Readdressing the Implementation of Learner-Centered Education in Teacher Education Programs

Abstract

Being of a fuzzy nature, learner-centeredness has been approached and grasped differently by teachers and teacher educators at various learning contexts. Despite its preponderance in educational arena since roughly half a century ago, learner-centered education (LCE) seems to still be surrounded by a myriad of misconceptions, delusions and uncertainties. Part of this haziness and perplexity in applying LCE appears to have resulted from lack of proper training with regard to its judicious implementation in compliance with the specific contextual features and requirements. Striving to establish a context-sensitive and culturally-responsive approach to LCE in the Iranian educational context, the researchers in the current study embarked on a training program for EFL teachers, in which the basic tenets of a learner-centered methodology were introduced through hands-on practice and involvement. Teachers’ conduct prior and successive to training workshops was screened via pre- and post-observation by three expert teacher educators. The evaluation process was carried out by means of a checklist with 12 criteria on a scale of 1 to 5. The findings pointed toward the significant outperformance of trained compared to non-trained teachers based on the consensus among the three experts, as well as the results of Mann Whitney U test. The implications of the study are discussed throughout the paper.

Keywords

• Learner-Centered Education
• Iranian
• EFL
• Teachers
• Teacher Education