Hi everybody,
It was again a busy week for me as we started another month session. I tried the best I could to catch up on my task, homework and project but I will have to continue late tonight and tomorrow to be on time.
For my project, I am already busy with it because I have until next week to finish it and as I am working on a one-month session I started with that on the first day of class (two days ago) and I had to dedicate most of my time to have my final project ready to test it during the few days before the end of this course in order to have real results and comments for my final project.
Making students independent and autonomous to learn is important and mostly to make them understand that it is important for them. As I mentioned in my post, many students here come to class and expect the teacher to teach them everything. They think that by just sitting in a classroom they will learn everything. This is wrong and it is our task to make them aware of that and also to show them the way to become autonomous.
You do not become an autonomous learner just because you decided it. Someone has to show the learner how to do that, and this is our job as facilitator. I think that sometimes teachers think that if they give their learners all what they need to become autonomous, they will loose their job. I saw that in my career (merchant marine). Some officers were reluctant to teach others what they knew for fear of losing their promotion or that other were promoted before them. Wrong.
There will always be a job for teacher but we have to adapt to the new techniques, technology and so on. Classes in the future will be completely different to what they were 30 or 50 years ago but a teacher will always be necessary to show the way.
Also by making our students more autonomous could be beneficial as we will get more prepared students with a better background and it will make our classes for sure more active, productive and interesting, for both the teacher and the students.
I tried many different ways to show my students how to become more independant and autonomous by visiting different websites on the net but few of them were motivated. So this activities helped me learn more techniques that I will try and see how helpful they could be for my students.
See you soon
Raphaël
Friday, March 5, 2010
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About Me
- Raphaël
- I am an ex- master mariner. I worked for 12 years in the merchant marine. I quit in 1999 and started teaching French and English in Cusco (Peru) where I moved with my Peruvian wife. I have a lot of hobbies and interests. I love animals and plants I have presently 15 pets home and more than 400 plants.
Dear Raphael,
ReplyDeleteI quite understand you. It has been a busy week for me too, so I know what it means to try to find the time to do everything, but sometimes it is impossible, which is very frustrating, as you can't do the things the way you want to simply because you don't have enough time.
I'm surprised to hear that there are teachers (or officers)who wouldn't want to teach others what they know for fear that they might become better. I think it stems from their insecurity. If you are confident in your abilities and you constantly try to improve yourself, then there is no place for any fear.
I agree that if our students were more autonomous, our lessons would be better as students would be more active and more interested which would create a livelier atmosphere and more positive learning environment for all the students.
Best regards,
Nina
Sorry, Rafael -put it down to bad connectivity.
ReplyDeleteWhat I wanted to say was that our students often consider that teachers will be there with ready made recipes and answers to all their questions. However, it is our (teachers) mission to wean them off of this concept and let them become 'authors' of their own knowledge.
From this point of view I like the role of a teacher in the autonomous classroom -that of a moderator and/or a facilitator.
On the other hand,teachers who are scared of giving good knowldege to their students can not call themselves professionals.
Manana