I'd like to share one of my successful experiences:  Reading small books to kids.  Some books do arouse some students' learning interest and open their door to English world (it happened unexpectedly then). 

The small book is titled: "What's this? What's that?"  The kid is 10 years old.  He is a low level of learning ability student.  At the beginning, he paid no attention in English class at all but just played toys and drew pictures by himself.  He wouldn't take other people's advice to do things he should during the class.  That time, I instruct students to make small books themselves.  So I read some small books for their examples.  The kid respond to one of the the book and turn out to like that book very much.  He made a small book himself by imitating the book.   And from the time on, automatically, he completed all the English assignments I gave them before as well as the assignments later on either by himself, asking me or copying other's works.  Asked me to teach him the context of English book from time to time and can pay much more attention in English class. 

Applying small books is good in English teaching.

One of the simplest ways of fostering learning autonomy in class to appreciate and praise someone who shows autonomy and cite exactly why you are happy with that individual.For example, if someone discovers what a particular word means by looking up the dictionary or guessing from the context and explaining how he guessed it from the context, applaud the effort.

Gradually you will start noticing others trying to do their best...

Hi everyone,

I would like to share my experience on team teaching. If you have colleagues who like team work, just agree on a date and class hour and design and apply a task-based lesson in cooperation and partnership. This positive interaction and dialogue would definitely increase students' performance and motivation. Topics could be on some learning skills such as, working and sharing as a team member, coping with stress or on study skills, i.e. using the dictionary efficiently, using school library and self access center, vocabulary learning, preparing presentations, doing research, using search engines. 

The important point is that team teaching and learning processes should be mainly “learning centered” as they should offer opportunities for imagination, student participation and exchange. Experiential learning methodologies are highly important as people learn most from their experiences.

Sirin

Hi everyone,

 I am Lal from India. Good to be here and be part of this.

Let's make it real! I believe this is one of the key aspects. Unfortunately, teaching and learning are often too much connected to studying. A language needs to be felt in order to be learnt. Our students need to see that a language is part of real life, and not just a chain of rules they have to learn by heart (as this is a sad reality in many classes: language=rules only...sad isn't it??).

In my opinion, once our students are able to place English inside reality, their autonomy will immediately increase.

I have seen this happen a lot, especially through music, movies, pen friends, travelling and meeting and mixing with new people and new peoples. 

I got involved in the English language and then "addicted" to it this way myself..so this is personal as well!

A language is above all a means of communication and a wonderful opportunity. This is something our students need to know and experience.

Hi all!

I do agree with you Silvia and I would like to add to your list - " music, movies, pen friends, travelling and meeting and mixing with new people and new peoples" - access to the internet -that is not within the reach of all learners,unforunately. I do have some students who surprise me when using some new language/structures/knowledge they "bring" from outside the classroom; something they do independently! Yes, you and I have learnt English almost the same way, but today's learners have ample opportunities to discover the other language/culture and become world citizens as they go to another virtual school (though most of the times in an informal way) from which they benefit a lot. Indeed, Internet makes them feel the language!  

Cheerio

Tarik Boussetta- Global Issues Forum moderator

Hi all,

Your ideas are all fascinating and also glad to see new participants and guests at out forum. We are going to have a huge repertoire of practical ideas in the end! 

Sirin

Hi All,

From my experiences, both successful and unsuccessful, I think that learner training is a key issue in promoting learner autonomy, as Thomas mentioned. It's all very well to ask learners to use dictionaries, read English publications and do research, but if they don't know how to do this effectively, they are unlikely to benefit.

I currently teach in China, where teacher-centred lessons are still very much the norm, so learners have little experience of autonomy; teaching them the skills to take responsibility for there own learning is particularly important in this context.

I will give a simple example: I recommended that a group of learners keep vocabulary notebooks. They all dutifully equipped themselves with various exercise books and began adding entries. Did their knowledge and use of vocabulary improve? No. All they had done was amass lists of words with translations and the occasional example sentence. OK, I hear your sighs and "Well, of courses." But the point I am making (yes, there is one) is that we need to show learners how to use the resources available to them, whether that be anything from dictionaries to joining online communities.

Georgina

Hi Georgina,

I have to agree with you that training students to use whatever we suggest is really important.  With the vocab notebooks, a colleague and I have our students create small quizzes for each other from their own notebooks - we also have them use the Moodle Glossary to create a class 'dictionary' and make activities from this.  With one of our very low level classes we want them to read on their own, so for one period a week we would sit reading foreign language books - my colleague's using Thai and I was using a primary school reader from Taiwan - and tried to instill the concept of reading for pleasure.  we also, with two other teachers, role-played the concept of study groups as, even though these were students on a Foundation program, they had no real idea of how to study.  We felt that the training worked and many of those students are now succedding in their studies.

Phil