Learners
A Personal Insight
Unit 1 of Harmer’s (2007) book, How to Teach English
Unit 1 of Harmer’s (2007) book, How to Teach English
By Kristell Gutiérrez-Durán
Pre-Service Teacher, School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Post 225
What
does learner mean? The concept refers
to someone who learns, and that is trying to gain knowledge or a skill in something,
by practicing, and being taught by someone else, so let’s call this someone,
the teacher, and the learner, the student.
Harmer’s (2007) Chapter 1 of his book
is called “Learners.” The author establishes several and different reasons for
what people decide or do not decide to learn. He investigated about learning
contexts, classroom sizes, virtual learning, ages of students and learning
styles, levels, cultural backgrounds and how teachers can motivate students,
and the responsibility for students’ own learning.
The unit in Harmer’s book is a guidance
for teachers; it is very important to determine for which reason a student
decides to learn. I totally agree on the fact, that if a student does not have
motivation, on the process of learning, the result is going to be negative. It
is true that the teacher also can help sustain that motivation, but this does
not depend 100 percent on the teacher. Depending on the school, where a teacher
has to teach, and the number of students that teacher is going to have, all the
teaching history is going to change. If you work in a private institution in
which the resources are complete, where you have technological aids, which can
help you in the process of teaching; you -as teacher- will have extra support
that sometimes you will not find in a public institution (like the ones we have
in Costa Rica). I also agree with the fact that it is very successful to work
in pairs or in groups, to make the students interact among themselves. Paying
attention to the student’s background is the most important detail teachers
have to take into account; it is not the same to work in “La Carpio” (one of
the most dangerous and poorest slum in San José) than in “Escazú or Rohmouser”
(where people with well-off economical resources live). And what about the
students’ religion? That will also affect directly on your teaching and how
supportive their parents are on the academic life of their children.
On the other hand, I am totally opposed
to virtual learning. Here students can attend classes when they want, which
helps them avoid responsibility, attendance and punctuality. For instance, they
can start missing classes without any negative result. I’ve never believed in
the range of levels to determine how much English a student knows, either.
As a conclusion, the hard work in a
school learning setting is for both teachers and students. Teachers have to
know how to instruct learners, how to apply different activities according to
different learning styles, and they can help students to keep their motivation
up. However, motivation depends 90 % on the student. And the responsibility of
learning depends also on the student, with the teacher’s guidance.
Reference
Harmer,
J. (2007). “Learners.” How to teach English. Essex: Pearson
Wednesday, March 02, 2016
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