apcampbell

In response to one of Will’s latest posts, Marc ponders the need for autonomous approaches to language learning:

The main reason I’m coming to this point of view is that most of our students have low motivation to learn English. They’ve studied English for 6 years prior to entering university, but they haven’t learned it: they can’t use it. In addition to that, while most of them have a vague sense that “English will be useful for my future”, they don’t have a clear idea of what that means, nor is that a very strong motivator; it’s too vague and too far off. And what does it mean? I doubt that more than a handful out of the 120 of our freshmen will get a job where they actually need to use English, and probably about the same number will travel abroad and need to use English. Probably what they mean by “useful in my future” is that they know more and more Japanese companies are tightening the screws on promotion and using English-language proficiency tests like TOEIC as a means of sorting the wheat from the chaff.

This is precisely why EFL should be situated around each student’s interests. Our learners do have their own motivations and interests, they just don’t see in any direct way how learning English can help them follow those interests. So if a learner’s main interest is in snowboarding, that topic should be the starting point for her language learning activities for the year, by reading all about snowboarding from English sources and communicating with snowboarders from all over the world. She could then blog about her snowboarding experiences in English, take part in snowboarding message boards, build an online snowboarding resource with other snowboarding enthusiasts using a wiki, and construct an e-portfolio of all her knowledege and experience in snowboarding. In this way she learns by using the language, rather than studying it. That’s authenticity, and if done with heart, she’ll increase her knowledge of a topic that is dear to her and learn how to actually use the language. Did I hear someone say ‘job possibilites in the international snowboarding industry after graduation’? That’s a far cry from cramming for the TOEIC all year just to end up wearing high heels and a buisiness suit 5 days a week because it’s the only option she sees.