Whenever I think of teaching very young children the feeling that comes is the terrifying pressure of responsibility. They are so vulnerable. Looking up to the teacher like they will never do in future. Every word I utter is the Holy Script. Every pattern I use will become internalized.

Like mine own are internalized from the years spent at the desk in a traditional classroom. Listen, read, write, repeat. What else? Be a passive receiver or, at best, a vessel filled by the teacher to the brim. If you don’t like or don’t need what’s being poured into you, tough luck. The vessel is made of a strangely elastic substance – it moulds itself to fit the content.

On the other hand – no one like the kids can tell you exactly what they feel. If you listen to them, there’s no easier task than to plan your classes. They have not learned to hide their true thoughts yet, to accommodate the teacher at the cost of an open, unrestrained interaction. Given the choice, they will not have any qualms about making a decision, unlike older students who are used that passivity is expected of them. Kids revel in freedom and they rarely misuse or abuse it.

Recently a nerve-racking tingle of my mobile interrupted a class with six-years-old. That day I left it on during the classes, expecting to hear news about the imminent delivery of our beloved pot-bellied pig. First time mother, so the tension runs high. I grab the phone. Kids look up from their books with an inquisitive gleam in their eyes – kids love to catch snippets from their teacher’s private lives.

- We must get the vet, there’s something wrong – informs the quivering voice of my husband.

- I’ll phone him, the number is in the memory, it’s easier for me to press-dial than to search, write it down and call you back – I decide quickly.

Alas, nobody answers my call and my husband has meanwhile left the house so I cannot ask him to look up other vets in the Yellow Pages. I am beginning to panic. All the time fifteen pairs of eyes are watching, curious.

- Listen, my piggy is a mother now. She is having babies – I throw a hectic explanation at them, drawing an awkward shape of a pig on the blackboard and with my hands imitating a belly blown-up with pregnancy. The kids nod their understanding. Then I mimic making a phone-call and say:

- Please play word-cards, OK?

One girl pipes up, her face all lit with excitement:

- Can we play the game? – meaning a dice-game involving calling out parts of the body and sketching them on the symbolic “body”, thus receiving a monster shaped by chance. True, she called out in Polish, but who cares? She took the initiative from the befuddled teacher, who plainly forgot other possibilities of spending the time.

Fifteen minutes later I come back to the classroom. Prior to entering, a sly check on the state of the matters through the peep-hole in the door. Everyone is busy playing. No bored yawns and hands folded idly. To be completely honest – not everybody has stuck to the suggested task. Left to themselves, some have found a niche of interest which no teacher could discover for them.

To foster the attitude of initiative and the free, willing cooperation with the teacher is a task at once made easy by the natural endowment of a child’s nature and difficult by the almost automatic “traditional-teaching pattern” mode of teaching behaviour. When you ask the children to negotiate the plan for the on-going class, the ensuing haggling may go on for ages. It seems tedious… time-consuming… any “sensible” teacher would step in and get it over with in a flash. The kids would not be gradually weaned off independence and initiative. Would they learn more English instead? Even so, is this a price we can afford to pay? We, the citizens of the world plagued by the passivity of most its inhabitants to stand against evil?

When I was still a very inexperienced teacher, struggling to master the intricacies of a public school administration, a colleague approached me with a request to run a small extra-curricular class for her child and a group of his peers. I was enthused at the prospect of being able to “just teach” – unburdened by the demands of documenting every piece of the learning process in a school register. I agreed without asking the age of my prospective pupils. As it turned out, they were all seven years old. I felt a moment of pure panic. Little as I knew about teaching YL, it was enough to know that I do not possess the necessary tools of trade. But I soon learned the different pace, the necessity to recycle lexis, to incorporate movement, I grit my teeth when they “wasted” class time drawing. Since I was simultaneously fast becoming an avid believer in learner autonomy, I spent some time pondering the issue in context of this youngest class. With some regret I decided that the age of the pupils does not allow for such “adult” responsibilities. The most I could do was to choose a course book, which offered systematic “self assessment” units – pupils decided how well they performed discrete tasks, using symbols of emoticons - “smilies” and “serious faces”.

One day, glancing at a pupil’s book, I discovered similar symbols peppering other pages. “What does that mean?” I asked, perplexed. A wide-opened pair of brown eyes looked at me with a touch of pity at the slow-thinking adult. “This song was nice so I drew a smilie… but I didn’t like that listening dictation so I put a sad face here” – came the explanation.

That was the day when I started to look beyond the obvious and finally see the reality. Since a seven-years-old was capable of practical resources evaluation, perhaps other tools of autonomy could be introduced as well? I understood the necessity to scale them down exactly as reflective diaries of older students were scaled down into “smilies” of a rudimentary self-assessment sheet. But since they can and do organize their own playtime without the supervision of an adult – every school yard bears witness to the fact! – why shouldn’t they be given some room for organizing their own class activities?

The key learning competences, according to the latest pedagogical developments, are planning, organizing and self-assessment. Why then should a teacher usurp the opportunity to plan classroom activities? I realized that I would first have to show them a range of possibilities. It proved easier than I expected; after all, they were used to basic school tasks: reading, writing, drawing, singing, playing games and listening to stories. I invited them to make simple word puzzles for their friends and for some it became the favourite activity. Making and playing word cards, a tool I learned observing Leni Dam’s class, also enjoyed considerable popularity.

The hardest of my tasks was looking for appropriate resources: most course book activities are terribly prescriptive. Finally I found an authentic school book for English first-form pupils (published by Folens) and most of the reading and writing task sheets come from it. A course for Polish elementary schools “Bingo!” published by Wydawnictwa Szkolne PWN offers a cassette with short stories and colourful spreads illustrating them. Naturally, word cards and puzzles were created by the pupils themselves.

