In-house Training - Why Learner Autonomy is the Only Option

Anna Turula, Poland

Anna Turula, PhD. ELT has been a teacher and teacher trainer for 19 years. At present she is a trainer with the Department of English, University of Bielsko-Biala, Poland. E-mail: anturul@poczta.onet.pl

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Introduction
Adult learner - a demystified species
Motivation
Autonomy
Experience
Cognitive maturity
In-house training of the unusual species
From theory to practice - in-house autonomy training
Guided homework
Strategy instruction
Repertoire build-up
Conclusion
References

Introduction

In-house training is a popular form of adult language education in Poland. Instead of enrolling their staff for available language courses, some employers prefer to hire a teacher to organize a class on the company's premises. In addition to a number of advantages (to the learner), there are some drawbacks of such a situation, the main of which being the fact that the class is usually held no more than once a week immediately before/after work. Both these factors result in rather limited opportunities for language learning. The present article looks at the mature learner as a unique species and, basing on the presented characteristics, tries to propose ways of prolonging the in-house students' exposure to language. Its main argument is that promoting, developing and relying on learner autonomy is of major importance in such educational circumstances. Some practical solutions as to how to develop self-reliance and shift the responsibility onto learners are also discussed here.

Adult learner - a demystified species

As I argued elsewhere (Turula 2002), the area of adult language learning is subject to considerable negligence. The main focus of ELT methodology are young learners and very few if any teaching ideas and innovations are primarily oriented towards mature students. In spite of the fact that life-long education is part of the official language policy of the Council of Europe (www.coe.int and assembly.coe.int), the adult learner is still a neglected (Knowles 1990) and consequently unknown species. This part of the present article is aimed at shedding some light at the no-so-rare specimen. First and foremost, it has to be emphasized that adult learners are special in what they bring into the classroom (including the language classroom). The unique contributions of a mature learner include considerable motivation, the ability to take charge of their own lives, experience and cognitive maturity. Curiously enough, as will be demonstrated, all four markers are both advantageous and potentially hindering for mature learners. What does it mean in the ELT practice?

Motivation

Unlike children, mature language learners are highly motivated because they experience the needs which can be satisfied by the learning they decide to undertake. The number of areas of adult life where the knowledge of a foreign language can immediately prove useful is large and growing. Adults take exams in foreign languages, they more often than children have to take care of themselves abroad. In many professions a foreign language, usually English, is a must. Information technology and the Internet, which have become easily accessible and popular in all spheres of life, both at home and at work, are other powerful incentives. Intellectual maturity of the adult learner, which facilitates proper estimation of the practicability of undertaken activities is an additional advantage here. What is more, Houle (1981) and Coare and Thompson (1996) claim that every learner has more than one orientation and every individual motivation is a combination of several overlapping factors. As a result, the discussion of which drive is stronger - integrative or instrumental - seems futile in the case of adults, as the mature learners most probably have both kinds of motivation. Instrumental motivation in adulthood is generated mainly by professional requirements; integrative motivation, understood as the positive perception of the target language and its people, has changed a little when English ceased to be the property of Anglo-Saxons and became the means of international communication. At present, the integrative drives of the adult learner are based on the need to interact with like-minded people from other countries.

At the same time, we cannot forget that no matter how strong the motivation, the initial drive may not be enough for a long, sustained effort, particularly if we consider all the potential situational and institutional barriers of the adult life. Time, or rather the lack of it, and cost of education are the two greatest problems in adult learning ( Carp et al.,1974; Coare and Thompson, 1996). Other situational problems include no childcare (Carp et al. 1974), the lack of transport (Carp et al. 1974, Hayes 1989) or unfavourable attitudes in the learner's environment (Carp et al. 1974, Marinova-Todd et al. 2000). All this shows how difficult it may be for an adult learner to start, continue and succeed in language learning.

Autonomy

If we agree with Holster (1986) that adulthood is synonymous to autonomy, we have to assume that every mature student is an autonomous learner - at least by definition. How important is this in language learning? For Hostler, autonomy means choice, decision, deliberation, reflection, planning and judging. In consequence, adult education will mean learning based on self - self-reliance and, consequently, independence. There are three possible advantages of such learning. First of all, it means that if there is no immediate help in ambiguous situations, the learner can accept and tolerate this. Secondly, self-reliance requires careful planning and good organisation of learning so autonomous learners have to be realistic and self-disciplined, able to set long-term goals and to achieve them by means of self-imposed and self-executed short-term goals. Finally, and most importantly, independence from the teacher means that autonomous learning is actually incessant owing to the learner's independent initiatives.

