Columns
On the front lines of autonomy
Can you learn English without a logbook? No.
Frank Lacey
Ådalens Privatskole, Denmark
Frank
has been teaching languages for eons. About 10 years ago his teaching practice
was seriously disturbed by Leni Dam. Since then his lessons have been scenes of
chaos, which he calls autonomy. Frank tends to be rather passionate about a lot
of things, such as autonomy.
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Can you learn English without a logbook? I suppose evidence shows that
you can, but the most effective learning tool in my classrooms is, without a
doubt, the student’s logbook.
I am a fundamentalist when it comes to textbooks. I fully agree with
Christine Frank and Mario Rinvolucri who say:
“If we consider the students in our class to be more
interesting than the rather cardboard characters found in traditional
textbooks, it follows that a real need exists for activities … more emotionally
relevant than practicing them in the make-believe world of a textbook.”
My students usually have several years' experience with textbooks with
previous teachers and in other subjects. I regularly ask if they would like to
go back to using them but to date no student or class of mine has ever wanted
to return to (the dark side of) textbooks. My students know from personal
experience that autonomy works and that in my class autonomy means logbooks.
In my autonomous classroom students can choose:
•
How they want to
learn English.
•
What they want to
work with.
•
Whom they want to
work with.
•
…and they evaluate
their own learning.
The price for this is that they MUST write a logbook which tells me:
1.
What they are doing.
2.
Why they are doing
it.
3.
How they are doing
it.
4.
What they have
learnt.
5.
…and I also expect
them to tell me about their free reading (a topic I discussed in my previous
column).
The five questions might suggest that student logbooks are boring.
However, in reality they are anything but!
I give my students considerable freedom to take responsibility for their
learning. That does not mean that I abandon my responsibility as teacher. On
the contrary, it is now my responsibility to ensure that each individual
student is making progress. I have six classes and thus have to monitor
approximately 150 students; my most effective means of doing that is logbooks.
Logbooks give me excellent documentation of the individual students'
work and learning. But they do more than that – they also encourage learning.
In my experience, the more a student writes in his/her logbook, the better they
will become at English. It isn’t all that strange. If you want to get better at
running, it is a good idea to run. Quantity and application produce quality.
So now I shall give you an example (some excerpts from the last few
months) of the real thing. This is a logbook written by a 15-year-old girl
called XXXX (her name has been changed here to ensure privacy). I have been
teaching Sally English and German since the 5th class and she is now in the 9th
class. Sally was not good at English in the 5th and at the beginning of the 6th
class. She was one of the weakest students in the class. I suggested that she
try to write much more in her logbook and that she should also try to read free
reading books. Sally was unusually quick to accept this advice and she added an
extra element. Her logbook was handwritten and soon became a work of art with
small pictures, decorated margins, and lots of different colours in the written
text. Over the past two years, Sally has become one of the best students in the
class, although still quite a shy girl. She is also incidentally an elite
athlete, training 4 hours every day plus transport time to and from training.
Right, then, to the logbook, which is unedited.
Sally
25 September
Hello! Today is Monday, and we are having English. I
want weekend. But how (ed: who) doesn't want English? But anyway, we are
reading free reading. My free reading book is too big for my bag so I can't
bring it. My free reading book is actually about being a teenager in the US,
kind of. But today I'm going to training we are actually having a break from
training these weeks, but I just can't stop myself from training, so I'm still
training like 5 times a week.
We are reading about teens in America, I thought it
was an interesting topic, but it's not. It's so strange. I fell like its all over
the place. I really liked the "Dreams and identity" topic, but this
is just wired. Weird.
Today we are reading a lot. We are mostly reading
about the purity ring, really strange thing. Anyway, I heard you couldn't say
"anyways", you can only say "anyway", without an s, it that
right? [Frank’s response: yes the other is slang] Its
already 1.18 PM, whattt, where did the time go? I fell like we just started the
lesson. I have so much homework, our naturfagsprøve is nearly done, I worked so
hard on that and it fells so good nearly to be done.
In the weekend I went to the last competition of the
year, its just for fun, and I paddled with a man in k2. It was so fun, we
paddled 14 km, and I got so tired. We ended up on a 2 place in senior k2 mix,
we won over Julie and her k2 partner, Klaus. It was so fun. We didn't got a
medal, we got a t-shirt, but I don't care because I didn't did it for the
medal, I did it because I wanted.
8 December
Hello! Today is the 8'th of December, I love December.
This weekend I'm going to Silkeborg for a national team corpus, it's not a
test, just a corpus. I'm going to paddle k2 with Sara from Hellerrup, I told
you about her before, she is really good. But I'm better.
If you didn't know Julie is Nominated for BESTSELLERs
Olympic Hope 2017. She is nominated with 2 other boys, and it's such a big
nomination. Athletes like Viktor Axelsen have won it before. One of the prices
is 100.000kr. I think you can se it in the television when there is Sports
Galla. Wow
tell me more Sally, Frank
National team corpus
Hello! So right now I'm sitting in a train on my way
home from a national team corpus in Silkeborg. There is around 2 hours before
I'm home, and it's 3 hours since we left.
We paddled k2 and k4 this weekend, in every training
my boat was the leading boat, yes. But we also had one test, actually tow.
Chins and leg raises. I made 20 chins in a row and 23 leg raises. I was the
4'th best girl, the only girls who where better than me were girls how are so
tiny and don't have any weight to lift, so I'm glad I made as many as I did. You are so cool Sally, Frank
13 reasons why - Free reading
Cassette 1: side B
So this tape was Jessica's. Jessica and HSally h met
each other at some kind of before school teacher something, because they where
both new students. They started hanging out at Monet's, a cafe. And there they
got to know Alex, their new friend. They where friends for the first 5weeks of
school, but then the HOT OR NOT list came out and Jessica started making
problems for Hannah.
11 December
Hello! Today is Monday, and we are watching projects
and reading essays. I read Marie's, Sara's and Casandra's.
Sarah - Sibling sex
Really good, I learned a lot. I think you had lots of
good points and I really liked how you presented it, like the Power Point setup
and not too much talk. Very good answers to the questions, and good questions.
Your what you learned slide was really good, and now I know working on my own
isn't a thing for me, because I realized you don't have anyone to talk to and
with.
Between 7 August and 10 December Sally wrote 5764 words in her logbook!
The few paragraphs that I have included here give me a very clear
insight into who Sally is, what she thinks, and what is important in her life.
I also receive a valuable evaluation of the texts that I have used – she tells
me that she thinks that they are both weird (“wired”) and surprising.
Sally also uses her logbook to communicate directly with me and she
tells me that Julie, one of my former students, is doing well in the same
sport.
And she tells me about her free reading, ”13 Reasons Why”, and another
heavier book that she was reading earlier in the year.
Finally, she evaluates a project presentation by another student. I
would have liked if she had been more precise and told me what she learned
rather than “I learned a lot”.
Her style is personal, relaxed, and communicative, and documents her
learning – in other words, a very good logbook.
The critical reader might say, “yes, fine, but this is a good student,
what about students with greater challenges?” To this I would reply, “Sally was not a good student, but her use of her
logbook helped her to become one”.
In my future columns I shall feature logbooks from students who are less
motivated, looking at how they use their logbooks.
References
Frank, C. and Rinvolucri, M. 1991. Grammar in Action Again: Awareness
Activities for Language Learning. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
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