learner training?
Does anyone do any kind of "learner training"? Teach students strategies for learning? What does this look like. Have seen it referenced and sounds kind of sexy. http://www.eslemployment.com/esl-articles/hd-browns-maxims-of-teaching-methodology.htm GOOD LANGUAGE LEARNERS 1. Find their own way, taking charge of their own learning 2. Organise information about language 3. Are creative, developing a 'feel' for the language by experimenting with its grammar and words 4. Make their own opportunities for practice in using the language inside and outside the classroom 5. Learn to live with uncertainly by not getting flustered and by continuing to talk or listen without understanding every word etc.... This would make a good poster for one (if i had my own classroom) How to make kids aware of this, encourage it? Do it like the ALPS - choose a few as throughpoints for a year, like, these are the skill or core concept for ESL that we're addressing through our work and coming back to explicitly (they are aware of them and they get class mention). I've flirted with the idea of core concepts a la ALPS - what would they be in ESL teaching- at first i had no idea what they could be - certainly not the traditional textbook schemes. These might be a way

Learner Training
"Training" has become almost a dirty word! The focus on acknowledging the importance of the student as an active agent has caused so many organisations to expunge "Training" from their names! If there's a last place, then, for "training", it must be in equipping a student to become an effective, self-directed learner. So in "Learner Training" you have found a final legitimate haven for this evil dinosaur of a concept! Even so, I'm not sure whether a wall poster is the most creative way to get the various concepts across. Well, it might be a great idea as part of a wider strategy. I'm a bit of a coursebook animal. Not hugely experienced at mixing and matching materials. But I have noted that the series I'm using (_New Cutting Edge_ Longman, 2005) has "Study" segments that try to build students' independent learning strategies. One workbook exercise displays a page of a student's home-grown vocab. book. It has English words with the L1 meaning alongside. Another page has this plus some additional features (punctuation help, example sentence, etc., part of speech, etc.). The reader is asked to discover and identify these additional features. The exercise concludes with the task of making some suitable augmented entries in one's own vocab. book. Nothing earth-shattering here, but I've noted that this "Study" segment is consistently presented at the end of each module. I've seen sufficient explicit advice of this type to conclude that there must indeed be a need to 'teach' learning strategies. Some students believe it's a teacher's responsibility to deliver language to them. In a sense, they're right: but maybe they need to be informed of their need to be active participants in their learning. Some learners would have their teacher drill their new lexis for them, so that they need never read a page or hold a pencil. They're in an English-speaking country now: it's all automatic - let the immersion begin! On the other hand, some teachers may not think to advise students on the utility of flash cards or other techniques to help students to help themselves. Cheers David

Flashcards are good and quite an easy one to get across. They may already do it in their Korean English classes where they have to memorize frequent, random, incomprehensible vocabulary lists (e.g. porpoise, mandible, excrescence, alveoli, semantic, nougat, hermeneutic, cosmonaut, vermillion, Rosicrucian, etc....). Then again, they may not and this may be revolutionary. Students here are just blocks for us to chisel away at. Students fail to learn because they are WEAK! A poster would just be a reminder - i know i need them. You're dead on - a wider strategy is needed. How do you address the study page in cutting edge with your students. I think 'learner strategies' is extremely important. There's only so much to squeeze out of me 45 minutes a day for 8 months. On top of that, I'm pretty sure that it's not being addressed in any other context in my school (but in a place where many teachers don't leave for class until 5 minutes after the bell...) We offer extra-curricular programs: 5 weeks, twice a week. Teachers come up with a topic and then submit it. I submitted Study Skills partly based on this: http://ocw.usq.edu.au/course/view.php?id=18. No one signed up for it. :cry: