15 - California’s K-12 Dual Language Programs

Summary

This chapter focuses on implementing transformative pedagogy as a solution to support students in their learning rather than feeding into their learning anxiety. The officers who join the Ecole de guerre (French War College) have been taught English through communicative and transactional methods, acquiring grammar and linguistics rather than using the language to communicate. In implementing a contrastive new approach, TLLT, that would promote learner autonomy, several leessons were learned that are reported on in this chapter: (1) the need for caution in analysing the learning environment to avoid introducing a method without properly adapting it, (2) an observation that the transition from one method to another allowed the metanoic and transfromative processes to happen, and (3) the realization that the same reactions and benefits accrued to all the key players - the head of department/course designer, the faculty, the leadership of the college and, last but not least, the students. When stduetns realized that TLLT is about transforming their frame of reference and not re-setting who they are, their motivation rocketed through the roof.