Looking for the ways of involving students in decisions about what they are doing

INTRODUCTION
I have been teaching languages for fourteen years, so I am quite experienced teacher. I would like to share with you my picture of a teacher as a researcher .When I was young and unexperienced I tried to introduce some innovations to my teaching. From my observations I found out that students should not be treated as machines and through discovering their needs and possibilities learning could satified both sides the teacher and the learner. Ten years ago I read about developing of learner autonomy. It was novelty to me, so I decided to did experiment to check if it is possible to encourage students to take certain amount of responsibility for their learning.
The teacher in the classroom setting is expected to be skillful leader that maintains a sense of involvement in a particular activity and shows enthusiasm towards it. However, what happens when the teacher tends to be too dominant during the lessons ? One day I realised that I was such a demotivating person and I absolutely had to change my role in the classroom. Since the situation in Polish schools was gradually changing it had been the right time to change my attitude to the teaching, as in the reformed school responsibility for learning should be shared among teachers, students and parents. I wanted to be a teacher, who not only provides information but stimulates and encourages self-study. I did not want to be always in the centre during my lessons. When I saw my students sitting quietly and doing exactly what I wanted them to do I felt that I failed as a teacher. In this way I deprived
them the chance to develop, to introduce their own ideas.
I realised that I have to change the situation when my doctor said: “ You have problems with your throat because you speak too much or too loud to your pupils ”. This diagnosis really struck me.After the visit to the doctor, I did self-evaluation and answered honestly some questions to see how much I allow my students to be independent in the class, like for example : Who chooses the topics? Who chooses the activities ? Who prepares materials ? Who decides when to stop an activity ? Who writes on the board ? Who cleans the board ? Who chooses homework ? Who operates the equipment ? .The answers astonished me, as it was almost always I who decided about the activities in the class. I was filled with shame. Fortunately, I became aware of the problem and this was an important first step. For the subject of my experiment I chose the sixth form. I had taught those pupils for two years and I know that many of them were ambitious.I planned to start from preparing activities aimed at developing learner autonomy which could enable my students to be in the centre. Next, I was going to to involve the students in planning, preparing tasks and even tests on their own.I thought that, the more the students are personally involved in their lessons, the most effectively they are likely to learn. My aim was to involve the students in making decisions about how their English classes are run, of course under my supervision, as they were the pupils of primary school. I realised that I and my students had little experience in sharing classroom decisions. This ment that I had to be very careful. I had read, for example, about one teacher who began a new course in a private language school by asking the students, “ What do you want to do today ? ”. Their reply was one she had not expected : “ Go home !”.

THE EXPERIMENT
I started my experiment from honest discussion. I asked my students to sit in a circle and talk (in Polish) about their ways of learning (Are you forced to do homework by your parents ? Why should not we be forced to learn ?, etc.) and the advantages of taking charge of their own learning. All in all, the students admitted (mainly the better ones) that they also should think of their progress, but its easier to leran something if it is interesting. I praised them for all suggestions and I promised them to show how to ‘play with language’ and how to be conscious of our participation in the process of learning.
The second step of my experiment was the introduction of activities which could show the students that they are able to work on their own:
1. I asked the class to prepare a reading passage by looking up unnfamiliar words at home before it was studied in class. Then in the classroom I asked them to sit in groups of three and discuss how the new words could be learned. The ideas were written on the board by the leaders of each group. There were different suggestions, like for example:
- to write the new words at the back of the notebooks,
- to write them on separate pieces of paper and fix them to the doors or walls at home,
- to make illustrated dictionaries for recording new vocabulary.

Only one group had no ideas, so I asked the class how to solve the problem and they suggested the group to adopt one of the ideas written on the board.
Finally, I asked the class to choose the proposals which best suited each of them and write down in the noteboo. The activity in the class lasted about twenty minutes but it was very important because it showed the students how to learn new words and enabled them to choose their own way of learning vocabulary.
2. Some other time I asked my students to think, after each lesson, what they learned/did not learn and write the notes in their notebooks in three columns:

UNIT I can I still cannot What can I do?
28 - read the dialogue
- ask and answer questions like:
What does the sign mean? It means you mustn’t fish here. - remember words: admission, surrounding, exhibition

- use one of the options of learning vocabulary from the previous lesson
- check unknown words in a dictionary

