PROFESSIONAL COMMUNIC ATION AND TRANSLATION STUDIES, 6 (1-2) 20 13 [615872]

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TOWARDS A LEARNER -CENT RED APPROACH TO
TEACHING ENGLISH

GAVRILA -JIC ALEXANDRA
University of the West, Timi șoara , Romania
Abstract: The aim of the paper is to discuss the importa nce of embracing a learner -centred
approach when teaching English to students at non -philological faculties. The paper will start
from clarifying some theoretical a spects: What does “learner -centred” mean? Why is it important
and why is it important especially for non -philological faculties? Then the paper moves on to
examine some of the pr actical issues, emphasizing the importance of creating, adapting and
tailoring teaching techniques and materials so as to help students develop those language skills
needed in a business environment, i.e.in their future careers. In addition, the paper will deal with
some of the problems that might occu r when adopting a learner -centr ed attitude and will suggest
some ideas that may enable teach ers to become more learner -centred. The paper will mainly
draw on (but not be limited to) Maryellen Weimer’s (2002) d escription of five practice areas to
work on in order to achieve learner -centre d teaching: the function of con tent, the role of the
teacher , the responsibility for learning, the proc esses and purposes of evaluation and the
balance of power.
Keywords: learn er-centred, content, evaluation, power, role, autonomy

1. Introduction

In our country, teaching has been traditionally based on a stale, passive lecture
format , mainly focusing on the teacher who is forever trying to instil knowl edge into the
minds of pass ive students . In other words, teachers tend to focus more on what they
do rather than on what the students are learning. This emphasis on what teachers do
often leads to students who are passive learners and who do not take responsibility for
their own lea rning. This traditional approach is usually called “teacher -centred”
approach. The curriculum and materials used are usually not adapted so as to meet
the specific needs of the learners and this is especially the case of most non –
philological faculties where there is still a grammar -based curriculum rather than one
designed in order to teach English for Specific Purposes. However, over the past
decades, there has been a gr adual shift from a teacher -centred to a learner -centred
approach. This approach to tea ching English has been increasingly being encouraged
in higher education over the past decades in developed European countries while in
Romania is still in its early stages. In Romania, t he firs t steps towards a learner –
centr ed curriculum were made in the 1990s with the PROSPER Project. (Bardi et al.,
1999). The acronym of the project stands for “Project for Special Purpose English in
Romania“ (Bardi in Tribble, 2012: 179) and as its name suggests , the project was
meant to reform the teaching of English for Specific Purposes in 16 universities in
Romania in order to improve the level of English proficiency of future professionals in
the most important Romanian industries: engineering, economics, public administration
and medicine. The project turned out to b e a real success: one the one hand, teachers
have left aside most traditional methods, have become more flexible, have taken on
new roles meant to promote the students’ learning process and on the other hand
“materials have become real -life oriented, inclu ding authentic texts, as well as tasks

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which mirror the students’ current and future professional activities and they are a lso
learner -centr ed, exploiting the learner’s background knowledge and encouraging them
to co -operate with one another and to get inv olved in their learning”
(http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/content/54/3/305.extract ). But in spite of the success of
the project, not much has been done in order to support and develop f urther on
learner -centred teaching in non -philological faculties. Therefore in the following lines
the paper will discuss the import ance of adopting a learner -centred approach to
teaching English and how this might be achieved by outlining the areas that t eachers
need to work on.

2. Learner -centred teaching (LCT)

As Susan Sheerin states in a British Council webinar
(http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/webinars/learner -centred -classroom ), LCT is an
approach not a methodology, i.e. not a step by step guide but rather a way of teaching
based on a set of principles and attitudes, which have aspects in com mon with other
teaching approaches: learner autonomy, self -access learning, le arner training, t ask-
based learning. Due to its innovative principles, LCT creates new roles for both the
teachers and the students, thus changing the relationship between them.
Maryellen Weimer’s Learner -Centred Teaching (2002) is one of the most modern
and comprehensive studies in the field and identifies five practice areas to work on in
order to achieve learner -centred teaching: the function of content, the role of the
teacher, the responsibility for learning, the processes and purposes of evaluation an d
the balance of power. In what follows the present paper will discuss in turn the
changes to be made in each practice area and will try to shed light on the way in which
the roles of the teachers and the students change in LCT.

