Student's Roles

The way learners are regarded influences the design of the instructional system. Furthermore, the way they behave concerning their consciousness about the process of learning and their contribution is definitely reflected in the method. This is seen in the types of activities learners carry out, the degree of control they have over the content of learning, the patterns of learner groupings adopted, the degree to which learners influence the learning of others, and the view of the learner as processor, performer, initiator, problem solver. This is the origin of a so hard criticism over Audiolingualism, method that restrains the roles of the learners, limiting them only to response to stimulus by repetition.

According to Johnson and Paulston (1976), learners’ roles are:

Plan their own learning program,

Monitor and evaluate their own progress,

Be members of a group and learn by interacting with others,

Tutor other learners,

Learn from the teacher, from other students and from other teaching sources.

I would like to comment on how important a conscious learning process is, in order to consolidade knowledge. In fact, the idea that the planning and suggestions for class are only teacher's tasks is totally outdated.

The learner has the right, the opportunity and the 'obbligation' to inform the teacher what he/she fells interesting. This way, the learning/teaching process will happen in a cooperative way, and the results will be surely improved!

'Learner's Roles' on the Internet:

http://www.ic.arizona.edu/~jeank/MOATS_definitions.htm

http://www.telelearning-pds.org/tlpds/theme7/roles.html

http://vickyloras.wordpress.com/2010/02/08/teachers-and-learners-roles-that-complement-each-other/

Bibliographical Sources:

RICHARDS, J. ; RODGERS, T. Approaches and methods in Language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986

LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. Techniques and principles in language teaching. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.

NUNAN, David. Designing Tasks for the Communicative Classroom. Cambridge University Press, 1989.