Surprisingly, however, what a lot of adult learners actually demonstrate is lack of autonomy. One possible explanation is earlier schooling. The authoritarian teachers of their past are most probably responsible for some students' desire for extensive tutor control. It seems to be a kind of learned helplessness probably rooted in the teacher-centred learning of the past, when no initiative required on the part of the student seen as no more than a passive recipient of knowledge. Besides, we have to remember that the classroom may contain a number of students with external locus of control. Such learners, convinced that they do not control their lives and, consequently, their learning, never become autonomous learners, as they never take on full responsibility for their own learning and are ready to blame their failures on factors that are beyond them.

Experience

Limited or nonexistent in children, it is another important marker of the adult learner. In Dewey's understanding (1938), experience is the basis of all genuine education. Lindeman (1926) sees experience as the richest source of learning. No wonder, as the already existing knowledge and skills can be both: the basis of the accreditation of new capabilities as well as the means of assessment of how efficient this learning is. In this way, experience, understood as both: linguistic and general knowledge, becomes a critical factor in language learning. What adult learners bring into the classroom is their self-awareness. This knowledge may become the basis for individualised language instruction and, consequently, lead to learner autonomy and higher self-esteem. It also determines learning preferences, which can and need to be adapted to language education.

On the other hand, it has to be acknowledged that what adults bring into the language classroom is not necessarily positive experience. Many adults remember their previous educational encounters as inefficient, dreary and unpleasant. Additionally, a lot of adult learners have learning routines which may be inefficient or unsuitable for them and quite a number of adult learners demonstrate a total lack of know-how in learning.

Cognitive maturity

The advanced intellectual development of the adult person results in stability of mental processes and orientation, which, in turn lead to more systematic learning and better understanding. The aspects of cognitive maturity which are particularly conducive to learning include the capability of analytical thinking, well-developed logical memory and understanding of abstract concepts, longer attention spans and a higher quality of concentration.

At the same time, however, consolidated cognitive and executive categories as well as well-established memory tracks resist the "new personality" the language classroom forces on the student. As a result, strong ego defence mechanisms (Rogers 1996) can be activated making language learning particularly difficult for mature people (especially males). Ehrman (1999) describes learners with thick ego boundaries as meticulous and orderly but often "unreceptive to new information" (1999:71). Other often mentioned cognitive disadvantages of the adult learner include a decline in learning ability in adulthood and lower flexibility of the mature brain. Some of these beliefs are, in fact, harmful misconceptions about learning in adulthood. However, on the basis of the same experiments (cf. Gould et al. 1999, Praag et al. 1999) that disproved these beliefs, it has to be stated that minds that are not trained become subject to neuronal atrophy and, consequently, show limited learning ability. Thus, for a brain not used to intellectual exercise - not very rare in adults who resume language education after years of break in schooling - it may be difficult to adapt to a learning situation.

All this proves that, in addition to being neglected, the mature learner is, in fact a complex species, whose characteristics can be both conducive to learning and potentially harmful. As a result, all they have to be considered with care in all forms of adult language education, in-house training included.

In-house training of the unusual species

As mentioned in the introduction to the article, in-house training is a form of language in-company education limited to one meeting a week. If the learning is bring any results, a lot of it has to happen outside the classroom. This means a lot of learner self-instruction, as the contact with the teacher will, in fact, be close to none; learner self-direction and self-management, considering the fact that it will be the learner who, most of the time will organize and monitor the learning process; and learner responsibility which is necessary for the other self-processes to take place. To cut a long story short, the teacher has to rely on learner autonomy.

The problem, however, is that, as already pointed out, not all learners may be willing and or prepared/predisposed to learn autonomously. In such a case the teacher can either resign or try to teach the target language simultaneously autonomizing the group. How can this be done? First of all, such autonomy training can be successful only if we take into account all the previously described characteristics of the adult learner. Secondly, as I argued in another article (Turula 2002) we need to see autonomy as a node in a much elaborate structure, the other cornerstones being the already mentioned motivation as well as the know-how and learner self-esteem. As a result, the gradual shifting of the responsibility onto the learner cannot be fully implemented without classroom routines aimed at increasing and sustaining motivation, offering strategic instruction and boosting learner confidence. All this needs to be done in a classroom where the students are seen as experienced, mature and self-directed individuals, treated as equals, with due respect and offered language tuition satisfying their interests and cognitive needs on the one hand and learning styles and preferences on the other; a classroom, where the learners' own motivation, the ability to take charge of their own lives, experience and cognitive maturity, discussed earlier in the article, will come up trumps and their drawback potential will be reduced if not locked altogether. All the above theorising looks so nice on paper that it seems to be asking for real life verification. This will be offered in the remaining part of the article.