They could write such notes in Polish or try in English after each lesson. I did not forget to mention the purpose of the activity. I explained that the notes can help them to achieve better control over the process of learning. I used to devote five minutes of class time to such noting or just asked the students to do this as homework. In this way the learners had the opportunity to reflect on their current problems and see any improvement. I am convinced that students need to be conscious of the leaning process and their progress.
I organised many activities in which learners could work on their own, such as gap-filling or constructing homework. They were engaged in various group tasks, such as small-group discussion of a topic or preparing a conversation for presentation to another group.
3. Once I divided the class into groups of three. The leader of each group took one of the papers from my desk, each with a short text about festival celebrated in other countries. The groups had ten minutes to get ready to tell the others about the text they had got. The text included some new words, new phrases and so on. The learners were allowed to use dictionaries, books, notebooks but everything had to be finished in ten minutes.Then two groups (one after another) told the rest of the class what their texts were about. Time was limited, it was ten minutes again for each group. The members of the groups could help. The class could also ask questions about the festival.
4. After a few similar lessons full of creative activities I decided to abondon the textbook material for a week. Instead the class was engaged in working on projects. Our aim was to turn the school into a nice looking place. Being visitor of my school at that time the first thing you could notice was uncanny order ; nice clean walls with the beautiful ferns on them – just like in a museam. There were no pupils’ work, no posters, no funny sayings, and the English classroom looked exactly the samelike the corridors. Why? Because I shared the classroom with my principal Maths teacher who did not allow me to introduce any innovations. So, there were only Maths patterns on the walls there. Nevertheless, I decided to change the situation together with the sixth form. The students formed groups of five, so there were four groups consisting of six. During the first lesson the groups worked on the plan of the project. They all decided that the school needs posters and promised to collect all necessary materials; pictures, encyclopedias, etc. Each group chose a different topic (they just prefered this to the one for all groups) ; Environment in our village, Festivals in my country, My favourite film, Famous people, Wild animals.
Next lesson each group worked on their own project. They brought pictures, dictionaries, cardboards, albums, and so on. One of the advantages of this task wasthat all students were involved in it. It was pleased to observe the better pupils planning and the weaker ones trying to find the appropriate words in a dictionary. I did not actually tell them how to do the posters. I only wrote some useful phrases on the board and walked round them to help to correct mistakes.
I have to admit that they prepared interesting posters, full of pictures, drawings and simple descriptions. Next lesson the groups presented their work to the class. Better students described the pictures while weaker ones wrote on the board and explained the meaning of difficult words. I encouraged the rest of the class to ask questions. Finally, I opened the door and ask the students to fix or hang the posters in the hall, wherever they wanted. They were surprised at first but when I encouraged them the hall changed into a fantastic place. During the break I could see other pupils looking at and admiring the colourful posters of the sixth form.’At last something new!’- commented teachers who later adopted the idea in their classrooms. I praised my pupils and enncouraged to do similar projects at home and thanks to this the English classroom became full of funny sayings, flags, drawings, etc. Once my students told me that my principal complained about being ‘bombarded’ by English “ only English and English everywhere!” – she said. Another time my schoolgirls asked me if they could perform something to the class. I praised them for initiative and we could see a fantastic show about the latest fashion with music and girls as models.This was exactly what I wished!. Their own initiatives, their own ideas. After completing the lessons with projects I asked my students some questions: Did you enjoy the project / was it helpful?, Did you have enough time to complete your project to your satisfaction? Would you recommend the project to other students?, What did you learn?. All their remarks I noted down to think them over later.
According to the students’ answers they enjoyed the task because they could organize the work themselves at their own pace, however some of them had too litle time. I personally believe that thanks to this activity the students learned :
- to work in a group over a longer period of time,
- to develop a sense of control over their own learning,
- to organize ideas, visual aids,
- to exchange ideas in a group.
However, if I were to repeat this type of activity, I would need to consider the following questions :
- Should the feedback on presentation be rehearsed before presenting in front of the class ?
This would give the students a chance to improve on their presentation, strenghten their confidence.
- Should the project week be extended to a longer period ?
Although some of the students commented on the lack of time, I think that the period of time was right.
Finally, I would like to add that I found the experience interesting and motivating.
Moreover, the projects allowed the students to express themselves freely with a limited amount of English. They made a lot of mistakes in speaking but it does not matter, more important is that they tried to do everything to present their work as well as possible. What was the most surprising, the stronger students did not discourage or ridicule the weaker ones, on the contrary they helped them.
5. Some other time I wanted to give a test over the different vocabulary and structures
that we had covered in the previous few weeks. I decided to share the task with the students and see how we might do it interactively. I asked the students in pairs to brainstorm all the things that they thought they had learned and that should be in a test. I forbade them to look into the books. It had to be from memory. Next, they had to go into groups of four and exchange their suggestions (on paper) and discuss whether they agreed with the proposals of the other students. Some ideas were crossed off, some were added on, and there was a lot of negotiation going on. Then I gathered the lists, made one and distributed copies to each personat the next class, instructing them to formulate the test questions. The students did it in pairs asked me occassionally when I was walking round them.
It was one of the most satisfying thing to me, to see my students busy learning, interacting intensively with each other, consulting with me, but taking the responsibility themselves and being energetically involved. Then I told them that next week most of their questions would be on the test. The last fifteen minutes my pupils spent on answering the questions and completing the tasks in groups.
I am convinced that such exercise of choosing necessary items for a test, making the questions themselves, and then discussing them with each other gave more opportunities for learning than if I had simply given them a test. If I had made the test alone (or had taken from the teacher’s book) I would have just tested what I, one person(or the author of the teacher’s book) thought should have been learned. What is more, this kind of backwash enabled my students to revise their knowledge in nice and safe atmosphere what is essential especially for weaker or shy students.
The results of the test surprised me in a positive way, only one person failed out of twenty-six.
After the test I discussed with the students the advantages of such preparation to the test. Some of them admitted that it was a good idea, as they did not have to predict the content of the test. It was easier for them to learn concrete, prepared together questions and tasks.
6. It is also worth recommending to give a chance the students to do something different in the class, beyond the routine. This time I allowed (as they really asked me to do this) the students to prepare the lesson. There were two volunteers (the best students) . Two weeks before the lesson I discussed the plan with them. During the lesson I sat at the back of the class as the observer. What was interesting, they were very well prepared ( I mean each of the new ‘teachers’), they enjoyed playing their roles. Robert, for example, told the story about Mowgli the boy from the jungle.What is more, he provided the class with three exercises to check comprehension after telling the story. The boy walked round explaining all difficulties. I found that the students did not have any objections to ask Robert for help. But he knew that in an uncertain situation could rely on me. It was a fantastic experience not only for me but also for my students, who could see and feel that they are able to organize a lesson and be in my shoes.
7. I sometimes allow my students to choose one or twoexercises out of ten from the activity book as homework. Then during the lesson they exchange their books and correct each other’s.

