and I fight for input by all the stake holders in education. You could look at Greenland's "Good Schools" mandate for some inspiration.

What is your agenda here? You seem to be promoting a book, am I right?

[fluffyhamster]

I don't think that children of elementary age will really be capable of bringing anything that informed or ultimately that constructive to the language-planning table. (Their parents however are another matter...then again, maybe not sometimes (often?)!). That's not to say however that syllabus writers shouldn't try to make language learning activities as engaging, "relevant", and fun as possible. (I for one definitely try not to talk down to children, and I believe I develop stuff that engages their brains, in that it encourages them to try to make sense of the way certainly the English language works).

[Patty Schuler]

I wonder what older students would say, the children in middle school or better yet, high school. A middle school student may just want to "fit in" as quickly as possible, but a high school student may see keeping both their L1 and L2 as a valuable tool for the future.

[lee115]

I, too, had the same question, especially after reading about studies that used students that experienced both EO and BE classes. I understand that adults may not think that students could offer useful input but we could be missing out on valuable information. In a situation like this - students who have experienced EO and BE - why not ask them one-one-one (to avoid the possibility that they will all answer the same to "fit in") which class do they think the learned the most in? Their responses might even be compared to their grades from when they were in EO and BE classes.