Page 119 - Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

103 Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

The Teacher of English as a Counselor:

A Reflective Intervention

Martha Guadalupe Hernández Alvarado

Eleanor Occeña Gallardo

Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Hidalgo

Key words: autonomy, counseling, reflection, self-access centers, self-learning.

Self-access Centers (SACs) or Self-instructional centers have made an indelible imprint in the lan-
guage teaching and learning environment. They have gained recognition in Europe and even Asia
from as far back as after the Second World War and their existence spread worldwide. In Mexico,
their popularity surged during the 90s. From the time of their growing popularity, books and articles
have been written about the promotion of self-access and autonomy in learning languages. Two de-
cades later, self-access centers are still known to be a complementary resource to language teaching
and learning.

Self-access centers are part of the academic services in educational institutions and these facilities
have an important role to play in the students’ language learning. These centers must truly develop
the concept of autonomous learning in the learners. The following study was drawn from a personal
experience of a professor of the B.A. in English Language Teaching at the Universidad Autónoma
del Estado de Hidalgo, who taught a course called Self-access Center as a resource for learning.
The professor of the course made emphasis on the term ‘self-access’ not only as a center, but as a
fundamental concept to learner autonomy so that the content of the course could be useful to the
trainee teachers in the study program. This would ensure that they are able to help their future lan-
guage learners become autonomous in their learning, whether they would work as counselors in a
SAC or just as teachers of English.

The rationale of the study is to emphasize on the important role of the language teacher as a counsel-
or, who not only administers a needs analysis and recommends materials, but truly guides the learner
in self-learning. In this way, the counselor helps learners develop their autonomy and makes them
reflect through the process to achieve the desired learning goals. The research objective is to study
the trainee teachers’ perceptions of their role as counselors, supporting a language learner in his/her
learning process throughout a semester. Trainee teachers and language learners’ reflections are used
as the main instruments for data collection and analysis. For the purpose of this article, one sample
of the trainee teachers’ work will be mentioned to illustrate the process and results. A great amount
of experience has been drawn from the study which is worth sharing to all those involved in training
future teachers of English and for those involved in helping language learners become autonomous
in their learning.