We SHOULD give our students lots of freedom whenever possible. Yes, we also want to encourage learner autonomy in general. We want them (as in, our adult learners preparing for a language exam) to feel that they are in charge of their own learning.
What can be problematic, however, is if in the name of autonomy we don’t scaffold the stages of our lesson properly.
We all need to ‘notice’ something before we can try to ‘walk ourselves through’ the thing, that is, before trying to consciously repeat it …alone.
Are you giving your learners autonomy ‘at the right time’ in your lessons?
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Hi. I’m Fatime. I’m an IELTS Teacher Trainer, helping CELTA-qualified English language teachers become better at teaching SKILLS, as opposed to just testing them.
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