We had Leni over!

Sort of. :) On 6th December we had a Zoom chat with her to discuss her work and exchange values about education and life. Below are Elena's notes of this meeting, alongside the students' reactions.

Students' reactions

When we Zoomed Leni into the classroom and she greeted us, she was delighted that the student teachers (STs) didn’t have laptops or tablets in front of them. She shared that in Denmark they perhaps too readily and very early on embraced screens in the classroom; after a number of years of such practices, however, they recently backtracked.

Leni enjoyed reading the STs’ emails to her and complimented them on their language proficiency. :)

Leni first addressed the ST concerns about the challenges related to introducing learner autonomy in the, arguably traditional, Macedonian ELT setting. Her experience over the years has shown her that the major challenge in introducing learning autonomy is usually (brace yourselves...) the teacher! She feels that if the teacher is not convinced in the rationale of such an innovation, it’s unlikely to be useful. Another challenge for the teacher is giving some of the control in the classroom over to the learners. One of the upshots of this is that the teacher is no longer ‘the most important’ person in the room, the person everyone is looking at - students should be looking at their collaborators (fellow students) not at the teacher! This is where group work comes in - more on this below!

Leni highlighted the teacher’s main role in the education process: not to lecture at students, but to support their learning; the latter often entails getting students to learn through discovery, when students are centre-stage. This results in ‘clever’ learners becoming ‘cleverer’ and ‘weak’ students learning at least something, which is in contrast to traditional education, where ‘clever’ students are unengaged and ‘weak’ students give up. Leni is adamant that you can’t teach students anything worthwhile (i.e. beyond ‘school knowledge’, but learner autonomy is about so much more, e.g. life-long learning experiences!) if they are not on board, stakeholders in their own learning.

Learner autonomy may look to some like ad-libbing on the part of the teacher, but it is in fact very structured all the time. Students are invited to choose from a limited selection of items (they are not given an unlimited choice, super-market style!), they have to choose from what is offered (this is where they derive their sense of ownership and responsibility for their learning from, as well as security!), they are guided through their entire learning journey, i.e. they know exactly what to do at every point, and at the end they evaluate their learning. What’s Leni’s structure, then? It’s Teacher Time, Student Time and Together Time.

The reflective teacher, according to Leni, should constantly critically examine the existing orthodoxes in education, i.e. the things that seem to be taken for granted (e.g. using course books) and pose themselves the following questions: What am I doing? Why am I doing this? How am I doing this? What outcomes am I hoping to see?

Discussing STs’ concerns about how to deal with parents’ potential reservations about learner autonomy, Leni was clear that parents need to be told about the thinking which informs their practice (see the reflective questions in the previous bullet point) and be kept ‘onside’, as allies in the educational process

According to Leni, group work is the central pillar to learner autonomy. In her words, though, “I have never formed any groups on my own because the students would blame me for forming their groups”. Instead, Leni gives them random criteria for group formation (e.g. get together with someone you haven’t worked with; find someone with blue eyes; form groups with someone wearing black; find someone who you can help or who can help you, etc. - random criteria, really, never proficiency traits, e.g. ‘strong’ learners working with other ‘strong’ learners, though if ‘weak’ students prefer to work together to take the pressure off from working with someone more proficient, that’s fine by Leni as it’s their choice). She leaves the actual grouping to the students; this is a skill, the development of which takes time. The students then reflect on their group work experiences in their logbooks: How was it? Not well is an OK answer, too (it reflects real life!), as long as their responses are supported, which constitutes support for critical thinking. Another real-life skill group work helps develop in us is being responsible for each other and exploring ways in which we can interact with people in positive ways.

What happens with the students who are never chosen to be part of a group, asked a ST? Leni said that everyone needs to be grouped up, and groups are not allowed to deny anyone if there are free slots in their group. Leni shared a story about a memorable naughty learner she once had, Dennis the Menace, as she called him. He would sit under the table or pull someone’s hair, and this, they decided, could get him thrown out of the group, which meant he would have to work on his own. He hated working on his own, so he made efforts to improve his behaviour so he could stay in the group. Also, he reacted better to peer feedback than teacher feedback - that too helped him develop more acceptable behaviours in class.

Can learner autonomy support shy or anxious learners? Leni’s experience suggests that the sense of being involved, the sense of ‘mattering’ uplifts and empowers all learners, including these. Leni talked about so-called ‘umbrella’ activities, i.e. activities which play to various learners’ strengths so everyone can take part and succeed at some level (differentiation?). Another way to differentiate could be the teacher inviting learners to help them in some way (e.g. spelling, looking things up in a dictionary... there are always jobs a teacher will welcome help with)

Leni also talked about a sense of trust she liked to actively develop together with her students. When relationships are developed enough, the teacher has the freedom to involve their learners in dilemmas central to the teaching process - e.g. “I don’t think it was a good lesson today. Why do you think that was? What can we do about it?” She always liked to share her classroom dilemmas with her students. “I respect my students very much. I don’t waste their time (e.g. by getting them to do mindless gap-fills in class). I’m always willing to explain to them why we do things. They don’t do anything for me, the teacher; everything they do is to help them develop their own skills - it’s for them, not for me. And I want them to respect me”, which highlights the centrality of relationships in education.

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