The first “choice” class was a huge success. To my amazement most pupils proved capable of choosing for themselves – and some were discerning enough to “sample” before they sat down to work in earnest. There was one girl who stubbornly waited for my instructions. Finally I gave up and led her to a “reading and writing” table… from which she escaped on her own accord after no more than a minute! Another boy wandered about the classroom, disturbing others and generally demonstrating his discontentment with the “abnormal” situation. To the very end he refused to do his own choosing. Soon after, he dropped out. I never learnt whether the shock of innovation was the reason, but since he was just one of twelve, I deemed the risk worth taking.

That group is history – today they have English lessons as part of a normal school syllabus and I am not their teacher. The present teacher is a staunch traditionalist. From time to time they pass me in the corridor and ask: “Teacher, do you still make choice classes with these other pupils?” I may only imagine a shadow of wistful nostalgia in their voices. Sadly, the group was too small to attempt any conclusion-drawing. Mostly they are doing well as students but I have no way of telling whether early experiences in learner independence played any role in their development.

Currently I am teaching two young learner groups: fifteen six- and seven- years-old in their first year of school and a group of twelve, aged eight and nine, who are in their second year of English instructions. Since they took to choice lessons like ducks to water, I decided to introduce another tool of autonomy – lesson content negotiation. You will soon see the procedure so I will refrain from describing it.

It is a time-consuming procedure. Voting democratically is not easy for many adult gatherings. Some lobbying takes place among them as well, adding to the chaos. All this time the teacher is sitting at her desk, seemingly unperturbed to see the time spent uselessly. (As a matter of fact I grit my teeth not to take over).

Uselessly?

Not to bore you with reiterating the obvious, I would like you to pay a visit to my classroom. In a typical “choice” class a group of children will work industriously, tongues stuck out, minds focused on the task at hand. Some pupils will change tables to have a go at various activities. Others stay put, enjoying one type of task throughout the whole period of half hour. Some find their favourite activity right away. Others may move around aimlessly for a time, before settling down. I dare say there will always be someone who cannot find his place. But I am asking myself: how many pupils merely wait out classes conducted in a routine way, where all work together under the command of the course book and the teacher? How many of them are totally uninvolved, learning only to be passive, to submit to the other’s initiative? How many feel – and hardly hide - growing hostility?

I would rather some of my students “wasted” an opportunity to have words or grammar drilled “into them” – if they can learn to direct their own lives instead.

There is one more point to cover in my presentation of the practice of work with young learners. One hears sometimes about a “need for special handling” in reference to teaching small kids. Having several years direct experience, I cannot but wonder - is it at all necessary?

There is an unspoken agreement that pre-puberty students need more support than teenagers. My observations do not sustain this notion. Given the freedom of choice, half of children set off without any further ado, while some may prefer to turn to me for some kind of guidance. But so do older students. After all, support is the other word for “a teacher”! In all the years spent learning how not to rob students of the opportunities to develop their sense of individuality and independence, I encounter repeatedly the same dilemma: how far should I go in leaving them well alone? After all, the world knows all sorts of creatures, and some are naturally less endowed with initiative than others. Whatever the age of a passive student, the question remains. I would say that the percentage of the passive individuals grows with school age – but my field of observation is limited, so I don’t dare make any sweeping generalizations.

Unlike older students, a child will often bring me her work in the unfinished stage. She does not expect instructions nor criticism. She expects confirmation. This is one sure thing I have learnt. For children experimenting is the chosen mode of action – providing they feel safe. So that’s my most important task – to create a safe environment in which they trust to make mistakes with impunity. On the other hand – what would be the benefits of a similar approach to older students? Confirm, whatever has been presented to you. Teachers in the staff room are occasionally given to grumbling: “no matter how much I correct, they keep making the same mistakes!” Perhaps a student of any age does not need correction, but reassurance?

When creating the lesson plan, the wealth of ideas seems limitless. The difficulty lies in sticking to it, as a community of children is almost unpredictable and given the slightest provocation, they may veer off on some unexpected track. Mostly it proves more productive than the original course. The same seems to be the reality of an older classroom, providing it consists of individuals whose initiative and self-confidence has not been stifled or paralysed by years of school drill.

Maintaining discipline? If we define “discipline” as a quiet, restrained behaviour, then the answer is a very emphatic NO. But there is an inner focus on the aim – an active discovery of the surrounding world. If we provide enough outlets, the children will be happy to reconnoiter them. I have grown used to leaving the class for a few minutes, knowing that on my return I will see about the same: a beehive of activity. It becomes a challenge for me to offer them satisfying and profitable ways to channel the activity. Otherwise they will not submit meekly to boring routines. They will become unruly, “problem” children.

The youngest class is the very embodiment of autonomy. If we only learn to co-operate.

“The development of autonomous individuals is the long term goal of most, if not all, educational endeavours” – says Candy (1). And he describes autonomous learners as people who “accept responsibility for their learning, for setting goals and objectives, for finding resources and for evaluation outcomes of their learning activities”. My youngest pupils will do it every time. You will see it, if only you learn to hear the profound in their sometimes naively formulated utterances.

Like a six-years-old who said at the end of one class, when they asked for a change of the plan: “Today we were teachers”.

1. Candy, Philip (1988) 'On the attainment of subject-matter autonomy'. In David Boud (ed.) Developing Student Autonomy in Learning. Second Edition. London: Kogan Page, pp. 17-39.