Creating a Learner-centered Teacher Education Program

In the writing course, other adaptations for learner-centeredness and autonomy were put in place through process writing, which creates highly skilled writers (Krapels 1990). It also presents many opportunities for classroom interaction, because students are taken though prewriting steps that require them to draft and revise before producing a final written product (Kroll 1991). Within these steps梩hat is, preparing for writing, organizing the writing, drafting, and evaluating梬e have multiple opportunities for creating a learner-centered environment. Later in the academic year, with process writing already in place, we created more of a learner-centered classroom environment in three other ways:

Students were given opportunities to become teachers of the writing content.

Students interacted through peer editing.

Students broadened their discourse communities through electronic publishing.

First, a prewriting technique gave our students the opportunity to become the teacher. The technique can take the form of grammar exercises, reading with comprehension exercises, or a discussion of previous readings. With 21 students in our program, we evenly divided students into cooperative groups. Each group was given a short text with comprehension and vocabulary exercises and discussion questions. Three students from each group led the entire class through these simple activities. Using an overhead projector with transparencies, students followed this procedure:

The entire class read a short text on an engaging theme.

One student prepared vocabulary questions while another student prepared comprehension questions, and both individuals led the activity in turn.

The third student then led a discussion with prepared questions relevant to the theme of the text.

The rest of the class took notes during this prewriting step to use later in preparing a first draft of a composition on the theme.

Second, we created a learner-centered classroom through peer editing. Using the process approach allows students to design and interact with written materials and with each other. Once they have completed the prewriting procedure mentioned above, and with a first draft in hand, students can proceed to peer edit by exchanging papers and commenting on each other抯 product. A helpful peer editing technique is to use a structured checklist, samples of which can be found in many recent writing textbooks. The checklist helps students look for specific elements of effective writing, such as topic sentences, supporting details, a conclusion, transitions, and correct punctuation. We had students design the peer editing checklist together as an additional activity, based on the goals and objectives of the course. (See the appendix for two sample checklists.)

Finally, in the writing course students were also given the opportunity to reach a larger discourse community outside their classroom by publishing their compositions on a faculty member抯 Internet Web page. This required that students evaluate each other抯 final drafts and choose the best ones. First, we put students?writing on a bulletin board and devoted a class period to having students read each other抯 work and check the one they liked most. (During this evaluation process, it is useful to block out students? names so that choices are based on the written content rather than personal allegiance.) Then, the composition with the most checks was typed up and posted to the Web page. The chosen work was made available on the Internet and the honored writer抯 identity revealed. The noticeable rise in writer motivation level proved that this method is effective.

Cooperative learning

We adopted even more innovative approaches and techniques in learner centeredness in the reading course by forming cooperative groups. Cooperative group learning is an instructional strategy that calls for students to work together in groups in order to achieve a common learning goal (Slavin 1983). During this collaborative work, students develop social skills as well as language proficiency. We begin to create a learner-centered environment by again giving students opportunities to research and choose their co

The first step is setting up base groups. These are long-term heterogeneous groups with stable membership whose primary responsibility is to provide members with support and encouragement in completing course requirements and assignments. We tried hard to keep the groups together. When a group did not work well, we avoided breaking it up, even if the group requested it; and we helped them to learn to cope with and overcome their unproductive interactions.

These cooperative groups engaged in project work using topics from the reading textbook as a model梖or example, education, news, wealth, food, marriage, travel, and world issues梐nd then found an article from an outside source, usually online. Some of the Internet sources they utilized were yahoo.com, CNN.com, edweek.com, the BBC online and the English Teaching Forum online. Next, we required the groups to present a report of the material they chose. Each time, a different member led the presentation to the rest of the class. During their reports, each group presented the new vocabulary they learned from the article, and all groups were given vocabulary quizzes every two weeks. Finally, the groups submitted a copy of the project to the teacher for evaluation. All group members got the same grade on the group task.

Learning strategy and style awareness

Within the reading class, in addition to th