Kuma Ch. 6

“helping learners become autonomous is one way of maximizing their chances of success."

Kuma Chapter 6 discussed how difficult it is for a teacher to find ways to maintain their students’ motivation to learn. Although as teachers we can guide them in this direction, the students have to be “willing to learn”. As a teacher, you have to be subject to change your approaches and lessons in order to appeal to each specific learner. This may be difficult to go about if your students are only motivated by external factors (such as needing to pass for a credit.

Since I am going to be teaching Spanish in high schools, as well as teaching English to speakers of other languages, I think that it will be interesting to see both ends of the spectrum. From my experience, most students that take Spanish in high school only do so for a graduation requirement or for college acceptance, but typical EFL and ESL classes in the US contain students that are motivated to learn the language in order to somewhat ‘survive’ in The United States as practically monolingual culture. I would feel exceptionally appreciative to have each and every one of my students be internally motivated about learning, but that is just not realistic.

On page 140, Kuma gave ideas for how learners can become autonomous. He stated the importance of going beyond what they get in the classroom for additional language learning. I definitely agree with this and think it is of utmost importance to help provide your students with authentic materials and situations that will make their language learning relevant to their life. Also, promoting participation in cultural events and getting involved will help the language learner become autonomous.