Focus on the Learner

Abstract

A recurring educational concern in recent years has been how the curriculum can be made to reflect the needs, concerns and resources of learners. This is an acknowledgement that learners have the right to help decide the kinds of educational services they get, and that information about learners can potentially improve the effectiveness of both teaching and learning. The resulting movement towards learner-centred methodologies and instructional designs is seen, for example, in the use of learners as planners and monitors of their own learning in contemporary teaching methods, and in attempts to incorporate into teaching, insights obtained from studies of how second language learners develop language proficiency. The present paper continues this exploration of ways in which curriculum development and methodology in teaching English as a second language can take account of learners, and examines how teachers and researchers can collaborate in the process of developing a learner-centred curriculum.