Page 121 - Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

105 Apuntes de Investigación en la Enseñanza de Idiomas

Methodology

Twenty-three trainee teachers participated in this qualitative study. The trainee teachers first went
through the process of learning to become a counselor with a “mock learner”. They practiced with
their own classmates assuming the role of a language learner with a real need to learn, practice or
improve in the language. When they had learned the process and feedback was given from the pro-
fessor of the course, trainee teachers were asked to work with a real language learner – anyone they
knew who was not studying the B.A. in ELT program - an acquaintance or a family member who had
a real need to work on the language.

The counseling process

Defining the learner’s needs
They first listed down the activities where the language (in this case, English) would be needed for
either academic or work purposes. After listing down these activities, the counselor (the trainee
teacher) helped the language learner be aware of the skills that would be needed to focus on in each
of the activities. This enabled the definition of a learning objective. To illustrate how this process
worked, an example was taken from the work of a trainee teacher of this course, Eduardo Cornejo
Salvador, who gave his permission to use his work as an example. Eduardo will be referred to as
Trainee Counselor (TC).

Sample Language Learner’s profile: an 8 semester student of Engineering in Computing Systems
th
at the Instituto Tecnológico de Pachuca, with a B1 level of English who is going to the United States
to present a robotics project in English.

Prioritizing needs through a Needs Analysis

Learning priorities were identified and learning objectives were defined through a Needs Analy-
sis. Eduardo and his classmates learned how to define learning objectives: the first part of the ob-
jective is the skill identified as WHAT was needed to work on. In general, most learners of a language
were trying to work on a skill in these three ways: to learn something of the skill that they had no
knowledge of, to practice a skill that they felt they need practice on and to improve on a skill that they
may already be good at or wanted to do better. The phrase following the WHAT in the objective is the
WHAT FOR. This was taken from the list of activities in the needs analysis that described what the
language learner needed the language for. It also considered the skill that needed to be worked on.
In the case of the TC’s learner who prioritized speaking, his learning objective was set as follows: To
practice speaking to be able to communicate orally with people when presenting a project in robotics.
Knowing the Language Leaner’s Learning Style

The notion of learning styles has been considered of importance to the success of learning autono-
mously, and therefore is part of the process of this study. A learning style questionnaire was given to
determine what activities and resources would be suitable for the learner to work with according to
his/her learning style.
Workplan

With the learning objective and learning style of the language learner, the TC helped the language
learner write a workplan to follow. The workplan clearly reflected the learner’s learning objective and
learning style through the activities and materials he/she would work on within a certain period of
time.