Learners are unique individuals who learn and develop best in their own idiosyncratic ways

Last year Dick Allwright and Judith Hanks brought out their book: “The Developing Language Learner”: An introduction to exploratory practice. In it they discuss five propositions about learners which they use not only to develop better understandings of classroom language learning but also to help learners develop their own understandings of what goes on in classrooms. In the next five blogposts I’m going to outline these propositions and if anyone has anything to add please feel free.

Last November I had the pleasure to ask Julie Walters how she would describe good teaching, based on the fact that she has played both teachers and learners in some of her film roles (Educating Rita, Billy Elliot and Ahead of the Class).

aheadoftheclass

She said it was important not to see a class as just a mass of faces, in Dick and Judith’s first proposition they focus on a similar thing and use the word “idiosyncratic” to describe the ways in which students learn and develop.

Here is a definition of idiosyncrasy: “from Ancient Greek ἰδιοσυγκρασία, idiosyngkrasía, “a peculiar temperament”, “habit of body” (ἴδιος, idios “one’s own”, σύν, syn “with” and κρᾶσις krasis “mixture”) defined as an individualizing quality or characteristic of a person or group, and is often used to express eccentricity or peculiarity.” It often has slightly negative connotations yet in Allwight and Hanks’s meaning it is embraced.

I think idiosyncracies are somewhat different from fixed learning styles and an understanding of these idiosyncrasies in the classroom and allowing them to “breathe” or “give space to them” may well lead to better classroom dynamics and better language learning as well. This is very different from teacher behaviour which is focused on wanting to get learners to do what we want them to do in the way that we want them to. Anyway here is the quote and I welcome anyone to be the first person to comment on this one week old blog now!

“Proposition 1: Learners are unique individuals who learn and develop in their own idiosyncratic ways.

Treating learners as key practitioners means respecting their unique individuality. They will not be best served if we expect them to learn, and develop as practitioners of learning, in exactly the same way as everybody else, from the same classroom activities, and so on. We shall explore this further, but for now we can simply note that textbooks and lesson plans, and the way teachers are trained to use them, typically do still seem to assume that classroom learners are best treated, to put it crudely, as an “undifferentiated mass”. Learners in a classroom group may have much in common, but we now know enough about learning to understand just how idiosyncratic it can be, and usually is. Each lesson is a different lesson for every learner.”

(Allwright and Hanks: The Developing Language Learner, 2009)

Finally, have a look at Dick Allwright, my MA thesis supervisor at Lancaster, talking about getting learners to use the English class to explore areas they themselves are interested in exploring and then presenting their findings on posters. Fabulous stuff and really allowing children/students to explore individual interests in their own ways and if you do it in English it’s great language work too! The element of focussing on trying to understand something better also goes beyond discussing what people might think about a topic and not encouraging them to take it any further.

Dick Allwright talking about getting learners to come up with what THEY want to understand better