What is student-centred learning

To understand student-centred learning, it’s useful to think about what its opposite is.

Much language methodology is still teacher-centred. Part of  the reason, I think, is that this kind of methodology is what the teacher received when they themselves were studying language.It certainly was the case with me. I studied four languages in high school and Chinese at university and it was all teacher-centred.

So part of the challenge for teachers is to teach in a way that they themselves aren’t used to and may not have been exposed to in any meaningful way, for any appreciable length of time.

So what is teacher-centred learning? It’s where the teacher is the sole decision-maker about what is to be learned and how it is to be assessed. The teacher is seen as the conduit to knowledge, or as the person passing down information.

On the other hand, in student-centred learning, the students themselves actively make decisions about what they need to know and seek out knowledge. They are also involved in decisions about how work should be assessed. This can lead to higher student motivation, improved communication amongst learners and between learners and their teachers and improved responsibility for their own work.

The proponents of student-centred learning believe that the knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs that learners bring with them into the classroom should be taken into account and used to promote learning.

ICT can assist in student-centred learning by providing access to information which students can access independently and at their own pace. It also gives them chances to present their findings and themselves in different ways.

That’s not to say that activities that involve ICT are inherently student-centred.  The test is to what degree students have a say in what they learn and how they present that information.