William Butler Yeats (Poet, 1865-1939) "Education is Not the Filling of a Pail, but the Lighting of a Fire". Teaching/language teaching should not be merely concerned with knowledge, but it should also foster the learner’s competency and enable him to gain his autonomy. As the Chinese proverb says: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. The best teaching is the one that produces able people to solve problems by themselves.
Many scholars and researches have talked in depth about theories and techniques that are all useful to promote learning autonomy. We, as teachers, sometimes hesitate to make a choice of what to use. I think it is not important what theory or approach you are using, but the most important is what you are teaching. “Teaching” is not by its name, but by the effects it has on the learners. As Shakespeare says:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet. "Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)
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Dear Hamid,
ReplyDeletewhen we say education, it does not mean teaching and learning... it means something else. Educate our students for the future, prepare them for life, for all the bad and good things which they can face in their life. We should include in our education process the life-skills development and improvement, we should enable them to become independent...
All the best,
Nadina