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learner-centered behaviors for many instructors. To assist faculty, I defined
each practice into specific components and incremental steps between
instructor-centered and learner-centered teaching. Incremental steps allow
instructors to make changes gradually over time. These incremental steps
define a manageable transition process from instructor-centered to learner-
centered teaching.
Weimer, M. (2002). Learner-centered teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Wright, R. (2006). Walking the walk: Review of learner-centered teaching, by
Maryellen Weimer. Life Sciences Education, 5 (311), 312.
Blumberg Ph. Learner-Centered Teaching // USciences: University of the Sciences in Philadelphia,
2013. URL: http://www.usciences.edu/teaching/Learner-Centered/
2) Below is a website article published on a British Council website
teachingenglish.org. It briefly describes two learner-centered methods and is followed
by a discussion. Read the article, explain the essence of these two methods and say,
what comment you would add to the discussion.
TBL and PBL: Two learner-centered approaches
Submitted by Sally Trowbridge on 23 July, 2013 - 11:27
Many newly qualified or inexperienced teachers tend to base their lesson
planning on the traditional PPP approach (Presentation, Practice, Production) because
it is reliable and it is a valid framework around which to base a series of classroom
activities.
It is also usually the best way of covering all the lexical areas and grammar
points in the course book or syllabus. All good and well. The problem is that PPP
serves the teacher’s needs but it is debatable whether or not it fulfills the needs of the
learner.
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The language presented and practiced does not take into account the
particular needs of each learner; the language content is almost always dictated by the
coursebook and/or syllabus. For this reason, many teachers, having experimented
with the PPP approach turn to more learner-centered approaches where the needs of
the learner are central to the lesson content. Two such approaches are TBL (Task-
Based Learning) and PBL (Project-Based Learning).
What is TBL?
In task-based learning, the central focus of the lesson is the task itself, not a
grammar point or a lexical area, and the objective is not to ‘learn the structure’ but to
‘complete the task’. Of course, to complete the task successfully students have to use
the right language and communicate their ideas. The language, therefore becomes an
instrument of communication, whose purpose is to help complete the task
successfully. The students can use any language they need to reach their objective.
Usually there is no ‘correct answer’ for a task outcome. Students decide on their own
way of completing it, using the language they see fit.
Different teachers use TBL in different ways. Some integrate it into the
existing syllabus, some use it to replace the syllabus altogether, some use it as an
‘extra’ to their traditional classroom activities. But generally, teachers using a TBL
approach divide their task-based classes into three stages:
Stage 1: The pre-task. The teacher introduces the topic and familiarizes
students with situations/lexical areas/texts (reading and listening)). This draws the
students into the topic and brings up language that may be useful. The teacher then
explains what the task is and sets up the activity.
Stage 2: Students perform the task in pairs or groups. They may then present
their findings/conclusions to the rest of the class. In this stage, mistakes are not
important; the teacher provides support and monitors. The learners focus on
communication, perhaps at the expense of accuracy, but this will be dealt with in the
next stage.
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Stage 3: The teacher works on specific language points which come up in
stage 2. (During the monitoring stage, most teachers make notes of common errors
and students’ particular learning needs). Students reflect on the language needed to
complete the task and how well they did. This is their opportunity to concentrate on
accuracy and make sure they resolve any doubts or problems they had.
Tasks can be as simple as putting a list of animals in order from fastest to
slowest and then trying to agree with a partner on the correct order. Or it could be
something more complicated like a survey to find out which parts of town your
classmates live in and how they get to school, ending in visual information presented
in the form of pie charts and maps. Or it could be something really complicated like a
role-play involving a meeting in the Town Hall of the different people affected by a
new shopping centre development and the consequent demolition of a youth centre
and old people’s home. Whatever the task, it should always have some kind of
completion; and this completion should be central to the class - the language resulting
naturally from the task and not the other way round.
The advantage of TBL over more traditional methods is that it allows
students to focus on real communication before doing any serious language analysis.
