Brief Intro to St. John’s Learning Centre

At present over seven hundred Mathayom students (Junior High & High School )have timetabled access to the Centre once every two weeks, which means that since its inception some 2000 + Thai students have had their first experience of learner autonomy within the St. John’s Learning Centre.

Self Access Centre Materials- A Recipe

I propose the contents of this recipe to be my own based upon my observations and experiences and not gleaned from any learned TEFL cookery book. This session is directed toward anyone concerned with promoting learner autonomy and Self Access generally as well as any teachers interested in materials design.
I am focusing more on the details (where we all know by now, the devil lies) of what students are asked to do during their time within a Self Access Centre. I do not want to digress into a discussion on the pros and cons of Self Access within Asia as this is really beyond the scope of this session and I am assuming that most people are aware of the notions underlying the concept of Self Access. I have attached some reliable texts and resources for those wishing to delve further into the murky waters of the theory behind Learner Autonomy.

The following ingredients and method are certainly not set in stone and can be adapted to suit your own ‘tastes’ and requirements.

As I hope you agree the time spent shopping for the freshest ingredients is part of the delight of cookery of any form. In regard to worksheets, the rule holds true as time spent in browsing the web for appropriate graphics can actually be fun and not a necessarily a chore.

Similarly, the actual method of combining the ingredients can be as creative and enjoyable as you wish to make it. Both shopping and cooking time will decrease as you become more familiar with what’s necessary and you hone the method through a process of trial and error. You can then spend numerous hours enjoying your learners consuming your creations. Initially, some may squirm at your efforts, some may think them far too bland but I’m sure the majority will appreciate the new taste and will have had their palate broadened and their appetite whetted through the experience of consuming your worksheets.

If you feel very ambitious and want to get your students to invest some of their own time and effort in their centre, you can give them the recipe and see what they cook up.

You never know. If you try to incorporate some of these ingredients into your worksheets, every student may be doing Oliver impressions and uttering, ‘ Please sir, can I have some MORE ?’.

Ingredients

N.B. I am referring mainly to the Listening / Songs section here, as within our centre it is by far the most popular with students and so the main section that requires the most regular input in terms of new worksheets to avoid students becoming disinterested in it and then the centre stagnating as a result. However, I believe the ingredients are just as important for any other section within the centre: Video,CD ROM, Reading Comprehension, Grammar, Games, Writing.

Visual Appeal

A salad is naked without its dressing, a side dish bland without its garnish and similarly a worksheet dull without its sprinkling of jazzy pictures.

Thai teenagers like their peers the world over are a fickle bunch and are, be it product of our media age or not, visually stimulated and as a result more likely to be drawn toward a worksheet that includes plenty of visuals / images.

Familiarity with Group / Singer

Not everyone has global international tastes or a totally tolerant palate and most will often resort to our favourite comfort foods if in any doubt about what can satiate our immediate appetites.

Through experience within SJLC this is a major factor in a students choice of worksheet.
Some may deem it very unhealthy to feed teenagers a staple diet of modern day rapsters, variations on a theme of Christina Aguillera clones or any of the interchangeable, indistinguishable, mix ‘n’match boy bands. However we’ve found that if such groups inspire lesser motivated students to listen to more authentic English language sources and attempt a goal orientated task while doing so, then so be it. In order to avoid dental decay, constapation or its opposite you may also wish to include in the available diet of worksheets a sprinkling of ‘high-fibre bran’ music which exposes the students to genres of both English and music they may otherwise not get the opportunity to taste.

Level Appropriacy

The content of the topic area and the task set for the worksheet has to be suitable for the level in question. At present within SJLC there are three distinct, colour coded levels:

Red – Starter-Lower Elementary Blue- Lower Elementary- Pre. Int. Green– Pre. Int – Upp. Int.

Worksheet designers have to bear in mind the ‘global experience’ their students bring to their interaction with any given worksheet. It is common sensical though often needs to be made explicit as sometimes writers seem to ignore this fact and pitch the content of the worksheet beyond their students. Also, any worksheets have to be labeled clearly so as students understand what to do to complete the worksheet without the students having read the most recent issue of TESOL quarterly in order to comprehend the methodology adopted.

Brevity and Clarity of Instructions.

