Page 150 - Beyond Methods

138 Promoting learner autonomy
say that they have to make all of these decisions all of the time. They may, indeed, choose to be teacher-dependent” (Ellis and Sinclair, 1989, p. 2, emphasis as in original). It is, of course, natural for learn- ers to expect their teachers to train them how to use learning strate- gies; hence, teachers have to be ready to play a major role in learner training.
What Teachers Can Do
Gail Ellis and Barbara Sinclair (1989) and Anita Wenden (1991) offer useful suggestions for teachers in their attempts to train their learn- ers. According to Ellis and Sinclair (1989, p. 10), teachers can play an instrumental role in learner training by:
• negotiatingwithlearnersaboutcoursecontentandmethodology, if appropriate;
• sharingwithlearners,inawaythatisaccessibletothem,thekind of information about language and language learning that teach- ers have but that is not always passed on to learners;
• encouragingdiscussionintheclassroomaboutlanguageandlan- guage learning;
• helping learners become aware of the wide range of alternative strategies available to them for language learning;
• creating a learning environment where learners feel they can ex- periment with their language learning;
• allowing learners to form their own views about language learn- ing, and respecting their points of view;
• counseling and giving guidance to individual learners when pos- sible.
In order to carry out these objectives and to make learner train- ing truly meaningful, Wenden (1991, p. 105) suggests that learner training should be:
• Informed.Thepurposeofthetrainingshouldbemadeexplicitand its value brought to the students’ attention.
• Self-regulated. Students should be trained how to plan and regu- late the use of the strategy, and also how to monitor the difficul- ties they may face in implementing it.
• Contextualized. Training should be relevant to the context of the subject matter content and/or skill for which it is appropriate. It