It's gotta be real!

It’s got to be real. So much classroom activity is so far removed from reality that it is simply boring. Little kids might accept make-believe worlds but teenagers are feverishly anxious to get their hands on the real world.

But first let me set the context. My school is located in an underprivileged area south of Copenhagen, Denmark. The school is a private school but close to 20% of schools in Denmark are private. They are not expensive, but yes there is a fee and parents do have to make an active choice to choose a private school. Private schools have a little more freedom than state schools but are still obliged to follow national curricula and are subject to regular monitoring to ensure that they are living up to the national curricula. All classes like in most schools are mixed ability and in our school we do have a larger number of students with non-Danish ethnic backgrounds, as the area has a very large immigrant population.

I have been practicing autonomy in all of my English lessons for the past 10 years. But what do I mean when I say “autonomy”? In my lessons (with 10 year olds, 12 year old 15/16 year olds) I start by asking, “Okay kids, How to do you want to learn English over the next 6-8 weeks?” Students discuss their ideas together (in English of course). They form groups and dream up all sorts of ideas. I join in these discussions and after about 30-40 minutes they are proposing ideas and projects. I accept most suggestions but some groups might be asked to reconsider whether they will learn enough English with their proposed project? Usually though after about 45 minutes all students have found partners and topics. There are often 1-3 students who decide to work alone and that too is permitted, but I do discourage them from repeatedly working alone, as I believe dialogue is beneficial to learning.

Students have enormous freedom, once they can convince me that their topic will enable them to learn English. The variety of topics is perhaps best illustrated by showing what my two eighth classes and two sixth classes are working with: first 8a

US veterans and PTSD Toby, Seb and Marco

Writing the first few chapters of their first book Clara and Cil

2016 – a year that changed the world Veronica, Penny and Cas

The Gone series of (huge) books, a review of the series Rasmus

Fred and Rose West (real-life monsters) Malle, Sarah and Danny

Child abuse in the USA Celine, Camilla and Laura

Writing the first chapter in their book (Teen Kidnap) Julia, Tilly and Ida

Space… Richard Branson, Voyager/X space…. Åmu

The American civil war Simon and Lucas 

And 8b

The swinging 60's Emma, Sarah and Jules

Reading The Scorch Trials Philip

Reading Most Wanted (Goosebumps) + Wimpy Kid Fiona, Ajlin, Anna and Marie

Writing the first chapters in their first book Hawwa and Sara

Reading Gone Niels Christian

Reading Stormbreaker Lukas

KKK Lucas and Ben

Cleveland abduction Isabel, Kevin and Joyce

What is autonomy? (film) Gustav and Mikkel

Writing the first chapters in their first book Noah and Oliver

Project about (the Sweep Series by Cate Tiernan) Tebs



And in my sixth classes (12 year olds) 6b

Clash Royale computer game Lasse, Jo and Nick

What is Easter? Seb

Chevrolet Corvette Emil

Cristiano Ronaldo (including reading the book) Selim, Haaris and Filip

Inanna (viner) Maliha

Selena Gomez and free reading Halima

"Pokemon" and its history Dean and Tom

Ubisoft (computer games producer) Nic and  Victor

A crime film Laura L', Amanda and Maliha

Drama... a criminal interrogation Laura K,  Laura H, Ida, Ashna and Aastha

Magic Mathias



And 6a

Overwatch computer game Mathias and Aran

Sneakers (sports shoes) Daniel and Lukas

Youtuber Tanner Fox Olli

Sweets, biscuits and desserts in England Tilly, Liv and Jules.

Coca Cola Esther, Deniz and Lucas

Making an English learning game for 2b Augusta

Brands (Lacoste, Nike and Ralph Lauren) André, Hugo and Victor

Reading Zac Power 1. Test Drive 2.Zac's sticky fix and maybe one more book Aysa and Sofie

Reading Bartemaeus My

Cricket Manjosh

As you can see a very diverse and differentiated collection of topics.

My classrooms are open to visitors and researchers. We have over the past two months had a group of researchers from University College Lillebaelt (Denmark), who were specifically interested in the use of digital tools in schools and we have had two separate visits from students studying to be teachers, who had heard/read about autonomy and wanted to see if it really was possible. We have also been visited by a group of teachers who attended one of my autonomy courses. If you, the reader, are interested in visiting my lessons, then please feel free to do so. I would appreciate if you could let me know in advance, but if you turn up unannounced you will in all probability find a warm welcome :-).

Having chosen their topics, students then research (usually digitally) their topic over the following 5-6 weeks. I scaffold groups and they document and evaluate their work, progress and learning in their logbooks (which are either old-fashioned copy books or digital using Office 365 One Note), giving me an insight into their learning and work. Every week I publish a “week plan” on the school’s internet website for each class, which parents can and do access to see what their children are working with and learning. The week plan explains what each student/group is working with, how far we are in our project (timewise) and when projects must be finished. I also regularly write newsletters to parents informing them about our work and learning.

After the allocated 5-6 weeks students present their projects (PowerPoints, film, drama, stories, book reviews etc.) to the class, sharing their learning with their fellow students and they receive feedback from their fellow students and me the teacher on their presentation and their learning.

In my autonomous classrooms my kids are used to choosing what they want to work with, how they want to work, and whom they want to work with to learn English. Usually this means jumping straight onto Google or the BBC website to find information. The products that my students produce are usually very good and in state contolled exams my students have exceptionally good results

Over the past few months I have attended some seminars and lectures on 21st century learning. One of the lectures was by a Danish lecturer called Mikkel Hjorth. One of his points was that schools have a tendency to ask questions to which there is a right answer. Teachers have to pose students questions to which there is no right answer – questions which foster innovation. I know that there is a bit of a jump from that to what I do with my kids, but in an attempt to open up the topics my students chose, and to make the results less predictable, I asked them – as part of their project – to establish contact with a real English-speaking person (via e-mail, tweet, etc.). The results were very interesting.

