I'd like to know how to make my approach more learner-centred, with less teacher talking time. Can anyone give some practical examples to help me do this?
This question is from Jenny Chavez, Bolivia
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Comments
joe
Steve, Spain
As far as I'm concerned it's about allowing students to take more control of their studies overall. For example, during a course it might mean they decide what their goals are and even self-assess themselves. In each individual lesson you can also carry out learner centred tasks. That might mean something as simple as giving them time to remember what was studied in the lesson(s) before. They remember together in groups rather than the teacher reminding them.
Jeff, Italy
Put very simply, a lesson is more learner-centred when the students are working in pairs or small groups. Why don't you start by checking how much time you're actually spending doing whole class activities, and compare that to how much time the students spend working in pairs or small groups. I think on average you should be looking to spend about 80% of your time doing the latter.
Alvin, UK
Well, I'm not actually a teacher yet, but I'm a teacher in training and I had an experience on being a substitute teacher. For what i can imagine, i think group activities are very effective when we want the learning to be more learner-centered. However, there are no nos in this kind of activity. Since they are in groups, they might depend on one person to do the work, probably the smartest one in the group. One solution for this is group the students, each having different strenghts. Each group should have equal distribution of different intelligences like math, spacial, language, etc. With that way, no one would do all the work since each of them can participate in their own special ways.
Also, pairing them up will make so much of a difference. They will not only develop camaraderie, but they will also learn to trust, and learn the lesson together. You can also see their progress as you look around the room.
Loc, Vietnam
I want to mention this matter in terms of language teaching. In making our teaching hours more learner-centered, I think, teacher's instructions play an important role, in addition to class management techniques such as pair work or group work organisation. Teachers should remember to prepare a simple yet clear selection of guiding sentences so that our students can follow the activites comfortably.
amari
Ana Maria, Buenos Aires , Argentina
As regards you question , the most important fact is that a teacher should bear in mind learner centerness at every lesson stage, that's to say from the warm up activity to dealing with the grammar or lexical item of the lesson.
So, most crucial of all, in my opinion, is your Teaching Plan. If you have effectively reflected on the lesson , the time you will allot to the different stages and the participation of students, by simply coding each stage as TT for teacher talking time and ST for student's talking time, your lesson will be a complete success and would have a good balance of both.
Also remember, that above all in order not to fall in the TT trap ( teacher talking time trap), is to remember that the only moment you will Talk is to give instructions, or to ask questions in order to make students reflect in pairs or to ask for feedback or sharing after their pair work or group work.
Furthermore, as mentioned before, every stage of the lesson should be student centered even when you present new vocabulary or explain a grammar item worked out through out the lesson. This is simple, you just have to remind students what they have listened at or read about , and the structures will simply arouse from them magically. Then you just shot them down on the board and make up the rule with them with their feedback and knowledge. The same technique can be applied for presenting vocabulary or for elicitation of ideas and words about a certain topic.
To sum up, most important of all is to think clearly and plan your strategy of action before stepping in the classroom, cause if you don't have a clear action plan, then the TT ( the teacher talking time ) will dominate it, and you will just feel a great disappointment at the end of your day.
raymondkerr1
I completely agree with Jeff! Pair work and small group work are at the heart of developing speaking skills. Some teachers think that if they're not part of the action, then they're not doing their job! Not true. Set up the speaking activity, preferably using topics that the students have chosen, provide any language that they might need to interact depending on the level, and get out the way. Monitor during the activity without intervening and make notes on the good things you heard and some areas for class correction on the board after the speaking activity is over.
The more you do this, the more you'll notice how confident they become and with the delayed feedback, students get into the habit of interacting in English without the typical teacher to single student interaction that I've seen in so many countries over the last 25 years.
That's my tuppence worth!
Raymond
Teacher Development Manager
British Council Turkey