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Interview with Jeremy Harmer
Published in Learner Independence SIG Conference Newsletter,
2005
Question: Teacher-training courses such
as CELTA stress classroom practice. Are you satisfied that such courses do enough
to focus trainees' awareness also on the importance of independent learning? If
not, what could be done to weave a thread of 'independent learning' into these
courses?
Answer: I think it depends on the kind
of course. On a CELTA course there simply aren抰 enough hours to do anything serious
about independent learning � beyond talking about it and telling trainees where
to look for more information. On longer courses there will be time. But I don抰
think the topic is dealt with adequately in most training.
Question:
Textbooks often claim to be `self-study', but in reality have little more
than an answer key. What
textbook features and support materials would best
empower the independent learner?
Answer:
The ideal would be self-study books hooked up to the Internet, with a tutor available
from time to time. The real problem with self-study material is that you can抰
second-guess what the user will do or want to know. You can do your best, of course.
However, the serious student will use that answer key effectively, and it IS a
powerful self-study tool. There抯 a danger in being more interactive with a student
in self-study material because he or she might not warm to the kind of interaction
yu are offering.
Question: In what ways could published
EFL materials cater to different learning styles?
Answer: I think some material do cater
for this kind of thing. Thus in a good course vocabulary would be dealt with in
a number of different ways � from fairly cognitive-type exercises, through free
practice, playing with word lists, meeting and re-meeting words in written and
audio texts, traditional workbook-type exercises and so on. The point is that
that no one student will respond equally well to all of the exercises, but there
should be something for everyone. As a course writer myself I am particularly
concerned about this. A quick anecdote: I showed an MA group I was teaching a
vocabulary activity which asked students to chose their 5 慸esert island� words
from a word list. While one student said the activity was stupid, another said
they loved it, and there was a range of opinions in between these two extremes.
So it is with most activity types, and that抯 why people (and materials) that
offer THE way to do things are usually wrong!
Question: Given the extended use of computer
technology in language learning, could paper dictionaries soon become redundant?
Answer: I think paper dictionaries may
become redundant for some situations � where the user is sat at a screen working
away � but definitely not for others, where a quick flick through a book is quicker
that loading a program and changing backwards and forwards. It抯 true that we
all use computers more than we ever thought possible, but we still use print material
a lot too. Oh, and of course the vast majority of the world抯 population doesn抰
have access to computers yet anyway!
Question: Can autonomy in itself be taught,
or is it that teaching of content in the right way is what encourages more independence?
Answer:
I think autonomy can be taught, but it can抰 always be 慶aught�! The central truth
is that some students are more autonomous than others. So I think the job of the
teacher is to offer students as many tools for independent learning as possible
� and be there for support � and then it抯 up to each individual student, I think.
Question: If the concept of autonomous
learning can include the idea of passive autonomy, is there any longer a clear
distinction between autonomous learning and 揷onventional� non-rote learning?
Answer: Well passive learning in this sense
is in some way autonomous I suppose, but for me independent/autonomous learning
suggests some kind of conscious effort on the part of the learner. Of course passive
acquisition might/does happen thank Heavens, because if students only learnt what
we taught them they might find it very difficult to join up the dots. But that抯
a different kind of experience.
Question: What can teachers do to promote
autonomy in their classrooms?
Answer:
As I抳e said, show students how to go about it, where to look. It抯 important
that we offer them possibilities rather than tell them how
to do it, because one person抯 autonomy is another抯 straighjacket! We all come
to learning in different ways, so 憈eaching autonomy� is, for me, more of a 憆aising-students�-consciousness�
about autonomy kind of activity.
Question:
What can teachers do to facilitate autonomous learning of pronunciation?
Answer: Get students to listen, listen, listen, listen. And then discuss
issues of intelligibility. And then train students in to hear (so that they can
tell how many sounds there are in a word, or syllables, or tell whether a person
is asking a question or not), and then help them to understand pronunciation (issues
of stress and intonation). I think for intermediate plus students a passive knowledge
of phonemic symbols is also useful for dictionaries etc).
Question: Are teachers working here in
the Middle East open to the criticism that they are imposing liberal Western values
when they encouage their learners be more autonomous?
Answer: Well, I think they might be open
to criticism if they try and force autonomy down their students� throats. It抯
not like that. We don抰 say to students 憈his is how to do it�, we say to them
慼ere are a few different ways of doing it. Do any of them appeal to you or do
you have other ways?� It seems to me that much teaching is all about making a
bargain between the teacher and students about what works best, and often teacher
and students meet at some halfway point between their two preferences.
Question: We work within a very exam-centric
area where both the administrators and students have a tendency to feel that only
the exam matters. Is there an exam which you feel helps students learn to develop
some autonomy while they are working towards passing it?
Answer:
I wouldn抰 single out any test, but I would want to develop students� ability
to analyse exam test-types and what they are trying to get out of the testees.
Students can write their own imitation exams, or discuss with colleagues which
items are more or less difficult, or work out other ways of testing the same things.
Exam teaching doesn抰 have to concentrate exclusively on teaching exams! Or rather,
if we take the exam as a given, it抯 the various ways we get our students ready
for them that we should worry about!
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