From theory to practice - in-house autonomy training

The reflections presented below is based on my own experience as an in-house language instructor in Poland. The teaching routines and their outcomes I am going to present here are statistically insignificant. Nor will the reader find a detailed description of the in-house language group in question as I never asked them any detailed personal questions to spare them the experiment-related uneasiness. All I can say is that the group consisted of 12 students (10 women), most of whom could be described as middle-aged; as far as I could tell, a majority of them had a university degree. Their level of English was pre-tested and diagnosed as pre-intermediate.

The course format was the usual once-a-week, so from the very start, I considered some kind of out-of-class exposure to language. Yet my initial idea, which was on-line tuition, had to be abandoned as some of the students were computer-illiterate. When I asked the students to suggest a solution - to propose what they could do on their own between the classes, the repertoire of extra activities all 12 students presented added up to five self-instruction declarations such as:

1. I can learn a couple words every day
2. I can do homework
3. I can listen to music and try to translate lyrics of songs
4. I can revise with the help of my course book
5. I can watch Polish films with English subtitles

I also thought it was important to know how well prepared my students were for self-instruction. For this purpose a 12-unit questionnaire was used, the results of which are presented below. The students answered each question by means of a given number of points (YES - 4; RATHER YAE - 3; RATHER NO - 2; NO - 1). The table presents the results of the questionnaire, where mean answer values have been calculated.

The results of the two questionnaires show that although the students' repertoire of self-instruction activities can be seen as rather limited, they appeared - or, at least declared - to be fairly ready to assume fair share of the responsibility for learning. At the same time some issues obviously needed special attention. They were the ones presented in questions whose score averaged below 3, as it indicated that at least some of the students thought they could not cope with a given problem. The potentially problematic areas included learning management and the know-how, which meant that what the students needed the most was training in metacognitive and cognitive strategies as well as some assistance in the organization and management of learning. Besides, it seemed proper to build up the students' repertoire of out-of-class activities as well as supplementary learning materials, suggesting solutions that went well with the students' expectations and were attractive enough to help them sustain motivation throughout the course. Consequently, I devised a teaching programme whose components were:

1. guided homework
2. strategy instruction
3. repertoire build-up.

Guided homework

At the end of every meeting, each student received three sealed envelops with instructions as to when each of them should be opened. "Open Thursday or Friday"; "Open Saturday or Sunday"; "Open Monday or Tuesday" read the captions providing for two-day intervals between the suggested activities (to ensure regularity) as well as offering the students choice (to make them partly responsible for the undertaking). Homework usually referred to the classroom activities and was prepared in such a way as to enable the students to personalize the content. In time, one of the envelops started to contain the "Invent your own homework" instruction. In addition to that, all students knew that they were supposed to do the workbook and check themselves with its key; additionally, each class started with a 15-minute question time, during which all doubts were explained. It is also important to point out that when written homework was checked, errors were transferred to the author for correction: faulty fragments were underlined and grammar instruction was offered in the form of footnotes.

Strategy instruction

After two months of the course, the students were tested for their intelligence by means of an MI test (jeffcoweb.jeffco.k12.co.us/high/wotc/confli3.htm; Multiple Intelligences Teacher Inventory). When the diagnosis was ready, each student received a letter with:

1. a word list (from a currently discussed text), containing the following lexical chunks: nervous-looking; from now on; from then on; ..., who went on to be; make a living (doing sth); support one's family; argue with sb; come in useful; make a nice wage with their Polish equivalents;
2. several pieces of advice as how to learn these words and words in general:

• You have linguistic intelligence which means that you could try learning new words by using them in short stories like the one listed below: From then on, the nervous-looking young man, who used to make a living working as a teacher, went on to be a dustman and made a nice wage. It was good as he had a family to support. His teaching experience came in useful when he argued with fellow dustmen.
• You have mathematical intelligence. A nice way of learning new words might be re-combination. For example:
  nervous-looking -> happy-looking; angry looking
  went on to be -> went on to work; went on to become
  support one's family -> support one's wife and children; support one's ageing parents etc.
• You have spatial intelligence. Try using different colours (for different words); placing the new words in your room (for example, imagine that nervous-looking is on a TV; from now on - on the sofa; etc); or writing the words down on slips of paper and putting them up around.
• You have bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. It means you shouldn't learn at your desk. Do something when you're learning - dust your room, wash up, walk. Put the words on slips of paper and reshuffle them.
• You have musical intelligence. Try to learn words rhythmically or in poems. Here is one for you. (The poem cannot be quoted here as it contains words in Polish.
• You have interpersonal intelligence. When you're learning think of people the words remind you of: imagine somebody who's nervous-looking and mentally attached the word to them. You can also try to teach the new words to someone - your dog; hamster or even your ferine can make excellent students. Try learning aloud too.
• You have intrapersonal intelligence. How about starting a diary, in which you could use the words to describe things that happened/are important to you.