CONCLUSION
All things considered, the serious of all these activities described above gave the satisfaction not only to me but first of all to my students. My aim in the research was to find types of tasks which require ‘thought’ in working with language. My role as a teacher became a managerial one-setting things up, monitoring, encouraging and being available. The students were responsible, in one sense, for their process of learning. They were motivated to work closely together, sometimes planning parts of the lesson and discussing the lessons together afterwords.
I admit that it is not easy to develop the students’ autonomy in language use, especially in a primary school but it is possible in some part. I realized that the exercises I provided are just small samples of exercises fostering students’ autonomy. Anyway, I feel that when my students go to high schools it will be easier for them to take the responsibility for their process of learning. These activities were just a first step on the path of getting older, more mature, more responsible, of being conscious of their needs. In my experiment I looked for ways in which I could involve the students in decisions about what they were doing (‘Would you like to do this in pairs or alone?, Do you want to listen to it with books open or closed? ‘) or required them to take responsibility (‘Look back on the Units 25-27 we have done and make a list of the areas where you need more practice ?’, etc.). I know now that the students became more motivated by their role in making judgments about what to include in their test or how to organize a project work. Instead of relying constantly on me they became aware of their own needs and abilities. Although I really appreciate such idea I think that it would be easier to work with the students of higher school. There were some boys in the sixth form who seemed not to be mature enough to understand the importance of taking responsibility. Nevertheless, there were many others for whom it was worth trying.
There are teachers who actually say that they are responsible only for teaching the language, and not for the general development of the students. I wanted to go further because I think that students always learn more in their classes than just language. They learn a lot about themselves as learners. All the work I ask my students to do in the classroom will later contribute to habits in learning.
This was hard time for me because I had tobe very well prepared to avoid any confusionduring the lesson, but after the experiment I was more than sure that next year I would try it again because I strongly believed that:
“ The man who is educated is the man who knows how to learn ”
(Carl Rogers)

Bibliography :
1. Hedge, T.2000. Teaching and Learning in Language Classroom. Oxford: OUP.
2. Komorowska, H.2001. Metodyka nauczania języków obcych, Warszawa, Fraszka Edukacyjna.