Student-Centred Learning in ELT

Abstract

This chapter has three parts. The first part briefly defines student centred learning and some of its elements. The chapter’s second part examines some of the roots of student centred learning. The final and largest section of the chapter goes deeper into ten elements of student centred learning and discusses their application in second language education. These ten elements are students and teachers as co-learners, student-student interaction, learner autonomy, focus on meaning, curricular integration, diversity, thinking skills, alternative assessments, learning climate and motivation. The chapter seeks to emphasize the idea that in essence learning is a student centred journey. Whether teachers accept this idea or reject it, the reality remains. The chapter’s authors welcome and exult in this reality, and they wrote the chapter to share with fellow teachers some of what other teachers and their students have, in turn, shared with them about how to teach given this student centred reality.