KOTESOL National Conference 2018
Research Report (20 minutes)
Andrew Griffiths, Daejeon Education Training Institute
Learner Autonomy in Teacher Training: New Possibilities
Abstract
The presentation will report on the presenter’s introduction of a ‘personal development time’ for his trainee teachers during a six month in-service teacher training course run by the Korean government for public school teachers. Each trainee was given approximately 30% of their class time to freely develop any aspect of their English speaking they chose, with a small amount of facilitation and guidance from the trainer.
The aim of the project and the subsequent research was to allow the trainee teachers to enjoy full ownership over their learning and to explore how well they could adapt to and benefit from being autonomous learners. This was especially interesting in light of the extensive debates over the value of autonomous learning and the controversial question of whether autonomous learning is possible in the traditionally teacher-centered East Asian educational context. It was also a new challenge for the teacher to cross from a more traditional teacher-centered mode of teaching to one that was truly student-centered.
The research on the success of this project indicated that the trainee teachers benefited greatly from their ‘personal development time’. As such, the presenter will argue that such the switch to autonomous learning can be seen as feasible in the local context of Korean adult education.
The presentation will also provide advice for teachers wishing to allow their students more autonomy in the classroom, and will discuss the challenges faced in implementing the project as well as the subsequent improvements used to counterbalance those issues.
Biographicals
Andrew Griffiths is a teacher trainer for the Daejeon Education Training Institute, which is affiliated with the Daejeon Office of Education. He has been teaching for ten years and holds an MA in TESOL from the University of Nottingham (England).
See the list of Presentations at the KOTESOL 2018 National Conference