It focuses on students’ needs by putting them into authentic communicative situations
and allowing them to use all their language resources to deal with them. This draws
the learners’ attention to what they know how to do, what they don’t know how to do,
and what they only half know. It makes learners aware of their needs and encourages
them to take (some of the) responsibility for their own learning. TBL is good for
mixed ability classes; a task can be completed successfully by a weaker or stronger
student with more or less accuracy in language production. The important thing is
that both learners have had the same communicative experience and are now aware of
their own individual learning needs.
Another advantage of this approach is that learners are exposed to a wide
variety of language and not just grammar. Collocations, lexical phrases and
expressions, chunks of language, things that often escape the constraints of the
traditional syllabus come up naturally in task-based lessons. But this can also be a
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disadvantage. One of the criticisms of TBL is this randomness. It doesn’t often fit in
with the course book/syllabus, which tends to present language in neat packages.
Some teachers (and learners) also find the move away from an explicit language
focus difficult and anarchistic. Many teachers also agree that it is not the best method
to use with beginners, since they have very few language resources to draw on to be
able to complete meaningful tasks successfully.
What is Project-Based Learning (PBL)
The PBL approach takes learner-centredness to a higher level. It shares
many aspects with TBL, but if anything, it is even more ambitious. Whereas TBL
makes a task the central focus of a lesson, PBL often makes a task the focus of a
whole term or academic year.
Again, as with TBL, different teachers approach project work in different
ways. Some use it as the basis for a whole year’s work; others dedicate a certain
amount of time alongside the syllabus. Some use projects only on short courses or
‘intensives’. Others try to get their schools to base their whole curriculums on it. But
there are generally considered to be four elements which are common to all project-
based activities/classes/courses:
1. A central topic from which all the activities derive and which drives the
project towards a final objective.
2. Access to means of investigation (the Internet has made this part of
project work much easier) to collect, analyse and use information.
3. Plenty of opportunities for sharing ideas, collaborating and
communicating. Interaction with other learners is fundamental to PBL.
4. A final product (often produced using new technologies available to us) in
the form of posters, presentations, reports, videos, webpages, blogs and so on.
The role of the teacher and the learner in the PBL approach is very similar to
the TBL approach. Learners are given freedom to go about solving problems or
sharing information in the way they see fit. The teacher’s role is monitor and
facilitator, setting up frameworks for communication, providing access to information
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and helping with language where necessary, and giving students opportunities to
produce a final product or presentation. As with TBL, the teacher monitors
interaction but doesn’t interrupt, dealing with language problems at another moment.
The advantages and disadvantages of PBL are similar to those of TBL, but
the obvious attraction of project-based learning is the motivating element, especially
for younger learners. Projects bring real life into the classroom; instead of learning
about how plants grow (and all the language that goes with it), you actually grow the
plant and see for yourself. It brings facts to life. The American educational theorist
John Dewey wrote “education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself”.
Project work allows ‘life itself’ to form part of the classroom and provides hundreds
of opportunities for learning. Apart from the fun element, project work involves real
life communicative situations, (analyzing, deciding, editing, rejecting, organizing,
delegating …) and often involves multi- disciplinary skills which can be brought
from other subjects. All in all, it promotes a higher level of thinking than just learning
vocabulary and structures.
Conclusion
Both TBL and PBL focus primarily on the achievement of realistic
objectives, and then on the language that is needed to achieve those objectives. They
both treat language as an instrument to complete a given objective rather than an
isolated grammar point or lexical set to learn and practise. They give plenty of
opportunity for communication in authentic contexts and give the learner freedom to
use the linguistic resources he/she has, and then reflect on what they learned or need
to learn. Finally, as EFL teachers are eclectic by nature, teachers often use a
combination of TBL, PBL and traditional techniques such as PPP. Some teachers use
TBL and PBL as a small part of a more conventional approach and many teachers on
100% TBL/PBL courses resort to PP type activities when dealing with grammar or
vocabulary problems. As always, the important thing is to use what works best for
you and your learners.
