Student-centered Practices

I will speak about students centered practices in my classes. My classes are large classes. Students are university students; so I believe that I should teach them skills for life: become independent, interact with their colleagues, and practice the language. I do this via giving my classes a set of tasks that depends on individual, pair work and sometimes group work. I persist talking a lot, or teaching the old way.

As Andy Halvorsen explain in " English Language Teaching (ELT): " The English language classroom has a particular need for student-centered instruction" and "teachers should focus on  giving students the opportunity to practice meaningful communication with one another." " It also means conducting in-class activities that allow students some flexibility and control over their own learning. This might mean utilizing group and pair work" or it might also mean taking advantage of the benefits of Project-Based Learning (PBL) or Task-Based Instruction (TBI). Allan C. Mclean asserts that students learn best when they play a role in their own education and decides to start the learning process.  He states: "learning is more effective when the learner is the initiator of the  learning process"(100). As such, I try to oblige the students to start working on their own. I am always there for help, but they have to do the tasks the way I ask, not the way they are accustomed to.

The language class is divided into 3 hours, one and a half hour is taken in a room, and one and a half hour is taken in the language lab. I dedicate the room time to teaching reading, writing and trying to  do extra curriculum work. The lab is dedicated to teaching listening and covering the grammar component in the book New Interchange (2006). During the three hours, I give a number of tasks (Task-based instruction). In the room, as I denoted I give students 10 minutes to read the reading and answer the questions on their own. I denote that they have to guess the meanings on their own, and if they finish the task early than the time of submission they can look up the difficult words in their off-line dictionary. Sometimes, I assign the reading as individual work, other times I assign it as pair work. Sometimes, I cut big comprehension passages into separate paragraphs to and give them to the group members to make students obliged to do the group work diligently to get the whole picture. They also have to write an individual piece of writing summarizing and commenting on what they understood to be submitted by the end of the class. This makes the reading and discussion component "meaningful".  It also makes them feel they are improving as long as they try doing the assigned mission even if they do not understand all the details or all the vocabulary in the text. In the lab, students listen to the conversation and then they are supposed to fill in the charts. They do so individually, then they sometimes peer-correct (pair-work). They have to do  most tasks I assign in the lab as at the end of the laboratory,  they have to hand in the tasks or they will lose the attendance and class work marks. As such they "listen for a reason".

The first three lectures of my semester is a disaster as most Egyptian students are not familiar with doing the work on their own. They feel that the teacher should read, give the meanings, write on the board and give model answers. When they come to my classes and see that they have to do something they get shocked and feel I am disqualified as the traditional way of teaching makes the teacher speak a lot. Still, they have to abide to my rules in order to get the attendance and the class-work marks. After, three or 4 lectures they understand what they have to do, they like the orderly manner and believe that they can do a lot on their own. By mid- term they feel they improved a lot, and master using the dictionary and  peer–review. They also learn that they play a definite role in their improvement.

As clear, the challenges decrease as the term proceeds as students follow the guidelines or set techniques I teach them in the first three classes. In the end of the term,  many students come and thank me for teaching them "life skills" like becoming independent learners, using resources (the dictionary, the internet), individual work, pair-work, successful group work-mechanics, peer-review, and expressing their opinion without fear. In fact, I do it the hard way and make my classes student-centered,  an approach which is different from our culture and practices but things go well by the mid-course and the effect of the class lasts as students learn life-long skills.