One group was working with capital punishment in the US. As part of their research I showed them a BBC article about a man who had been released after 20 years on death row. They managed to find him! When he didn’t respond to their e-mail they found his Twitter account and after the third tweet they made contact. Suddenly their project became very real.

Another group was reading about home-schooling in the USA and they managed to get in e-mail contact with an American girl who was home-schooled.

Two other students were fascinated by the idea of some Catholics choosing to become nuns, which, in a secular society like Denmark, is an astounding concept. To begin with they received a standard “thank you for your e-mail” from a Catholic priest, but a week later they got in touch with a young nun who gave very meaningful and personal answers to their questions.

Two boys were ‘discovering’ what Guantanamo is. They received answers to some of their enquiries from a small American grass-roots organisation campaigning for the closure of Guantanamo.

Then, there was a group of low performing boys. They had heard about homeless people in Las Vegas living in service tunnels under the city in appalling conditions. They managed to make contact with a person who had lived in the tunnels for three years and since written a book about his experiences.

Finally and perhaps the most shocking contact was with Gina DeJesus. You may remember an horrific crime in Cleveland Ohio USA that was uncovered in 2013, when police officers stumbled upon three young women, who had been kidnapped for up to 11 years by Ariel Castro. They were subjected to absolutely appalling treatment. My students, inspired by previous success, decided to try to contact the victims and they succeeded! They received an amazing answer from Gina DeJesus which ended  “What I would love for all of you to do is get involved. If you see something not right, say something. God Bless, Gina DeJesus”  

Below you can read the email ‘conversations’ that my students had with their contacts.  The language used  in these exchanges has not been modified for grammar or spelling.

Death row

Prisoner: Okay lets do this... Been so busy sorry... Send me your questions

Students: Thank you so much!

We only have one simple question actually.

We would like to know how the enviroment

was in •the death penalty"  

Prisoner: It is the most dehumanising feeling. I was just

21 years old and l felt like the whole world

wanted me dead. The on y thing that I coud

think of doing was to learn to love who I was

so that it did not matter it they killed me

I tried to be nice and kind even in hell  

Students: Wow, really inspiring, thank you so much for

taking time to answer us. We appreciate it

alot!

_______________________________________________________________

Las Vegas homeless (email exchange – or something like that)



Dear Matthew O’Brien.  We’re three boys from Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark. We’re making an English project about the Las Vegas tunnels, and we’d like to ask you a couple of questions in this email, if it is possible.  Our questions: How is the environment and the conditions for the homeless people?  Is the problem getting worse or is the population in the tunnels falling?   

Dear Matthew O’Brien.

We’re three boys from Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark. We’re making an English project about the Las Vegas tunnels, and we’d like to ask you a couple of questions in this email, if it is possible.

Our questions: How is the environment and the conditions for the homeless people?

Is the problem getting worse or is the population in the tunnels falling?

Greetings from a cold but sunny Copenhagen.

Can you tell me a little more about your project? Matt Dear Matthew O’Brien.  First of all, thank you for answering.  We are making a movie. The movie contains informations about Las Vegas itself, and we want to go into depth with the tunnels, as it is our main topic. So we believed it could be absolutely fantastic to get an interview from a specialist, and we want to know about your experience with the homeless people.  Greetings, Tobias, Simon and Sebastian.  The environment in the tunnels is pretty bleak. They are dark and, in some cases, dank. However, the people down there prefer the tunnels to living homeless aboveground in Vegas, because of the heat, the cops and other issues like that. (To get a better idea of what it is like in the tunnels, read my book Beneath the Neon or just Google the subject.) The population in the tunnels a bit smaller, I think. More organizations, like US Vets and HELP of Southern Nevada and my community project Shine a Light, are getting involved in the issue and helping. Of course, Las Vegas doesn't have the resources to help all the people who live in the drains, but they have more options than they did 10 years ago, I think. Matt Dear Matthew O’Brien  We’re very thankful for your great answer.  Greetings,

The environment in the tunnels is pretty bleak. They are dark and, in some cases, dank. However, the people down there prefer the tunnels to living homeless aboveground in Vegas, because of the heat, the cops and other issues like that. (To get a better idea of what it is like in the tunnels, read my book Beneath the Neon or just Google the subject.)

The population in the tunnels a bit smaller, I think. More organizations, like US Vets and HELP of Southern Nevada and my community project Shine a Light, are getting involved in the issue and helping. Of course, Las Vegas doesn't have the resources to help all the people who live in the drains, but they have more options than they did 10 years ago, I think.

Matt

Tobias, Simon and Sebastian 

Catholic Nuns

I hope it isn't too late to respond to your three questions about nuns for your school project.  1. How did your family react when you said you wanted to be a nun?

My family is not Catholic, and I became a Catholic on my own at the age of 16. My parents are of Protestant backgrounds. So, when I first announced that I was discerning becoming a nun they really did not understand at all. The only nuns they knew of were those in the movies! They thought that it was a teenage phase and would pass with time, but after I continued to visit convents and monasteries over a few years time they could see that I was serious. When I first entered the monastery they were very upset and could not understand what I was doing at all. However, after many visits to see me happily living as a nun, and meeting my religious sisters they have grown to accept and to some extent even support my path in life. They still say that they don't understand, but that they are just happy that I am living happily. 2. Why did you choose a life without a family and children? I am a very family-oriented person who absolutely loves children, so sacrificing the opportunity to have my own family was difficult for me. However, I have always wanted to live for something much greater than myself and have always been consoled by remembering that I am seeking to live entirely for God and that my life of prayer has a positive effect on humanity. Being free of taking care of a family allows that energy to be channeled into prayer and the spiritual life. 3. How did you get the idea of becoming a nun?  The idea first occurred to me when I was about 13 and I was reading about nuns and saints. I realized that we human beings were created "to know, love, and serve God" and that was exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted

2. Why did you choose a life without a family and children? I am a very family-oriented person who absolutely loves children, so sacrificing the opportunity to have my own family was difficult for me. However, I have always wanted to live for something much greater than myself and have always been consoled by remembering that I am seeking to live entirely for God and that my life of prayer has a positive effect on humanity. Being free of taking care of a family allows that energy to be channeled into prayer and the spiritual life.