Katherine Bilsborough
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Discussion
“Great article. I´d personally like to see a lesson plan in which the TBL is used so
I could learn how to apply it. Please let me know if there exists such a thing.
Thanks!” Ebriceno
“I agree completely. I would like to pilot a TBL class this upcoming semester,
since I will have intermediate and upper intermediate students. I would love to
see a lesson plan or some sort of syllabus that could make it clearer. Thanks!”
Maragent
“Thanks for the comment. You can find a task-based activity here:
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/activities/task-based-speaking
Thanks!” Paul
Braddock TE Team
“I love TBL and PBL and I was implementing TBL lessons during my CELTA
course 2 years ago and I have used both ever since where appropriate. I have also
used many other lesson formats including TTT, PPP and guided-discovery. I
think a mix of all on a course is beneficial not only to the fact that it brings
variety to the course but also it offers learners of different learning natures/styles
to have an experience of a bit of everything. This article is great and I am going to
tweet it now. However, something I was hoping to find but didn't was some
concentrate examples of topics and lessons delivered using TBL, but then again I
suppose that wasn't the purpose of the article.” Ashowski
“Great article. But one of the problems I find in performing these methods is that
they're extremely time taking especially in large classes. I often find my students
motivated to present their task but never have had enough time to spend on both
task presentation and cover my course book.” O.Calantar
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1.2. Innovations in Learning Technologies
1) You will read the introductory part of a handbook ‘Innovations in Learning
Technologies’
edited by Gary Motteram. What technologies do you think will
be highlighted? Read and compare with your ideas.
Innovations in Learning Technologies
Introduction
Gary Motteram
In this early part of the 21st century the range of technologies available for
use in language learning and teaching has become very diverse and the ways that they
are being used in classrooms all over the world, as illustrated in this book, have
become central to language practice. We are now firmly embedded in a time when
digital technologies, the focus of this book, are what Bax has referred to as
‘normalised’ (2003, 2011) in daily life in many parts of the world, although not
amongst all people as there are digital divisions everywhere (Warschauer, 2003), and
still not always in the world of education. However, digital tools, or what I will
describe in Chapter 7 as ‘technical cultural artefacts’ have long been a feature of the
world of education (Bates, 2005), and particularly language education (Salaberry,
2001). These digital tools are, of course, central in what I would argue is the
established and recognized field of computer assisted language learning (CALL), but
are also increasingly a core part of English language teaching (ELT) in general.
People continue to debate the use of the term CALL itself, asking whether it
is still relevant. Levy and Hubbard making the argument for (2005), whilst Dudeney
and Hockly (2012) are rather less convinced. In a world where we increasingly see
laptops, tablet computers, or mobile phones as the technology of choice, it might be
argued that we are at a tipping point when this common term will soon disappear.
However, in this chapter at least I will refer to the discipline as CALL, because along
with the names of the different special interest groups and the predominant journals
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in the field, this continues to be the most common referent. A useful definition of
CALL comes from Levy: ‘the search for and study of applications of the computer in
language teaching and learning’. (1997: 1) and this is what this book presents, albeit
in a new way of thinking about the field. This fresh approach sees it as one that has
significantly diversified, illustrates real practice with a considerable number of
authentic case studies and then in the final chapter shows how CALL makes an
increasingly significant contribution to the general world of ELT.
CALL has its origins in the development of the first mainframe computers
(Levy, 1997; Beatty, 2010; Davies et al., 2013) and articles about the use of
computers in language education started appearing in earnest in the 1980s, over 30
years ago, at the same time as early desktop computers started to make an
appearance. At the time of going to press there are 11 organisations listed in the entry
on CALL on Wikipedia starting with the Asia Pacific Association for CALL
(APACALL) and ending with World CALL, an umbrella group which runs an
overarching conference every five years (in 2013 in Glasgow). There are also a
number of dedicated journals that focus on the field of technology and language
learning including: CALICO, CALL, International Journal of Computer Assisted
Language Learning and Teaching, Language Learning and Technology and ReCALL.