2.1. The Balance of Power

Weim er opens the chapter by addressing an almost rhetorical question : would we
characterize our students as “empowered, confident, self -motivated learners?”
(Weimer, 2002: 23). Unfortunately , more often than not , the teachers’ answers would
come as disappointi ng as follows: learners are usually passive, hesitant and
unmotivated. They will not speak in class if not called on and more importantly, as
Weimer also points out in the same paragraph, they “ like, want, indeed need, teachers
who tell them exactly what to do. Education is something done unto them. It frequently
involves stress, anxiety, and other forms of discomfort”. Hence the question arises “Is
there something about the way we teach that discourages students’ development as
learners?" (Weimer, 2002: 2 3). While pondering upon what we as teachers might do
wrong in class, Weimer presents us with a set of questions to reflect on:

“Who decides what (content) students learn in the course? Who controls the pace
(calendar) at which content is covered? Who de termines the structures (assignments, tests)
through which the material will be mastered? Who sets the conditions for learning (things
like attendance policies and assignment deadlines)? Who evaluates (grades) the quantity
and quality of the learning that has occurred? In the classroom itself, who controls and
regulates the flow of communication, deciding who gets the opportunity to speak, when, and
for how long?” (Weimer, 2002: 23 -24).

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While answering the questions above, it results that most of the impor tant
decisions about learning for students are made by teachers alone so this may
obviously be an underlying cause for the students’ lack of motivation and
indecisiveness. Consequently this calls for a reallocation of power in the classroom.
Both Weimer (2 002) and Wilson (2005) suggest that whenever possible students
should be allowed to make decisions about their learning process. As Weimer points
out, l earner cent red-teaching involves sharing power with students i.e. giving students
some controlled power over those learning processes that directly affect them, not just
transferring power wholesale (2002: 28). In other wo rds learner -centred teachers
should look for responsible ways to share power with students. Concerning the
teaching components in which st udents should be encouraged to be more actively
involved, Weimer suggests that teachers should allow students to make controlled
decisions about course activities, assignments, course policies and even evaluation
activities (2002: 32 -40) while Wilson sugge sts that teachers should allow students to
have some control over class materials (2005).

2.2. The Role of the Teacher

The reallocation of power discussed above brings about a change in the role of the
teacher. The new role of the teacher focuses on ways to f acilitate the learning process:
“learner -centred teachers connect students and resources. They design activities and
assignments that engage learners. They facilitate learning in individual and collective
contexts.” (Weimer, 2002:76). The teacher is no lon ger seen as the figure of authority
but he/she becomes more like a partner in learning who is willing and able to step
aside and let the students to take the lead. (Weimer, 2002: 72). The teacher is
therefore no longer the only source of knowledge but stud ents are encouraged to learn
from several sources of knowledge. In other words, the teacher has a facilitative role
rather than a purely didactic one. He/she encourages students’ independence and the
students’ involvement in making dec isions about their ow n learning
On a more metaphorical level the role of learner -centred teachers has often been
compared to that of a guide ( Mayer, 2008), (Black, 1993), (Lewis, 1992), a coach
(Dunn, 1992) (Frei, 2007), a resource (Black, 1993), or even to that of a negociato r
(Voller, 1997).
However, many people have questioned the feasability of empowering students to
take control and make their own decisions about their learning. When it comes to the
degree of power that students may be able to handle, Weimer warns us tha t “the
amount of decision making it takes to motivate students must be weighed against their
intellectual maturity and ability to operate in conditions that give more freedom at the
same time they also require more responsibility. Most students arrive in classrooms
having made almost no decisions about learning” (2002: 41). Weimer suggests that in
order to keep a balance of power, teachers could provide the students with a range of
options from which they can choose. For example, concerning course content, we
could offer them a list of possible topics from which they could pick those that they are
most interested in. We could also let them decide the content of the review session
and finally, concerning assessment, we could provide them with a list of possi ble
assignments from which they could select those that most appeal to them (Weimer,
2002). All these suggestions may responsibly give students more control over the
aspects that most affect their learning and consequently may also help increase
students’ level of motivation.

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2.3. The Function of C ontent

As Weimer rightly points out (2002: 46), one of the paramount factors that
influence teaching is the obsessive focus on covering content. Moreover she draws
attention to the negative consequences of the teacher s’ traditional assumption that
“more is better” and calls for a rethinking of the role of the content advocating a need to
focus on the development of learning skills and learner self -awareness: “A good
teacher does not teach all that he knows. He teaches all that the learner needs to know
at the time, and all that the learners can accountably learn in the time given” (Vella,
2000: 11 in Weimer, 2002: 71).
Accordingly, just as Sue Sheerin points out in the webinar, the curriculum and
classes should be plan ned taking students’ needs into account and the learning
objectives should be stated in terms of what the students will be able to do with the
language, not what content will be covered. The focus should thus be on language
skills, i.e. what the students will be able to do with the language in real -life situations,
e.g. at their workplace.
This is especially true for students in non -philological faculties where more often
than not, teachers still focus on grammar, which proves rather ineffective as a
cons equence of the fact that when students are being put in a workplace situation they
cannot communicate efficiently because they lack the specific job terminology and
even more, they realise they have forgotten most grammar rules they had studied in
universi ty.
Therefore, in order to meet the very needs of their students and thus of future
professionals, teachers should create, adapt and tailor the teaching methodology to the
very faculty they teach at so as to help students develop those language skills nee ded
in a business environment, i.e.in their future careers. For this, they should try and
design teaching materials that enhance students to do purposeful tasks based on the
real life while using appropriate ly the English language, e.g. conducting a conver sation
at the workplace using confidently the vocabulary specific to the specialty; holding a
meeting, roleplaying a business phone call, an interview etc.
But in order to be able to offer meaningful practice opportunities teachers should
be first open a nd willing to instruct themselves in an area of English they may not be
comfortable with even in their mother tongue (e.g. engineering, medicine, economics,
law etc.). Secondly, because of the very limited number of available materials they
should be abl e to adapt textbooks, hand -outs etc. to the class/specialty so as to
provide a language -rich environment for the learning process. Moreover, teachers
should involve students more in collaborative and cooperative learning (Weimer,
2002) : e.g. pair work, gro up work, role -play. In addition, teachers should make use as
much as possible of the learners’ own life experiences by asking real questions, not
questions to which they already know the answers.

