ELT News Think Tank

This Month's Think Tank Panel

Marc Helgesen

Curtis Kelly

Panelists: Marc | Curtis
Date: October 2001

Topic: "To what extent should learners be given choices when they engage in classroom activities?"

Marc Helgesen

"Never do anything for the students that they could do for themselves." Mary Finocchiaro, a leader in ELT for years, used to say that. She was talking about handing over responsibility, handing over power.

We usually think of student choice as being about motivation - learners working on what they want to work on - and that's important. But student choice can also be about giving learners responsibility. This is especially important in a culture like Japan where students are used to having the teacher make most of the decisions. That might work in some disciplines but it is a recipe for failure in a skill like English that needs to be developed/grown. We can't learn it for our students. Those who take responsibility for their learner become more involved, invested and successful.

Specifics, of course, depend on teaching situation. Giving kids choice of which game to play at the end of class is very different than choices in small conversation school class which in turn is hugely different than the classroom management issues (and opportunities) in a university class of forty or more.

There are sometimes cases where students can be involved in determining the curriculum. I know of one reading textbook, for example, that was developed for Japan but has about 20% more lessons than fit into a Japanese university year. The idea is to encourage students and teachers to decide which topics they want to cover.

Cases like that are, not suprisingly, rare. More common - and something applicable to most teaching situations - is giving learners choices of activities and how they do those activities.

Choice of activities
Whether our classes are large or small, most of us make use of pair- and groupwork. And, of course, if the task involves real communication, every pair or group works at a different speed. This, in turn, leads to the unhappy situation where a few groups have finished and, for classroom management reasons (you can't have folks doing nothing), the teacher says, "Time's up. It's OK if you didn't finish." I'd suggest it's not OK. Because who doesn't finish? The weaker students - the very ones who need more practice.

But we can use student choice to take care of the situation. The teacher's manual for your textbook probably has a few extra expansion activities for each unit. Many are photocopiable. If it doesn't or you want more options, check out the activity "cookbooks" in series like the Cambridge Handbooks, Oxford Resource Books for Teachers or Longman's Communication games.

Choose two or three activities that fit the pair- or groupwork you are teaching and make copies. In class learners are do the main activity. On the board write, "Finished? Your choice." And list 2 or 3 options. As pairs/groups finish the main task, they come to the front to get copies of the activities they choose to do. If necessary, you can explain the instructions to pairs/groups as they pick up the worksheets. The students who need more time for the main activity get it and the others continue with something worthwhile that they've chosen.

By the way, one often overlooked choice is the review page from their textbook, something many teachers skip over in class but a useful way for learners to consolidate what they are working on. It can be one of the options.

Choice of how to do activities
Students usually do certain activities in pairs and groups. Others, they usually do alone (even though there may be a lot of other students in the same room.). Listening, reading and review pages often in that category. Try giving them the choice of doing the activity alone or with a partner. I often encourage weaker students to do listening tasks with a partner -- Two people/one book. That way they share (and focus on) what they do understand, not what they don't.

Dialogs are something we almost always have learners do with partner(s). One technique I use a lot with dialogs is having student imagine the speakers' innervoice conversation (The idea of innervoice is that whenever we are having a conversation with someone, we are also having a private conversation in our own minds. Example: In that typical 'unit 1 / introductions / at the party' dialog where one character walks up to another and starts a conversation with "Nice party, isn't it?", that person's inner voice might well be saying, "Hey, who's this. Very cute! I wonder if s/he's with anyone."). Anyway, I have learners look through the dialog and imagine, then write the innervoice conversation. They can do this is pairs if they want. But this is also a good way for learners who choose to work alone to do so. As an interesting follow-up. let them compare and see how very different the innervoice conversations can be. Another useful follow-up (one a student suggested) is to have them practice a two-person conversation in groups of four: A, B and A & B's innervoices.

These are simple ways to give students choice. Giving choice gives them responsibility. It also keeps the class fresh for the students. And that keeps us fresh as teachers.

Panelists: Marc | Curtis

Marc Helgesen, Miyagi Gakuin Women's College

Co-author of English Firsthand and Active Listening

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