Docencia

In a student-centered class, at different times, students may be working
alone, in pairs, or in groups:
J Working alone, preparing ideas or making notes before adiscussion, doing a listening task, doing a short written
assignment, or doing grammar or vocabulary exercises
J Working together in pairs or groups, comparing anddiscussing
their answers, or reading and reacting to one another’s written
work and suggesting improvements
J Working together in discussions or in role-plays, sharingideas,
opinions, and experiences
J Interacting with the teacher and the whole class, asking questions
or brainstorming ideas
Also in a student-centered class,students may be teacher-led:
J Before students work together, their teacher will help them prepare
to work together with explanations and pronunciation practice.Autonomous Learning 3
J While students are working together, their teacher will be available
to give advice and encouragement.
J After they’ve finished working together, andthe class is
reassembled, their teacher will give them feedback, offer
suggestions and advice, make corrections, and answer questions.
When students are workingtogether in English, they
J Talk more
J Share their ideas
J Learn from each other
J Are more involved
J Feel more secure and less anxious
J Use English in ameaningful, realistic way
J Enjoy using English to communicate
But some of them may
J Feel nervous, embarrassed, or tongue-tied
J Speak English and make a lot of mistakes
JSpeak in their native language, not in English
J Not enjoy working together
In the following chapters, we’ll look at these problems and ways of
dealing with them.