Focus on the Learner

Focus on the Learner
Each teacher must deal with a class - a group of individuals with different needs often growing out of their different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. ESL students have widely different needs, because of differences in cultural background, age, and previous education. Even if the students in one class are all from the same language group, they inevitably have different learning styles and needs. It means, that the teacher needs to be aware of the difficulties involved in teaching students. Their social needs, their assumptions about school, and the academic needs peculiar to each group also need to be taken into account. One way to deal with these differences - perhaps the only way to do so creatively - is through individualized instruction.
In Handscombe's article we can find a number of practical suggestions for individualizing ESL classes for adults, high school students, and elementary school children. Handscombe and his colleagues suggest that teachers should individualize ESL instruction so that they teach in the ways in which students learn. They should assess each student's needs, recording a profile with such items as age, previous education and attitude toward education, preferred learning style, previous language learning, personality, occupation, and home environment. The teacher can assess student needs through observation, class discussions, individual talks with students, and assigned essays or questionnaires. Then, ideally, the teacher will have some notion about the student's needs, including these aspects of their learning style: preference for learning alone, in small groups, and in large groups, ear / eye preference, preference for observation vs. participation, use of language analysis, rules, and explanations, preference for immersion, use of translation, use of visuals, uses of rote learning.
When the teacher has some idea of his / her students' needs and learning styles, he/she suggests a variety of