Teaching Workers: Learner-Centered Instruction for English Acquisition and Social Change
Abstract
This paper explores a learner-centered approach to ESL instruction with immigrant workers. Staked in three different ESL contexts—community-college noncredit, union-based, and workplace settings—the authors discuss three components of the learner-centered approach: instructors taking an inquiring stance with their students, students’ lives and experiences as material for the class, and community-building in the classroom. They explore how this approach simultaneously works to enhance language learning as well as to provide the skills required to navigate and change for the better the power and cultural structures in which our students live and work. Specific classroom examples are given to illustrate the three components. Finally, common obstacles to this approach are discussed along with strategies for overcoming them.