Repertoire build-up

At the beginning of the course, the students were familiarized with their course book - especially the often-neglected supplementary materials such as a list of irregular verbs; grammar bank and the like. All this was accompanied with a counseling session on grammar books and dictionaries for intermediate students available on the market. In addition to this two extra projects were run. After the first two months (in mid-December), the students were shown a selection of guided readers and encouraged to embark on the book-a-month reading project. At the beginning of the second term (around February), in turn, the song-a-week routine was introduced. The lyrics of a given song were analysed in class and the students were instructed to listen to the song - with full understanding - during the following week.

Conclusion

At the end of the course, another survey was carried out, in which the students were asked to enumerate the things they additionally did to learn English at home. This time the ways the students listed amounted to 22 and included:

1. I do my workbook at weekends.
2. I like to learn phrases I find in the books.
3. Sometimes I listen to English songs.
4. I learn with Gazeta Wyborcza's "Polish Your English" .
5. I watch English TV but I don't understand much.
6. I write sentences with new words from the units.
7. I learn English at my computer.
8. I repeat the new words many times and I write them down.
9. I do my homework.
10. I speak English to my husband at home.
11. I speak English with my daughter.
12. I try to think and talk in English.
13. I browse through English websites.
14. I try to read English newspapers.
15. I learn with word/phrase slips I make for myself.
16. When I'm driving I listen to English songs and try to translate them.
17. I have my own grammar book and I consult it.
18. I watch TV Polonia , because they show films with English subtitles.
19. I try too read small books but I don't have time to do it very often.
20. I often talk to myself in English.
21. I pay attention to English pronunciation and try to understand what people say.
22. I feel guilty for learning too little.

At this stage I have to admit that the above end-of-course list of extra-class activities is the only conclusion the reader is going to get. I do not intend to present any test results to prove the course was a success; nor am I going to deny that the in-house training is history as the group disbanded after two years of learning. The rationale behind this rather unusual - and statistically insignificant like the rest of the study - conclusion is that what happened, as a result of the course, in those people is more important that any measurable achievement test result. The multi-faceted linguistic - and meta-linguistic - training they received was an eye-opener and an awareness raising event. And if the reader, like myself, prefers to look at learning in terms of process rather than product, they will agree that the outcome of the in-house training proves that autonomy really is the only option.

References

Carp A., R. Peterson & P. Roelfs. 1974. "Adult interests and experiences" In K. P.Cross (ed.) Planning for Non-Traditional Programs: An Analysis of the Issues for Postsecondary Education. San Francisco: Josey-Bass.

Coare, P. & A. Thompson (eds). 1996. Through the Joy of Learning. Diary of 1,000 Adult Learners. Leicester: Niace.

Dewey, J. 1938. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan.

Ehrman, M. 1999. "Ego boundaries and tolerance for ambiguity in second language learning". In J. Arnold (ed) Affect in Language Learning. CUP

Gould, E., A. Beylin, P. Tanapat, A. Reeves & T.J. Shors. 1999. "Learning enhances adult neurogenesis in the hippocampal formation". Nature Neuroscience 2, 3 pp. 260-265.

Hayes, E. 1989. "Hispanic adults and ESL problems: barriers to participation". TESOL Quarterly 23, 1, pp. 47-64.

Holster, J. 1986. "Student autonomy in adult classes". Manchester Monographs 05/86

Houle, C.O. 1981. The Inquiring Mind. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Knowles, M. 1990. The Adult Learner. A Neglected Species. Huston, Texas: HH Editors, Gulf Publishing Co.

Lindeman, E.C. 1926. The Meaning of Adult Education. New York: New Republic.

Marinova-Todd, S.H., D.B. Marshall & C. Snow. 2000. "Three misconceptions about age and second language learning". TESOL Quarterly 34, 1, pp. 9-34.

Praag, H. G. Kempermann & F.H. Gage. 1999. "Running increases cell proliferation and neurogenesis in adult mouse dentate gyrus". Nature Neuroscience 2, 3.pp. 266-270.

Rogers, A. 1996. Teaching Adults. Buckingham, Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Turula, A. 2002. "Language Anxiety and Classroom Dynamics. A Study of Adult Learners". English Teaching Forum, 40, 2. pp. 28-33

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