Activity D
Learners’ preferences
Why choose this activity?
This activity will show tutors how to determine the ways their ESL learners prefer to learn and the ways they have approached learning in the past. It is really only useful with learners who are already quite fluent in English.
Please note: Learning preference checklists used with English-speaking literacy learners aren’t as useful for ESL learners. The one demonstrated in this activity is designed specifically to work with ESL learners.
Facilitation tip
If tutors have already learned about learning styles/preferences in another session, it would help to tie those concepts to the ideas presented here.
| Discussion using handout |
Materials and equipment
Handout 11.10: What Helps You to Learn English? (2 pages)
Preparation
Copy handout.
STEP-BY-STEP PROCESS
- Hand out What Helps You to Learn English? Most of the handout is applicable to a one-on-one tutoring situation although it was written for large classes.
- Introduce this as a way to learn about the preferences and learning practices
of learners who are already fairly fluent in English. Side A looks at the
learners within a class setting and side B looks at them outside of class. Mention that it is good to get the learner involved in self-assessments like the one in this checklist.
- Ask tutors to point out a few items that show that the learner is an active rather than a passive learner. Learners could engage many of the strategies on the lists in an active way, but some should particularly stand out as active learning examples, both from list A (3, 12 and 5) and from list B (3 through 6, 8 through 3, and 5). Encourage your tutors to help learners use some of these active-learning practices.
- This would be a good time to encourage tutors to keep beginning assessments and checklists like this as the start of a portfolio.
|
A different language is a different vision of life.
Federico Fellini