Humanising Language Teaching
Year 2; Issue 4; July 2000

Cast your mind back to life twenty years ago. You went to a supermarket to buy a toothbrush. You chose a nice colour one, and that was that. Today, you could spend hours deciding on your purchase because of the explosion of choice which is so radically affecting our lives these days. ELT has not been completely immune to this world of change. For example, students are often invited to choose optional programmes of study, which run in tandem with main courses.

But there hasn't really been that explosion of choice that we find in the world of the toothbrush and other products and services. So let's look at some other possible choices which you might like to consider for your students.

Students could:

EITHER	OR
come to class	not come to class
arrive on time for class	arrive when they want
stay in class for the whole lesson	pop out whenever they want
participate fully in all class activities	choose not to participate in some (instead: say "Pass" each time) - or choose not to participate for the whole lesson or day (instead: say "Pass for the lesson" or "Pass for the day") Note: if they decide to "pass", they leave the room or sit quietly in a corner so that they don't disturb the other students.
do their own work	cheat
be "hot corrected" in conversation	be "cold corrected" (or not corrected at all)
copy down information from the board	not copy down information from the board
use an English/English dictionary	use a bilingual dictionary/translator
work alone	work with partner(s)
do homework	not do homework
hand homework in on time	hand homework in some time later
do directed homework	do their own homework

NB the golden rule is: Students mustn't stop other students from learning.

Some of the above suggestions might seem a little fanciful. Here are some of the criticisms that could be levelled at them: students are encouraged to be lazy; some students would disrupt other students; teachers may come across as too lenient.

Personally, I have experimented with all of the above with my students (apart from the first two - as we have to follow a college policy on attendance and punctuality). So far I have not asked for formal feedback on these choices, but I have certainly received no objections to them. Students just accept this way of doing things from the start.

My belief is that if we can ensure that these new freedoms do not disrupt other students, a culture can be created in which: students feel powerful, important, and free; they do nothing under duress; they will end up participating fully with both their hearts and their minds. Such a culture could well lead to genuine learner autonomy in a way that enforced learner training can't.

Paul Bress