An-Encounter-of-English-Learners’-Self--identity-and-the-Learner-centered-Curriculum

An Encounter of English Learners Self- identity and the Learner-centered Curriculum 四川省雷波民族中学 杜敏贤Abstract This paper focus on English learners Self- identity and learner-centeredness of the learner-centered curriculum, considering the content, influences, types and confidence of English learners Self- identity and locating them in a learner-centered curriculum context. In English teaching with the learner-centered approach, English learners Self- identity is a extraordinary important element to the teachers. English teachers should pay more attention on it.Key words: self-identity; confidence; learner-centered; curriculum1. Introduction Identity is an important concept of western culture research. Its basic meaning is the identification between an individual and specific social culture. Identity covers the following meanings: who am I? Where I come from and where I am going? Identity is associated with a series of theoretical issues, such as subject, language, psychology, ideology, power, class, sex and race (Tao, 2004). People establish self-identity to understand individual characteristics, potential, character, interest, hobby and social requirements and seek for binding points between an individual and the society, so as to identify their own status (Gao, Li & Li, 2003). In traditional English teaching, teachers play an important role. They design and control the whole teaching process and play a decisive role in planning, object selection, teaching methods, specific teaching implementation and evaluation. David Nunan (1988) once said: “in traditional teaching, the responsibility of the teacher in such systems was often little more than to implement the curriculum and to act as classroom manager”. Since 1990s, along with the incessant combination of psycholog and linguistics, constructivism advocates that learning is not teachers delivering knowledge to students, but students establishing their own knowledge. Learning is a process that based on their own knowledge and experiences, learners take an initiative process to construct their own meaning about new knowledge (Fan, 2003). In this way, the place and status of learners in teaching and learning were highlighted, and the concept of learner-centeredness is slowly filtering into peoples minds. It requires teaching centering on students, and attaches full importance to the positive role of students in teaching, fully raise the activity and confidence of students, make students control learning objective and contents, and enable students to take part in the whole teaching activity. In this concept, what teachers deliver to students is not only knowledge, but also studying skills, methods and confidence using them ( Feng,2007). 2Development of learners self-identity 2.1definition of self-identityGenerally speaking, according to current identity research, identity can be divided into 4 kinds, namely individual identity, collective identity, self-identity and social identity. Individual identity is the identity between an individual and specific culture, while collective identity means that cultural subject conducts selection between two different cultural groups or minor-cultural groups. Due to the impact of different cultures, the culture subject needs to regard one culture as the self of collective culture and another culture as the autrui. Social identity lays emphasis on social attributes and is the object for sociology, cultural anthropology and other research (Tao, 2004). Self-identity stresses self-experience in body and mind centering on oneself and is the object attracting the attention of enlightenment philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism. Here, self-identity of learners means learners recognition on “who am I”, covering individual ability, communication mode, values, group belonging and other aspects. Self-identity is a psychological concept.2.2 Diversity and liquidity of self-identity Language is a communication tool and a cultural product, participating in development of self-identity. The issue of “why I study foreign language” is actually “who am I? Where I come from and where I am going?” (Gao, 2003, p.76). In this way, language is the product of mutual competition and consultation of various social forces, rules and resources. Identity is neither the appendant of social structure, nor the product of inner intention of any individual. It is a diversified and fluid process established in a kind of circumstance under certain social, cultural and historical conditions (Gao, Li&Bian, 2008, p.22). Meanwhile, the issue of “who am I” involves many concepts. The self-identity of English learners will change obviously along with the progress of English learning. In the very beginning, the reason for a student to study English is only that the school offers the course and teachers are available for teaching. At this time, the self-identity of English learners is knowledge acceptor. After that, teachers will say that English is a global language widely applied in the world, and students may master this communication skill because of its practicability. At this time, his self-identity is practical tool master. If this student penetrates deeper into English studying and contact English literature and literature creation skills, his self-identity may change into literature critic, writer or others. All in all, the self-identity of English learners is not unchangeable. It is a dynamic process of change and development associated with various microcosmic factors. Self-identity exists in specific communication event. The definition of an individual and his own inner expression is carried by exterior communication. It is neither a product defined by exterior environment, nor pure personal imagination. It is a process of mutual consultation of individuals and social environment, containing the usage of languages (Gao, Li& Bian, 2008, p.22). As students or teachers, they will reveal their distinctive identity in daily communication. 