You don’t need a scholarly dissertation to learn how to boil an egg.

Tasks should always include a clear, concise rubric explaining what the student is meant to do to ‘achieve’ the goal of completing the worksheet.

Personalisation of Instructions.

If you don’t eat your greens you can’t have any pudding.

Instructions can be worded so that they address the student directly, prompting them how to do tasks, encouraging them mid way, congratulating them on completing the task, and reminding them to then check their answers.

Inclusion of a task example.

A metaphorical equivalent might be encouraging students to dip their finger in the sauce in anticipation of the whole.

Self-explanatory but often omitted.

Suitability to SAC.

The centre’s bountiful buffet caters to individual tastes.

A tried and trusted classroom activity doesn’t necessarily translate to the SAC.
Activities such as ‘Paper Chases’ with songs are energising and maximize student involvement within the classroom but are totally unsuitable to individual autonomous learning and would prove far too disruptive within any SAC.

Sufficient space to complete task.

Don’t dish out your generous helpings on side plates or saucers.

I don’t intend to insult your intelligence or leave a bitter taste on the tongue with the inclusion of this rather obvious ingredient but I have seen far too many worksheets created where there simply isn’t enough space in a gap-fill activity for anyone to write more than three letters.

Inclusion of Feedback Section.

Do people rave about your cooking or do they concoct excuses at your next invitation ?

Materials writers’ interest in the ‘success’ of any particular worksheet shouldn’t end after it has been placed in the Centre. I believe it is important to try and gauge the student’s own opinion of their experience of their ‘interaction’ with the worksheet. Therefore, I propose that one or more of the check boxes be included into any worksheets you may create. At a glance the teacher can ascertain what rating the students gave their ‘experience’. You may wish to change the wording in the boxes. It’s entirely up to you.

How would you rate my recipe ?

Rank ! Yuk !
passable but bland
my tastebuds are tingling
Haute Cuisine ! Bravo !

Would you like to taste another of my dishes ?

Not in a month of Sundays
If you say so
Serve it up
More ! More !

Did you enjoy this worksheet ?

Not in the slightest
It was OK
Yes by jove I did
It blew my mind

Rate this worksheet on the Richter Scale of earth shattering interest.

Not a jolt to terrafirma
A mere wobble
Kobe style destruction
Shaanxi, China 1556 devastation

Provision of an Answer Sheet.

Diner autonomy.

This is an ingredient rarely required in the classroom but an essential part of any SAC materials. Ideally it should be in the same format as the worksheet to help students locate it quickly.

Display and ‘Advertising’ of worksheets available.

All good kitchens have a cookbook shelf.

Something we have just begun to work on in the centre is a catologue of artists and songs with worksheets to help students choose from the 130 or so available to them. By scanning through the colour catologue containing a title page indicating song level and tape number and a picture of the artists, students are able to make a more informed choice of which kind of music they might find interesting. Also we hope it may encourage them to try something to tackle a worksheet of a less familiar song or artist.

Inclusion of ‘Links’ or ‘Pathways’.

Here are a few more recipes you might like to try.

You may wish to include directions along pathways within the centre to similar material. Most students will be familiar with the term ‘Links’ due to their extensive use in websites generally.

Conclusions

I am a firm believer in reaping what you sow and that what you get out of an activity is vaguely proportional to the amount of effort you put into it. Some chefs might disagree that the food necessarily tastes better because you spent such a lot of time preparing it and some even refuse to dine on their own concoctions. However, even they would say that their pleasure derives from creating something their customers enjoyed.

The overall success or failure of a Self Access Centre depends as much on the quality of resources available to students as to the interest and motivation of the students themselves.
Teachers who spend that little bit of extra time familiarizing themselves with the materials already available and then a little more in creating their own will inevitably gain more from the opportunities a Self Access Centre offers. Students who relish the delights they have then cooked up will by osmosis have a more rewarding or fulfilling experience within the Self Access Centre.

I hope I have whetted your appetite to attempt to create your own Self Access Materials and that I have provided you with one or two ideas on how to ‘spice up’ the bank of alternatives available previously.

James McNamara
(St.John’s Language Centre)
presented on 17th January 2002
The 22nd Annual Thailand TESOL International Conference.
Chiang Mai, THAILAND