3. How did you get the idea of becoming a nun? The idea first occurred to me when I was about 13 and I was reading about nuns and saints. I realized that we human beings were created "to know, love, and serve God" and that was exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to live entirely for God, and the saints that I was reading about had done that by living in convents and monasteries.

to live entirely for God, and the saints that I was reading about had done that by living in convents and monasteries.  Many blessings to you in your class project, Sister Mary Therese

Home Schooling

My name is Camilla and Im 14 years old and I live in Denmark. I have your e-mail from Toby Lauren Burgess from Facebook. I my class in my school (english lessons) we have a project about homeschooling and I have some questions and hope you will reply to me :-) A)   Do you like your homeschooling B)   What is the best thing about homeschooling C)   Why dit you/or your parents chose homeschooling for you Thank you so much if you will reply to me. Kind regards Camilla Kirketerp from Denmark

Hello I'm Ireland. I'm 11 and I would be happy to answer your questions . A)   Do you like your homeschooling? Of course! It's really fun. B)   What is the best thing about homeschooling? Well personally, I like it because you can spend more time with your family and I

My name is Camilla and Im 14 years old and I live in Denmark. I have your e-mail from Toby Lauren Burgess from Facebook. I my class in my school (english lessons) we have a project about homeschooling and I have some questions and hope you will reply to me :-)

A)  Do you like your homeschooling B)  What is the best thing about homeschooling C)  Why dit you/or your parents chose homeschooling for you

Thank you so much if you will reply to me.

Kind regards Camilla Kirketerp from Denmark

get to learn things I want to learn instead of what I am being told to.

C)   Why dit you/or your parents chose homeschooling for you? At first it was mainly to do with my brother. He didn't like leaving my mothers side. So we started doing homeschool. Right after that, we found out we both had types of disabilities, such as Dyslexia and Tourettes, which made it easier for us to do our learning at home. Thank you! I hope this helps.

_______________________________________________________________

Guantanomo Bay

Hello my name is Marco Hollensted and I am 14 years old. Im a student from a school called Aadalens Privatskole in Denamark, in a little city called Ishoej near Copenhagen. Me and my good friend Lucas are making a school project about Guantanamo, and we found your web page while we were looking for a new topic to write about. And then we thought your web page was pretty cool and we like what you stand for. But we really want to know how you came up with the idea and how many people started the group and how many people support you?

This is very important for our project and I am 100% sure that it will make our project very good and interesting with your help!

Best wishes from Denmark

Marco Hollensted and Lucas Sebastian Hansen

Hi Marco and Lucas,

Good to hear from you. Thanks for your interest.

The campaign was founded by myself (Andy Worthington) and Tom Wilner. I'm a journalist and human rights activist, based in London, and Tom's an attorney in Washington, D.C. who helped represent the Guantanamo prisoners in their Supreme Court cases in the US in 2004 and 2008.

We reach out to tens of thousands of supporters through the website and our social media. I wish it was more, but it's difficult to get people as interested in Guantanamo as they should be. Americans were told it held "the worst of the worst" by the Bush administration, and they believed it, whereas the truth was something completely different.

Few of the 779 men held by the US military at Guantanamo since the prison opened in January 2002 have genuinely been accused of involvement in terrorism. Most were either foot soldiers for Taliban or innocent people seized by mistake - at a time when generous bounty payments made by the US were widespread, and most of the prisoners were not seized by the US, but by their Afghan and Pakistani allies.

The handful of men accused of terrorism should have been put on trial in federal court and the soldiers should have been held as prisoners of war protected by the Geneva Conventions, but everyone was, instead, held as "enemy combatants" without any rights whatsoever, and, without rights, it was also easy for the US to decide that it wanted to torture them when they didn't provide themAfghan and Pakistani allies. The handful of men accused of terrorism should have been put on trial in federal court and the soldiers should have been held as prisoners of war protected by the Geneva Conventions, but everyone was, instead, held as "enemy combatants" without any rights whatsoever, and, without rights, it was also easy for the US to decide that it wanted to torture them when they didn't provide them with the information they wanted - largely because they knew nothing of any value. I hope this helps. Best, Andy Hello Andy that was a very big help for our project we will just say thank you for writting back to that means a lot for our project and us. We think that how your group has  inproved is very cool. Best, Marco and Lucas with the information they wanted - largely because they knew nothing of any value.

I hope this helps.

Best,

Andy

Hello Andy that was a very big help for our project we will just say thank you for writting back to that means a lot for our project and us. We think that how your group has  inproved is very cool.   

Best,

Marco and Lucas

The Cleveland abductions

Thank you so much for reaching out to me. I am humbled and honored you are doing a project on The Cleveland Abduction. My response to your questions are simple: I'm moving forward with my life. Everyday is different and I'm grateful for the life I'm living now. To live my life looking in the rear view mirror doesn't feel healthy to me. I hope you understand that. I am so happy to be amongst my family and friends. It makes me so happy that there are people out there like you whom are interested in this case. What I would love for all of you to do is get involved. If you see something not right, say something. God Bless, Gina DeJesus”

Some groups did not receive answers, but to be honest, I was shocked that so many of my students (about 50%) were so successful and I think they too were very surprised. The result was that 14-year-old kids suddenly felt that the real world was taking them very seriously. Need I say the motivational value was enormous? My students left the boring confinement of the classroom via their computers. Their English learning suddenly became very ‘real’.