2.3 Types of self-identity According to the research results of Gao Yihong and others, self-identity change is divided into 6 types: confidence change, additive change, abridged change, productive change, fissility change and zero change. The research group represented by Gao Yihong (Gao Yihong, Bian Yongwei, Li Yuxia, Zhouyan, etc.) took undergraduate and gradate students as their objects and made a lot of research related to identity development and motive strength for their English studies. Among these factors, the significant impact of confidence change for English studies is obvious. Confidence, in a broad sense, means self-believe, self-esteem, courage and indomitability. It is generally described as a persons state of being definite either that a hypothesis or preference is correct or that a chosen action is the best or most effective. Self-confidence is having confidence in oneself. The former teaching experiences tell us students confidence is the key of successful learning. Generally speaking, the confident student will do better than the one has no self-confidence or do not be confident enough. Those confident students, in English class, they talk with ease and confidence even if they will make mistakes or errors. They created more chances for themselves to practice. Reversely, those students who dont be too confident, they often reluctant to show themselves, anxiety is the most obvious performance, more seriously, some of them feel desperate to their English study. Mining and establish students confidence is the matter of language learning. English teacher should strive to encourage students be confident and self-trust. Additive change means that learners can naturally convert their native language into target language. A successful English learner usually has this change in his learning process. They can use English fluently in given condition. Their English is looked as native-like. Abridged change is generally regarded as impeding learners studies, as their native language, native language culture and opinions will be replaced by the target language. This kind of change is mischievous to learners. Their native language will be reduced even wither away in their world. Productive change is regarded as the comparatively ideal foreign language studying condition, and learners language, culture and opinion for native language and target language will be promoted and developed into a comparatively higher level. It is a constructive proposal proposed by Gao Yihong. It is a more flexible situation in English as second language learning. Fissility change means that the culture and opinion of the native language and target language conflict and struggle with each other. It is a sort of contrary, confused and incomprehensible feeling in ones mind. Zero change means no change. 3. Learner-centered curriculum “Curriculum is many things to many people.” A curriculum is the set of courses, classes, and their content, process, teaching plan, method and evaluation, offered at a school or university. As an concept, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of actions and practices through which children grow to become mature adults. Furthermore, the curriculum encompasses the entire scope of formative deed and experience occurring in and out of school, experiences that are unplanned and undirected, and experiences intentionally directed for the purposeful formation of adult members of society.We all know that the famous four questions proposed by Tyler(1949):1. What educational purposes should the school seek to attain?2. What educational experiences can be provided that are likely to attain these purposes?3. How can these educational experiences be effectively organized?4. How can we determine whether these purposes are being attained?In his book “Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction”, the student is encouraged to examine other rationales and to develop his own conception of the elements and relationships involved in an effective curriculum (Tyler, 1949). This is what learner-centered curriculum intends to reach. The curriculum is a collaborative effort between teachers and learners, since learners are closely involved in the decision-making process regarding the content of the curriculum and how it is taught.3.1 Definition Barbara L.Mccombs and Whisler define “learner-centeredness” as the following: learner-centered means teaching is focused on learner individual (such as their experiences, ideas, background, competence, interests and needs), studies (the best study method is to know how study comes into being), and teaching practice that can enable learners to have the most powerful learning motive (Dou, 2008). Hence, learners self-awareness is vitally importance in this kind of teaching idea, and their confidence, learning motive and self-assessment are the key factors for study. 3.2 Learner-Centered Teaching PhilosophiesThe concept of “student-centered” made its debut in 1970s and there were also the concepts of this kind such as “individualization” “humanization” “personalization” represented by McNeil and Altman. Their debut on foreign language or second language teaching marked the establishment of learners or students status as the leading players during the process of teaching or learning and the attention attached to the diversity of learners needs competence and interest (Yang, 2003). Everyone is different, our traditional education often ignore this. The whole education system treat every student as the same. There is a system of unified management, teaching and assessment in schools. In our country, education policy is the baton, the core and the center. Under unified education system, students individual character and personality is difficult to reflect. It is really a big block in our education reformation