2.4. The Responsibility for Learning

As we all know us and Wei mer also points out “ many students lack confidence in
themselves as learners and do not make responsi ble learning decisions” (Weimer ,
2002: 95), which greatly affects th e learning process. Thus t eachers should encourage
students to take responsibility for their own learning inside and outside the classroom
by becoming less passive and more actively involved in their lea rning because “if

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students have to make decisions about the words and grammar they are studying – that
is if their encounter with the languag e has some ‘cognitive depth’ – they are far more
likely to understand and remember that language than if they meet the new language
passively” (Harme r, 2009: 57).
But while some students would welcome such an approach from the very
beginning, others may be insecure, reluctant or even hostile to such a proposal. This
may come as a consequence of various factors: on the one hand because of the fact
that our educational system creates very dependent learners and thus they are not
used to take responsibility for their learning and on the other hand because they simply
do not have a sense of awareness of themselves as learners which subsequently
makes them feel unsure of themselves when having to take control over the learning
process.
Consequently, in order to get students to accept responsibility for learning,
teachers should start from building appropiate class climates that enhance student
responsibility and autonomy. In order to achieve this, teachers should first try to involve
students as much as possible in the process of setting the conditions for learning
(Weimer, 2002). For example, teachers and students should work together in order to
agree on a list of appropriate class policies and practices. But in order to make amends
for the limits of class time and to increase the chances for successful language
learning, s tudents need to be encouraged to develop their own learning strategies
outside the English classes as well so that they may become autonomous learners
(Harmer, 2009: 394).

2.5. Processes and Purpo se of Evaluation

The last area mentioned by Weimer (2002: 119) that we need to work on i n order
to achieve learner -centred teaching is evaluation. N owadays there is a focus more on
grades than on learning because it is assumed that learning occurs someho w
automatically out of the evaluation process. Moreover, as Weimer also notes, students
seem to find evaluation extremely stressful causing them feelings of anxiety and fear,
which prevents them from focusing on meeting learning objectives.
Weimer’s new ro le of evaluation does not break altogether with its traditional role,
i.e giving grades, but it offers an enlarged one, so that in learner -centered teaching
evaluation is still an important teaching aspect but it is meant not only to generate
grades but mo st importantly to promote learning : “This new purpose of evaluation
assigns a new role to students: they should learn how to assess their own performance
and actively participate in the assessment of their peers’ performance” (Weimer 2002:
119). There are several ways of achieving this, e.g. we could organise a debate on a
controversial topic and split the students into three groups: one group will be assigned
to be in favour of the controversial issue, the other group will be against it and the third
group should only sit aside and assess their peers’ performance. This easy -to-do
activity may raise students’ awareness about their strenghts and weaknesses and
about how the whole learning process takes place.
Also important in the LCT evaluation is formative feedback (Weimer, 2002).
Moreover, in order to reach its goal, feedback should be constructive, i.e. it should “be
directed toward the performance, not the person, should use language that describes
more than it evaluates, and should not overload the rec eiver. Its efectiveness is
enhanced if it is immediate and well -timed” (Weimer, 2002: 130).

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Thus, as Weimer (2002: 145) also concludes, in LCT the purpose of evaluation is
better balanced so that the assessment processes are used not only to give grades
but to facilitate the learning process as well. Evaluation activities should be used to
develop self – and peer assessment skills in order to develop a sense of awareness of
the learning process in students.

3. Conclusion

To sum up, the learner -centred appr oach to teaching English is more effective than
the teacher -centred approach for a number of reasons: firstly because what is taught is
not necessarily learnt so teachers need to be able stir students’ interest for learning.
This can only be achieved if th e focus in on the students’ needs not on the teachers
constraints. Secondly, LCT is more feasible because language learning involves skill
development, not only knowledge transmission so teachers should focus on ways to
develop students’ ability to use lan guage effectively in real -life contexts rather than
their ability to simply “reproduce” it. Finally LCT is more effective because it aims at
developing students’ awareness of themselves as learners and it consequently
enables them to figure out what their best learning strategies are.

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