CALL is also written about in journals that take a more general focus on technology
in education, for example, Computers in Education, or the British Journal of
Educational Technology and arguably more significantly for the general acceptance
of the discipline, there
are a number of journals in the language teaching field that
also regularly feature articles on CALL. English Language Teaching Journal (ELTJ),
arguably one of the most influential practitioner oriented journals in the TESOL field,
in a recent special issue has an article by Dudeney and Hockly (2012) in which they
review the 30 years of technology in language teaching, and Nicky Hockly continues
a tradition started by David (Diana) Eastment in each issue of producing a short
article on technology in language learning. In the special issue of ELTJ just
mentioned, the topic is mobile learning. You will also see other general language
journals referenced throughout this book. CALL has then moved from being a niche
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field practised by a few early adopters, to being mainstream and arguably having
significant impact with two of the journals mentioned above, Computers in Education
and Language Learning and Technology being ranked in the top 20 most influential
journals in education.
The diversification of CALL
CALL is no longer one subject; in fact, Arnó-Macià (2012) has argued that
we are now in the realm of a definite division between computer mediated
communication as one branch of the world of educational technology and ELT and
CALL, as another. I would argue for further sub-divisions of CALL, for the teaching
and learning of specific purposes languages as well as CALL for younger learners,
and you will find chapters on each of these areas in this book. We can also appreciate
these developments in the creation of special interest groups in organisations like
EuroCALL and CALICO.
In very recent times we have also seen a growth of overview articles in
journals that address these very specific domains. In Language Teaching there has
been a recent review of CALL for young learners (Macaro, Handley and Walter,
2012); in the Modern Language Journal there was an overview of ESP (Arnó-Macià,
2012), which acted as an introduction to a special issue. We have seen for a while
more specificity in books too, with Kern and Warschauer starting the trend with
Network Based Language Teaching (2000), Dudeney on the Internet and the
Language Classroom (2000 and 2007), an ESP book on technology (Arnó, Soler and
Rueda, 2006), O’Dowd on online intercultural exchanges (2007), a book on social
media in language learning (Thomas, 2009), Mawer and Stanley on digital games
(2011) and an expected glut around mobile learning in the next few years. However,
there are still influential general books in the field, for example, Levy and Stockwell
(2006), Thomas, Reinders and Warschauer (2013), this latter forming part of a series
which is always a good sign of a healthy field, as are second editions, for example
Beatty (2010).
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Most of the books that have been published so far are general introductions,
collections of more formal reports of research conducted by a series of writers, or
resource books for teachers which give ideas about how teachers can engage with
technology often based only on classroom practice, with little or no connection to
language teaching theory. Teachers then take these ideas and adapt them to their own
classrooms, but we very seldom hear how these adaptations went, or what happened
to the teachers when they tried out these ideas. This is where the reports that were
created for the Cambridge University Press project that are discussed in
Chapters 3
and 7 and the case studies that have been assembled for this book differ. In the
chapters here we find actual descriptions of practice, we see the technological choices
that the teachers make in the different contexts of activity. In some cases we see why
they choose to do what they do, in some cases we learn more about the role of the
institution or other colleagues.
Issues of methodology and technology
Since computers started to be introduced in language learning (and in
education in general) people have rightly asked whether the investment we are
making in these technologies gives us value for money. As digital technologies have
taken a hold in society in general, this particular question is not asked quite so often,
but it is still important to make sure that the technologies that we have available are
used effectively. People are always tempted to try to make an argument for
technology having an impact on the development of pedagogy and in many cases we
can see that the use of technology has enabled teachers to re-think what they are
doing. We also see people trying to populate this domain by talking about notions
like the ‘flipped classroom’, ostensibly a methodology that sees input as occurring at
‘home’ and physical classrooms being used as spaces to explore what has been
presented in the input. This is far from being a new idea, but these agendas are
pushed for a while and then disappear again. What is a contender for a methodology
that is central to the world of technology and language learning is that of blended
learning (Motteram and Sharma, 2009). We see this methodology still being
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