PS all parties have given permission to use their names and correspondence.

Independence (42) pp4-8 IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG
This article by Frank Lacey came to us originally via Leni Dam – one of the SIG’s featured speakers at the IATEFL Pre-Conference Event in Exeter next April. Leni had asked Frank, her former student on an in-service Diploma course, for his thoughts on teacher education for learner autonomy (see p. 25 ). Frank’s story of transformation from scepticism to enthusiasm is of wider interest, though, for the insights it provides into uncertainties along the way in implementing a pedagogy for autonomy, hence the decision to make it into this issue’s feature article. If you have a story to share in relation to your own development as a teacher and/or learner in connection with learner autonomy, please let us know.
Autonomy, never, never, never!
Frank Lacey
Once upon a time it was my firm conviction that it was the teacher's responsibility to teach and that ideas of giving students responsibility for their learning were at worst a refusal to take responsibility and at best naïve nonsense. I, the teacher, was paid to do a job. I had a responsibility. In addition I loved teaching and enjoyed the interaction with my students. These same students scored extremely high results year after year in state-controlled exams, and I as a teacher had a very good reputation among both students and parents. My teacher-controlled classroom with a teacher-controlled curriculum worked. Tampering with this successful model would be foolish, but I did. It was, however, not a case of Saul on the road to Damascus – a sudden change of practice upon seeing the light – but rather a long and very painful process which took over three years. As for any teacher worth his or her salt, being a teacher is an integral part of how I define myself as a person. Thus these 3+ years were full not only of hard study but also existential considerations. What was I doing? I, who had a reputation of being a strong teacher in control my classes, was flirting with the idea of autonomy. An idea which, it appeared, was diametrically opposed to everything I stood for.
Leni Dam
Leni Dam did it! She held a short course at my school extolling the virtues of autonomy. In the discussions I vehemently opposed the arguments she put forward (insisting that the teacher must take responsibility etc.). Leni countered with examples of work which her students had produced, especially logbooks. These were impressive, but … After the course I was not finished arguing and continued discussing the matter with Leni. She suggested that I should test my arguments academically by joining an in-service teacher
training course (a pedagogical diploma course in foreign language teaching). This I took as a challenge and being convinced that my convictions were right I decided to prove it. I started in September 2004. Leni was the course coordinator and main lecturer. The first weeks were frustrating. Nothing happened. Where was the teaching? We the participants discussed various issues. We had some interesting and fun discussions but when was Leni going to start teaching us? And the exams were looming! I had to do something – otherwise I would fail. I embarked upon a course of studies with a focus on my own teaching. I conducted experiments in my classrooms, had students fill out questionnaires and filmed my teaching. I took control of my learning and with horror realised that I myself had become an autonomous learner! But it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks. After the first module of six months I did give my students greater influence and had more cooperative elements than before but if I am honest it took all six modules before I took the final steps to introducing autonomy in my classrooms. After nearly three years of patient coaching and tentative experiments I took the final steps in February 2007, introducing autonomy and logbooks in two (out of  five) classes. I maintained a teacher logbook, which in retrospect is at times almost amusing.
Teacher's logbook
The teacher's logbook illustrates some of the challenges faced when embarking upon autonomy. At the beginning I was very sceptical of the benefit and feasibility of using, for example, logbooks. On 14 February in my teacher logbook I write “I truly do not believe that logbooks make sense”. On Thursday 1 March I express fears that the students cannot manage without me:
O
Independence (42) pp4-8 IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG
Worry 1! If we take a book like "Hooligans" (a 70 page book which I previously read as a class novel, with the students reading a chapter at home, which we then discussed the following day) there is so much in that book that is between the lines and won't be understood by the kids unless it is brought to their attention. Worry 2! Will the class maintain their progress without my dynamism? Small group work is not conducive to my group jokes and loud voice and big arm movements.
The fear of losing control after years of being in control – and of being respected for exactly that reason – was not inconsiderable. I had read Dam (1995) and Little (1991), who discuss the problems teachers face when giving control to their learners, but when I actually took the step to introduce autonomy the  feeling of losing control was daunting. Previously I would sometimes have lessons where the students were not very active or were poorly prepared but now I experienced chaotic situations which I felt were a stain on my professionalism:
5 March. Oh dear! 2 periods with 7b followed by two periods with 7a. 'Chaos', 'confusion' were the words that spring to mind. Kids dreaming up nonsense projects and me saying why? and how? and with what results? Kids wanting everything from grammar books, to cardboard, to video cameras.
At first I was very stressed and struck by what Dam calls the “Octopus Syndrome”. I was everywhere at once, scaffolding weak students while at the same time trying to find cardboard, books and video cameras and trying to make sure that everybody looked like they were working. It takes time to get used to the idea that they are in control of their learning. It was difficult for the students to come to terms with their new-found freedom and at times there were lessons which were near anarchy:
10 April. Easter holidays finished. 7b wow what a lot of crap. Unmotivated students… I had the impression that they wanted me to take responsibility and my task was to send responsibility back to them… this they didn't like. I corrected 4 logbooks (Judy H, Kathy, Eli and Natalie) they were to put it mildly not impressive. These kids are not working and I end up controlling by saying that I am not satisfied.. so we revert to the earlier situation where it is the teacher that controls… oh dear!
This illustrates the teacher's dilemma in the autonomous class. On the one hand giving control to the students but nevertheless the teacher still
having responsibility to ensure that they are learning. In other words, when is it appropriate to intervene? There are many moments of doubt and uncertainty. On 7 May 2007 I wrote in my logbook:
7b were a pain … very little activity. Basically 2 periods of whinging. Only Dave, Niall and Dan seemed to be doing anything. 7a were more active – not wildly so but a lot better than 7b Emanuel no work done since last Monday – that's one week! I am doubting the wisdom of autonomy after such a terrible class.
In such situations it is important to have somebody to talk to. In my case my wife:
I talked to Heidi. Talked about the problems I would face if I introduced autonomy into my German classes. It is difficult in English, where the kids are quite capable, but in German where they are linguistically much more handicapped it would be impossible.….but Heidi pointed to the success that Aine has experienced and none of my German learners are as weak as she was… mmm – interesting… maybe it would work in German.
 (Aine is a particularly interesting student, she is extremely weak, and despite four years of English she is weaker than most beginners. Aine spoke her first self-initiated English sentence in the fourth week of this experiment. Aine’s logbook entry is basically the first understandable written English that she has ever produced. On 27 March she produced one of many faultless and impressive sentences: “I am working quite well and I am happy with the results, I have got”. And on 30 March: “I read books and talk engesk quite well and talk with people and communicate”. The books were books intended for the 5th grade, but so what? For the first time in years, Aine was at ease in English classes, because she could choose. On 30 April she writes:
I fink this is a good and I can talk engelsh and a can see at I can talk engelsk with people and can a little it ….. understand engelsk. I learn engelsk and I is very happy because I hav learn engelsk and I am a happy because I learn engelssk.
 She could of course be writing this to please her teacher , but previously, English was the subject that Aine liked the least. Now she is having success and benefiting from peer scaffolding.) Autonomy means listening to the students and after the afore-mentioned unpleasant experience (7 may 2007), in accordance with Deci's (1995) recommendations, I avoided diagnosing but asked the students what we should do:
Independence (42) pp4-8 IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG
8 May. Talked to 7b about my frustration. They said their problem was that it was “embarrassing to speak English and that there were things they couldn’t say”. We talked about the problem, agreed that we have to work on supporting each other and then had a super English lesson.
In addition, a lurking threat was that a discontented parent might phone to complain about their child's lack of learning (the school is a private one and the parents are very active and regularly phone). Then I would be in the position of having to admit that I didn't know what their child was doing! I would have to admit that I, the teacher, was not in control of my class. Again, received wisdom tells us that good teachers are in control of their classes and bad teachers are not. Would ordinary parents understand the paradigm change I was trying to introduce? And all the time there were the nagging questions – Am I doing well enough? Should I not be more in touch with what each group is doing? True, their logbooks were a detailed recording of their work but I didn't have these home with me all the time. Mentally, the process was very taxing. Whereas before I had two classes to prepare for and two classes to relate to, not to mention the other classes that I teach, I now had 36 students in different constellations going in very different directions that I had to juggle in my head. But as the teacher logbook illustrated there was, in contrast to my fears, parental support for the changes I had introduced: “8 March,  parent–teacher meeting. Parents liked the extreme degree of ‘student differentiation’ and the fact that kids spoke and wrote large amounts of English”.
Autonomy yes, yes, yes
After five exhausting autonomous months (and three years of postgraduate studies) I was converted. And, yes, this was somewhat humiliating after vociferously opposing all things autonomous, but therefore all the more thorough. Below are some of the reasons that I decided to choose autonomy.
School knowledge becomes action knowledge (Barnes 1976) 
Judy H was the most vociferous opponent of logbooks, but then was the student who wrote most in her logbook (!). She showed several examples of bridging the gap between school knowledge and action knowledge. On 15 March she writes: “Today I'm sick again, and saw … Harry Potter with no subtitles and I understand it”. She had previously explained that she couldn't understand a film unless she read the subtitles and therefore didn't listen to the language. It is because she had a logbook and
had accepted that her learning was autonomous that she was able to take this initiative. On 24 April she wrote: “I talk English to training (we have two girls at badminton training..they come from another land) and I talk English my self, when I am alone”. Judy H is a feisty girl who wants to decide things and therefore often ends up in conflicts with teachers. Now she does not have such conflicts, as she is given the opportunity to choose, and she is now working harder and learning more than ever before. Cathy started her logbook (28 February) by writing on the first page: “I don't know. .I would like to talk English without feeling stupid”.  Five weeks later she used one of her days (4 April) during the Easter holidays to speak English with her dad. She explained further: “I'm talking English at home and I write english letters to a penfriend. I want to be better at expressing myself”. And on 14 April: “I have also been chatting on Arto.com which is the English edition of Arto.dk”. She continues on the 17 April: “I have been chatting on arto.com for about an hour and a half … it's a fun way of working.. I want to know how young people talk to each other”. This is yet another example of the engagement of autonomy and the use of logbooks leading to an awareness that language learning is not limited to the classroom – she is clearly bridging the gap between school learning and action learning. Cathy also very clearly is using metacognitive skills to evaluate her learning and to choose a learning approach.. On 23 April she writes: “In the latest weeks I think I have improve my English writing. And im a bit proud of myself”. This is an impressive display of independence for a 13-year-old. She can evaluate her learning and praise herself. At the same time as she is doing all of these things, she is peer scaffolding the weakest student (Aine). Idel writes on 11 April:
We have to get started again after the holIdely. I have been using English in my holIdely, with my best friend Therese. It was only for fun, we almost talked english all day  .
Katrina explained on 13 April that she had changed the language on her mobile phone to English.
Four days ago I took my mobile on english so I could learn some new words but I could almost all the words, so I now is my mobile on Deutch so I can learn more Deutch.
Here we have a student who is taking responsibility for her learning. She then evaluates the results and chooses a more appropriate course.
Independence (42) pp4-8 IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG
Similarly, Mehmet writes that on Easter Sunday he watched an English film and he then writes half a page about the film in his logbook. Previously, he would only have done this if it had been a homework assignment. Now, however, he is giving himself homework! On 23 April he writes:
Today I also have been loke at Idel's logbook and she wirting  at a special way an I was think can we write on tha way. Yes said Frank and sow I thinkes what a intresent way to wirte logbook an sow I will try to wirte on the same.
 Here, Mehmet is evaluating his (and Idel's) work and following his evaluation decides on how best to proceed. Nico on 21 April:
I have been chatting on an online football game called hattrick. I have improved my communication skills when I have written with people from other countries on English….
 On 23 April:
We have learnt a few new words 'benefit', 'accomodation' and 'tribe'. We are both getting better [Nico and Pete] at reading and understanding texts because if there is a word I don't understand he does and if he doesn't I do.
 Here, Nico demonstrates useful cooperative learning skills, scaffolding and metacognitive skills and is also going beyond school English to “action English”. When I collected the logbooks at the beginning of May and said that I would give them new logbooks, because I wanted to use the old ones when writing my report, many students were upset… “I couldn't just take their logbooks!” They had established a “relationship” with them, somewhat like people do with a diary.
Autonomy and logbooks: two sides of the same coin
Something which became apparent during the course of my studies was the fact that logbooks and autonomy are two sides of the same coin. The only way that a responsible teacher can change to autonomy is with logbooks. These allow the teacher to monitor (not control) student learning. Without logbooks it would be impossible to provide the necessary scaffolding, as the teacher would be removed from the student's learning process. Likewise logbooks without autonomy don’t make sense. The whole point of logbooks, as experienced in this study, is that they are not only documentation but also communication. This communication only achieves authenticity when the
students are working autonomously, since this means that they have knowledge about what they are working with that the teacher does not share. Thus the logbooks have important information for the teacher. English and the use of English become authentic – not just a school subject, but a part of their real lives. The challenges involved in introducing logbooks were less than anticipated. The students seemed to easily accept the logic that if they were to take responsibility for their learning then they had to be able to document their work. Little (1999) says that the use of writing is also supportive of oral communication. In my study the students’ logbooks created a basis for the discussions that took place in the classroom. Logbooks and their intrusion into their private world encouraged the learners to see that their English learning is not limited to the classroom, thus enabling them to bridge the gap between school knowledge and action knowledge. Some of my students increased ten-fold the time they spend learning English. And it has allowed weaker students to work with tasks that support their learning. For example, previously I made a special effort to find simpler tasks for the very weak student I described above (Aine, 7a). In this way, she was not part of the class, but on the contrary she was demonstratively excluded. Now however she, like every other student, is involved in solving her self-chosen tasks and has thus become part of the class.
Paradoxes in autonomy
An advantage of which I was unaware when I started, was the incredibly detailed insight into the academic performance of each and every child that logbooks give. The industrious student can clearly demonstrate his/her diligence, but the student who is not making an effort clearly demonstrates his/her lack of effort. I believe that there are some interesting paradoxes in autonomy:
Autonomy means me giving control to students.
but Logbooks give me more control/insight than I have ever had before.
The class unity is lost in the many small groups.
but Weak students are, just like strong students, working on their selfassigned tasks, and thus are no longer segregated in the class, but are part of the class.
The teacher has no preparation
but The teacher is extremely busy scaffolding individuals and groups
Independence (42) pp4-8 IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG
The students have responsibility for their learning
but Through scaffolding, the teacher takes more responsibility than in a traditional class
Changes in teacher learner roles
The introduction of autonomy leads to very definite changes in teacher/learner roles. The most important change is that focus is moved from teaching to learning. The students achieve ownership of their learning. The teacher no longer knows all the answers, meaning that communication in the FL classroom becomes authentic and the language becomes the means as well as the goal. The degree of educational differentiation is enormous compared to traditional teacher-controlled lessons. The teacher must ensure scaffolding but is not alone in this responsibility. The willingness of students to accept responsibility for their learning and the amount of peer scaffolding which I have experienced is impressive. Another alteration in the teacher/learner role is that it is no longer the teacher who has all responsibility for evaluation of unsatisfactory work. The fact that the students accept responsibility for evaluating their work removes a point of conflict that is common in the traditional classroom, where students can see the teacher as an opponent, who “gives” them bad grades. In the autonomous class teacher and learner are on the same side, exploring the FL world together. Now, six months later, all five of my classes (both German and English) are working autonomously. All my students maintain logbooks which are written in the target language. I have for the past three years had a homepage which I have used to communicate with students and parents and as a display window for student's work. This has now been extended to include a class logbook where students document what they are working on. Thus students, by accessing the class logbook (which is usually displayed via projector in every lesson), can inspire each other and sceptical parents can see that the teacher has by no means abdicated but is fully up to date with what each and every student is doing. This solves the problem I mentioned above under ‘Teacher logbooks’ about not being completely up to date on what each student is doing. Introducing autonomy was a painful process and despite my enthusiasm I am sure that I would not have completed the transition from teacher-controlled teaching to autonomy if it had not been for the structure that the Diploma course offered and the unfailing encouragement of Leni Dam.
The result
My bright students have taken off. In one class of 14 year olds one student is reading A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and another is on the second book in the trilogy Northern Lights by Philip Pulman. At the same time weaker students are freed from the terror of language classes where their inadequacies are cruelly exposed. All in all our language classes have changed from being a spectator sport to a participant sport.
References
Barnes, D. (1976): From Communication to Curriculum. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Dam, L. (1995) Learner Autonomy:  From Theory to Classroom Practice.  Dublín: Authentik. Deci, E. (1995)  Why We Do What We Do: The Dynamics of Personal Autonomy. London: Penguin Books. Little, D. (1991)  Learner Autonomy: Definitions, Issues and Problems. Dublín: Authentik. Little, D. (1999) ‘Metalinguistic awareness: the cornerstone of learner autonomy’. In Missler, B. & Multhaup, U. (eds.) The Construction of Knowledge, Learner Autonomy and Related Issues in Foreign Language Learning: Essays in Honour of Dieter Wolff. Tübingen: StauffenburgVerlag.
Frank Lacey, who is originally from Ireland, has been teaching German and English in Denmark for 20 years. He moved to Denmark from Ireland to marry Heidi. They have since adopted two children from Vietnam and China whom they have reared bilingually. Much of Frank’s  teaching and his
Independence (42) pp4-8 IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG

Autonomy and anarchy

Autonomy and anarchy

Frank Lacey

Ådalens Privatskole, Denmark

Frank Lacey from Ireland has been working as an FL teacher (German, English and French) for nearly 30 years. Frank has been living and working in Copenhagen for more than 25 years, having married a Dane, and has two daughters. He is ‘quite’ passionate about his teaching and has for the past 10 years been working with learner autonomy in his classrooms and holding courses on the benefits of learner autonomy. E-mail: frank@jernsokerne.org

W

hen I tell people about my belief in the power of student autonomy, I am often met with sceptical smiles. I very much understand this scepticism. I once shared it. And I even appreciate it, since it forces me to reflect on my practices. Student autonomy in many people’s ears sounds like anarchy.

I have been practising student autonomy for 9 years. The readers of this magazine know well that autonomy means that students choose how they want to learn. They decide what they want to do, how, with whom and then evaluate the results with their fellow students and with the teacher. In short, they take responsibility for their learning and for the evaluation of their learning.

Some people would suggest that I, being the teacher, am shirking my responsibility. But this is most definitely not the case.

All my students are obliged to document their learning in their logbooks and I regularly read these logbooks. I make sure to thoroughly read all logbooks at least once a month. (I have nine different classes – that is about 200 logbooks every month, so yes, it is a time-consuming activity!) And in basically every lesson I can see in their logbooks exactly what they are learning, thus I have a very clear insight into the learning process and learning results of each and every one of my students. I give brief, written, individual feedback to every student in their logbooks. So feedback, just like the work the individual students are doing, is extremely differentiated.

All of us who preach autonomy share the belief that autonomy has a beneficial influence on the student’s intrinsic motivation. Motivational research (Dörnyei 2001a, 2001b; Ushioda 1996) supports this belief. We, as individuals, are naturally more interested in the projects we choose ourselves than projects which we are compelled to complete to please others. “BUT!” some might say,” is this not just too good to be true? Disaffected teenagers with all the distractions that they face don’t arrive in class eager to explore grammar, punctuation, culture etc.”. Certainly, my students are teenagers with all the challenges and adolescent behaviour but in my experience they are intrinsically motivated. Why?

Until recently I did quite honestly find it difficult to explain why student autonomy works in my classes. Recently I read a book called ‘Engaging learners/Outstanding teaching’ written by Andy Griffith and Mark Burns, and here I met the concept ‘Contain’. “Contain is about establishing positive norms that the teacher wants to see in his or her classroom. These norms – such as working hard, cooperating, reflecting on and improving the quality of one’s work – will grow and become embedded over time” (Griffith and Burns 2012: 55).

In other words, ‘contain’ means that the teacher defines the limits. Setting the limits does not just mean that the teacher tells the students how to behave. Adolescents are adolescents … their heads are full of millions of conflicting ideas and plans from sex to interpersonal relationships to high scores on computer games, anything other than ‘learning’. Thus the teacher’s task is to get through the fog of conflicting thoughts and set clear requirements to the students. Teachers must at the same time clearly verbalise their high expectation to the students and their (the teacher’s) personal enthusiasm for the subject being taught, and for the students. Both Hattie and Dörnyei agree that the teacher’s positive expectations are strongly influential on students’ performance.

My students have a huge influence on what we do and how we do it in our lessons. But what is not up? for discussion is that “we are here to learn”. I am very clear in my demands. In almost every lesson I emphasise that “we are here to learn” and that I definitely expect them to be engaged and serious in their work. I do not accept that students come late to our classes. I sometimes even lock the door and write home to the parents of students who come late. Being late is simply not acceptable! Students should not use the toilet during my lessons either. We have breaks every 90 minutes so only in extreme cases is it acceptable that students leave lessons, something which is otherwise quite common in Denmark. We have lessons of between 45-90 minutes and every single minute is important. We are a team with a goal, a common mission, a mission for which every single student is mutually responsible. My task as a teacher is to help the students to maintain their focus. They have to learn and I have to ‘contain’.

Most students seem to enjoy my lessons. I do my best to make sure that they are full of energy and at the same time have a serious focus on learning. I enjoy a high degree of respect among the students and their parents but that is because I demand respect. My signals are very clear and my enthusiasm for my subject and my students is obvious. I do not attempt to be friends with my students. I like them, I respect them and I am interested in their linguistic development and their lives. I have my role: ‘teacher’, and they have theirs: ‘learner’. We have a common mission – and that mission is learning.

References

Griffith A. and Burns M. (2012). Engaging learners. Crown House Publishing.

Dörnyei, Z. (2001a). Motivational Strategies in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dörnyei, Z. (2001b). Teaching and Researching Motivation. Harlow: Pearson Education.

Ushioda, E. (1996) The Role of Motivation. Dublin: Authentik.

Essay writing… a cooperative approach in seven steps

Frank Lacey

“Essays are boring. A waste of time and anyway the teacher prefers some kids to others so his grades are never fair.”

