This unit was all about strategies of empowering English language learners to become more autonomous in their studies. It made me think about how I, as a teacher, can be more helpful in supporting my students’ desire to learn things on their own and integrate specific strategies into my lesson plans.
I really enjoyed reading Yagcioglu's article New Approaches on Learner Autonomy in Language Learning, where the author shares the main strategies teachers can use to help their students become autonomous, which are:
1. Teacher's motivation
2. A Wonder Approach
3. Happy Learning Approach
4. Learning Languages with ICT
I have never heard of Wonder Approach before. The author describes this concept as “... inner desire to learn that awaits reality in order to be awakened.” These words took me away to my childhood days where everything was a wonder, and I was constantly asking my parents “Why”? We, adults, don’t ask so many questions anymore as we have built a solid foundation of knowledge of the world around us. But we definitely ask “Why?” more when we talk about topics that are of interest to us. This was an additional reminder for me to always have my students’ interest in focus and consider them when planning my lessons. I definitely need to get better at applying Wonder Approach in my lessons – encourage my students to ask more questions, make predictions, introduce new resources and share my favorite sources! One of my favorites these days is the website called A Secret Door which is full of wonders you can explore together with your students.
Teacher's motivation - to be honest, I haven't thought about my own motivation (is there an unmotivated teacher?) as a factor for my students' success but more about my student's motivation. This article made me think about my daughter's experience with piano lessons. She had been studying piano for five years with her teacher, but the result was quite poor. The lessons were very "mechanical" I'd say. "Play this piece again", "Place your fingers on the keys correctly", "Go back to that part and repeat it again". We had to switch the teacher because her interest started fading away very quickly. We were blessed to find a teacher (from another city!) who was able to bring back my daughter's love to music! She is so passionate about playing the piano and has devoted her whole career to it. My daughter loves that they talk about stories behind the pieces they learn and how music can be connected to the visual art. I like how she says to my daughter - "Dasha, you played this piece very well, but I couldn't hear your soul. Let me hear what your soul will add to this piece". I have never seen my daughter so inspired and looking forward to playing even difficult pieces!
Another strategy that is applicable in my teaching context is learning languages with ICT. I mostly teach one-on-one through Zoom and prepare my lessons in the form of presentations in Google Slides. I have also started creating my own quizzes (thank you, UOM!) and widely use YouTube videos for home assignments.
For those of you who are interested in looking at the lesson plan where I tried to implement the Wonder Approach and Learning Languages with ICT approach, please follow this link here.
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