View Content #18653

by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director

The power of choice is a noteworthy theme throughout second and foreign language learning research, no matter one's theoretical orientation. Learner agency can be beneficial to long-term study, learner motivation, and learner authentication of real world tasks. Despite the best-laid plans, if learners themselves do not buy-in to learning experiences, their intended impact may be lost.

A key element to enhancing the success of classroom activities is the opportunity for learners to make choices and take alternate paths to success. However, practical realities such as limited planning time, large numbers of students, and a wide range of students' interests makes individualized instruction for a large number of learners challenging and unrealistic. This week we explore three ways to enhance learner agency and foster learner choice, despite these challenges.

• Do less to do more. One way to allow learner agency is to select a smaller set of core content that all must learn and then have learners expand their own repertoire with content in which they are interested. For example, consider the endless number of words for food around the world. Learning all of the words is an impracticality. Instead an instructor could select 10-15 core words and then have learners choose 10 additional words they are interested in learning. Both lists should be encouraged and assessed throughout the lesson. As learners advance, they can continue to add to their repertoire.
• Always give at least two options.While individual assignments are not practical, 1-2 choices can be empowering. For example, in a writing assignment, learners could have the choice to write a review about a product or a restaurant. Evaluation would entail the same rubric with different content. Furthermore, the same target learning objectives would be met.
• Let learners pick a variety of roles. When engaging learners in group work, a variety of roles can add depth to a task. For example, this could include a note taker, reporter, and facilitator. Instead of assigning these roles, allowing learners to select their own role adds choice to the experience and can foster learner agency.

Whatever the learning context, empowering learners to take charge of their own learning adds to their experience and can lead to increased success in meeting target outcomes.