After consulting her colleagues, and ensuring consensus, the department decided
to abandon using coursebooks in favour of designing their own curriculum and
materials. The focus would be on project-based learning more directed at their
students’ interests and knowledge, in order to better engage them in the learning
process. The new curriculum, for Grades 6 and above, was launched in March 2010.
The teachers design their own projects, taking into account the needs and interests
of their students and the new syllabi. Vicky says this new direction embodies much of
what she feels to be important about learning a language today, and is a combination
of ‘constructivism, connectivism, multi-literacies education for the 21st century,
collaborative learning and the promotion of autonomous and lifelong learning.’
Teacher discussions were held about the role of the teacher in the classroom.
Encouraging students to speak the language was made a priority, and giving them
real-world, authentic tasks, often through using Web 2.0 tools, was encouraged. At
the heart of this was a change from a teacher-centred paradigm to a more studentcentred
one. The key is giving learners more choice. Vicky says this is ‘motivating
for teenagers because they can express their individuality through their choices and
they feel they are being taken into account and respected’ (Benwell, 2010: online).