way. Learner-centered concept was advocated just as the remedy and complement.The idea of teaching shifts from “teacher-centered” or “textbook-centered” to “students-centered” and therefore the roles of students and teachers change sharply, which makes teachers pay more attention to the teaching process incorporating the participation of students in the design of teaching plan, teaching content, method and evaluation. “Learner-centered teachers make essential contributions to the learning process. However, they are significantly different from those contributions most teachers currently make.” (Weimer,2002,p.15) The whole education process can not be finished just by the teachers. Curriculum design also needs all kinds of power of people from all walks of life. Educational experts play a decisive role in this program. But actually, students are the most direct object. They can feel the curriculum they involved in. They understand what they are given, supplied and asked. So they are the most qualified to put forward reforms to current curriculum. The changes of learning motivation and confidence of students as well as needs analysis are the important reference factors. “Learner-centered” teaching activities are carried out based on the learners. In such teaching philosophy, sufficient attention shall be paid to the active role of students in the process of learning to mobilize sufficiently the learning enthusiasm and confidence of the students. In addition, the teacher shall try the best to make the students control the learning content and method (Feng, 2007).The learner-centered autonomous principle of keeping learning means that the learners adequately exert the leading role of self-regulated learning under certain condition to actively adjust and control such aspects in the whole process of learning as learning emotion, learning strategies, learning methods and technique so as to finish the learning process. They depend on the teacher to identify what needs to be learned, to rescribe the learning methods, and finaly to assess what and how well they have learned. In recent years work on self-regulated learning has advanced, with Boud and others now proposing that the goal of education ought to be the creation of independent, autonomous learners who assume responsibility for their own learning (Weimer, 2002). Autonomous learning should incorporate such aspects as determining clear targets, overcoming spontaneity and blindness of learning, and independently adopting effective learning strategies and actively completing the learning tasks. When the learners have insufficient learning motivation, shaky learning will, bad learning habit and depressing learning emotion, they can encourage themselves, increase willpower and control themselves so as to keeping learning high point and effectiveness. Whether the study goal was achieved, learning task was finished, or learning strategies produced the best efficiency and effects. All of these need the learners to self-assessment and self-complete.(Wang,2004)4 The importance of self-identity to learner-centered curriculumThe development of English learners self-identity is conducted to help them find out “who am I exactly.” Intrapersonal changes are put as first consideration. So it must be helpful to learner-centered curriculum.4.1 Know identity and find the directionExactly understood of identity is heavily intertwined with needs analysis in curriculum. Needs analysis, namely draw up theory leading principle specialized to English education through analyzing learners target circumstances and language characteristics. “Needs” includes objective part, such as the learners foreign language profession and the difficulties. It also includes subjective part, namely, cognition, emotion, confidence and attitude. Only a learner know his self-identity and self-identity change in every stage of his study, he just can realize what he needs to learn and master, how should the teacher to teach and set the teaching plan. In the early stage of English learning, most learners are English knowledge receiver, so we should recognize that our needs are objective words, sentences and all kinds of implied competence. Obviously, this recognition is a necessary condition of a reasonable curriculum. 4.2 Be confident and motiveActually, learner-centered teaching method stem from three theories: humanistic theory of learning, cognitive theory and constructivism. Humanism thinks a lot of the importance of personal inside, take the individual thought, feeling and emotion as the point of personal development. Cognitive theory thinks more of students self-awareness and expectation. And constructivism taken down our traditional education mode. It holds that learning is not the teachers giving and students receiving, but active meaning construction of students. They selectively apperceive outside information according to former cognitive structure. Self-confidence development is quite important content of identity research (Gao, 2003, 2008). “English learning has extraordinary influence to leaner self-confidence.”(Gao, Cheng, Zhao & Zhou, 2003, P.132) From this self-identity will influent learner-centeredness absolutely. Only students have a clearly understood on “who am I”, they can just evaluated themselves and realize their value. So it will be effective when they study. When a person knows his identity and recognized it, he will realize his learning motivation and understand what he needs and what he should do and how to do next. Identity is a sort of guide, presupposition and condition. The teachers help students to be assure about their identity with a combination of both will achieve maximum results with little efforts.4.3 Adjust learning aim, change study plan, content and methods in timeSelf-identity is a polynary developmental and running process. “Our self-understanding will never stop and unchangable. Some theories about identity construction are that identity is p