Many teachers have heard those words and perhaps even secretly agreed. But I think essays are fun, perhaps the most fun part of my English lessons. Many of my students think so too, and there is very definitely a buzz in my class when we work with essays.

The model which I shall outline below is one that I have used for years. It fits in well with the ideas of cooperative learning, but for years I abhorred cooperative learning but still used this model every time we worked with essays.

Life as a kid is most of the time quite boring, but essays allow kids to be become gods (not just in their mothers’eyes). They are probably not aware of it if you don’t tell them, but when they write essays they achieve true divine power. They can create people, monsters, and any fantastic creatures, buildings, or countries that they want. They can cause these people to fall passionately in love, die tragically, or just live boring lives. Spark their creative fantasy, tell them about the woman who came in the door and sat down near Brian. And then tell them about the tall, elegant, sexy woman who crashed through the door, looked leeringly at Brian and sat frighteningly near Brian.

Let kids play with their characters like cats with a mouse, while at the same time giving them the full responsibility for their creations.

All of this is obvious enough – the next step is perhaps new to some you.

When the kids have written their essay for the appointed day, they then have to get three other kids in the class to read their essay. Each of these kids has to read through the essay and correct any language errors and then more importantly give three comments to the author about how to make the essay better, e.g. “the first paragraph doesn’t make sense.” “Make a more exciting ending.” “Try to include some of the things you know about America.” “Don’t use bad language ... it doesn’t work when written.”

At the end of about 45 minutes the author receives his essay again and the piece of paper that accompanies it with 3x3 comments (three kids each give three comments). The student now has one week to rework the essay. If the student decides that the comments are useless, he can choose to ignore them or he can choose to use one or two (or more) to make the essay better.

At the end of the week I, the teacher, collect the essays along with the nine comments. I correct the essay and make my own mental evaluation. Then I read the nine comments and see if things that I was unhappy with in the essay have also been commented upon by the student's class colleagues. If this is the case, then I of course ask why the student did not make use of the very good comments that she received from her classmate.

The next part is that the student now gives his essay a grade and justifies the grade. He then asks two-three classmates to give his essay a grade and likewise to justify the grade.

I too have given the essay a grade and there honestly is very seldom a difference in the five grades (the author’s, the three classmates’ grades and my grade). And we are all happy.

It sounds too good to be true, but it is. Because it is no longer the teacher but their classmates who shall first read their essays the quality rises. Why? Because let’s face it, teachers always say, “It is not good enough”, but if your classmate says, “Come on you can do better than this” or “Wow this is great” then it means a lot more. Then teachers always find faults. Teachers are of course more knowledgeable and better, but if your classmate finds faults, then maybe you should be worried because you should perhaps be at the same level as your peer.

Advice given by your classmates is generous. They want to help you to write a better essay (that’s nice) and they are proud to be able to come with suggestions. The least you can do is try to make use of their suggestions!

Then the author and her classmates give grades. No longer is it the mean, nasty teacher, thus the individual student has to take responsibility.

Does this take time? Yes, about 3-4 lessons. But it is 3-4 lessons where I have kids who are switched on.

·      They want to improve their grade, and this is a fairly easy way.

·      They are curious about what the others have written.

·      They learn from others’ mistakes.

·      They learn from their own mistakes from their peers (and research shows that peer correction is more effective than teacher correction).

·      They get to read lots of different versions of the same story and thus become aware of the huge creativity in language and among their peers.

·      Essay writing changes from being a lonely individual task to a community-supported activity.

·      A sense of collective responsibility is encouraged.

·      Students very quickly develop the ability to evaluate their own work and thus to take responsibility for their work.

Yes, they are nervous the first time, and yes the teacher needs to take responsibility and declare that it is not an option but an obligation that learning be shared for everybody’s good. Amazingly, there is very little difference in teacher grades and student grades.

In Denmark all teachers are obliged to employ the Danish curriculum called “Fælles Mål”, unless a school has written their own curriculum. Teachers have considerable freedom but should focus on 4 areas in their teaching. These four areas are

1. Communication (speaking, listening, reading and writing)
2. Linguistic precision (grammar, pronunciation etc.)
3. Language learning (how do you learn a foreign language)
4. Culture and societal studies

Thus when talking to Danish teachers I explain  that viewed from a perspective of “Fælles mål” (the national curriculum)

1.      When we share essays, we have focus on all four of the core elements in English learning: Kommunikation (communication): (Reading, writing, talking and listening). The students read lots of English. They write their three comments to each essay. They talk about errors and new ideas in English (I am very strict here… English is our language in lessons). They listen to each other because the communication is authentic. It is information that they can use to achieve higher grades.

2. Sprog og sprogbrug [linguistic precision]: They are very focused on precision in language, whether it be spelling, concord, tenses, prepositions…

3.      Sprogtilegnelse (language learning]: When sharing homework, the kids are focused on how they learn, how they can help each other learn, how other students are learning, and they learn strategies that they could employ to learn English.

4.      Kultur og samfundsforhold [culture]: I point out to my students that including cultural and societal information is a way to achieve higher grades, thus very often they draw peers' attention to possibilities for including such information in their revised essays such information.

My experience tells me that the result is kids who are seriously focused on English learning and I as a teacher have much more interesting essays to work with.

The seven steps – a summary:

1.    The student writes his essay at home.

2.    In school three students read the essay and give it three comments.

3.    The student rewrites the essay at home.

4.    The teacher collects and corrects the essay and evaluates the comments which the three students gave. The teacher then returns the essays (the following day).

5.    The student gives her essay a grade and a brief argument for the grade.

6.    Two or three other students give the essay a grade and a brief argument for the grade.

7.    The teacher reveals his/her grade and they all agree on a final grade.

Frank Lacey is an ordinary school teacher in Denmark. He works with children from 10-16 years old and preaches autonomy.