 Hello, my name is Dervila and I'm from originally from Wexford. I've been actually living in Germany for the last 30 years and I'm a latecomer to ELT. I've been teaching for the last 12 years and actually just did my master's degree at Manchester Online last year. So I'm a newcomer to everything. I've never spoken at a conference before. So far I've enjoyed the conference and I've learned some new words. I've never heard of what a DOS was before yesterday. So I'm not a DOS. I'm not an academic manager. I'm a teacher and I'm really passionate about teaching. Good. So let me just tell you something about my context. First of all, my topic today is learner autonomy in a communicative classroom, mainly because the main aims of Germans are to speak the language. OK, so just my context. I'm an actually I'm an in company English teacher. I am living in Bavaria and I teach mainly adults and they are in many different departments from IT, marketing, finance to engineering. I also teach a few apprentices and these are my youngest learners that I have. I also teach at a university. I don't teach students. I teach lecturers and administrative staff. So here I'm teaching just monolingual learners and they're all German speakers, usually very, very small groups between three and 12 on average, about six participants, the level from A2 to C1. Most of them are between a sort of a B1, a B2 level. They have English once a week. So we're talking about a 90 minute session. Once a week could be over a period of 20 weeks. It could last for years in some companies. So basically here, a lot of the Germans have been through at school, the grammar translation methodology. And when they come to me, so there's been so much input and now they want to actually output, so they want to speak the language. So this will be a kind of a typical needs analysis. They small talk, negotiations at meetings, conversation, topics, business talk, speaking about technical things, telephoning, emails, speaking practice. These are not really clear needs. You know, I have to really find out what technical topics for one could be talking about a transmission. And for another student, it could be talking about, I don't know, food technology. So, you know, so I kind of thought, so the message here is clear. So the message, sorry. OK, it doesn't matter. The message here is clear. They want to talk more. So the challenge for me is kind of focusing on speaking activities, either meaning focused, form focused, interesting and engaging speaking topics, speaking activities for different levels. So I kind of thought, how am I going to, how am I going to do this? So I kind of thought, if I get the students more involved, but they bring in information into the class, this will kind of help us to have more engaging, more interesting conversations. So I decided sort of, OK, so let's kind of promote learner autonomy. So here we have some definitions. Learner autonomy is a capacity for detachment, critical reflection, decision making and independent action. Our learner autonomy is characterized by readiness to take charge of one's own learning in the service of one's needs and purposes. So basically, if we look at the cloud there, we're talking about, you know, that the students set their own goals, that they kind of make the decisions, that they're bringing material into the class, that they're sort of getting involved. And it's not me sort of bringing in a topic into the class. You know, I especially if a student has a meeting, an important meeting the next morning, I can say, oh, well, today we have to do conditionals. You know, I have to react. I have to sort of sort of get involved and want to see how I can help this my student. So here are some sort of hands on sort of ideas. I've always been brought a lot of images into the classroom. So here are some images that some of my students would have brought into the classroom. We have a young boy here. He's with his dog and the girl is climbing. So there is like, of course, you could ask lots of questions where, when, what, why, how often. So it's kind of endless. It leads to so much unplugged conversation. For example, people have taken photographs of things they'd like to sell. And so we've had sort of sort of selling sales negotiations in class, but it's coming from them. It's it's just leading in all different directions. As I teach in Germany, I teach a lot of engineers. And of course, the topic materials is also very important in class. And so we would do sort of the properties of materials and and talk about sort of the different types of materials. And then as a follow up, I might ask them to bring in their own photos, their own images. So here you can see we have a coffee maker, a bicycle and a stove. So the students would kind of say why it's so important. They love the word thingamabop. They just just love that. So then they all know they're always talking about the thingamabop if they can't remember the name. So here we have the stove. So they would kind of say, you know, it's sort of made of heat resistant glass, made of ceramics. It would also give them the chance. This conversation would actually lead in all different directions. I think, you know, two different types of heating systems. The bicycle here made of aluminium, they would kind of compare. Well, why don't you have one made of carbon where the best cycling routes? So it's all very, very unplugged. But the main thing is that the students are bringing in this material into class. Also here, this is a student's video. Unfortunately, the format isn't compatible today. So I asked the students to just take a video for their own video, doing something or somebody else doing something for it had to be under 20 seconds. So here we have a student. She's involved in archery. And so this was a great way of sort of eliciting all these words. And in the end, you know, this student is called Angelica. And one guy couldn't remember her name. So he almost said refer to her as the bow and arrow student. So it was a nice way of sort of you can. It just also leads in lots of different directions that can be asking questions. It can be describing, giving instructions. Great for giving instructions, the rules of games. So there's many different ways. But the thing is they bought in their own video, their own images into the class they were involved. It just made the whole thing more authentic. Another idea is these everybody is familiar with these agree and disagree statements. I have a lot of advanced courses and they want to have a rant about something. And so I would actually put, you know, put up on the screen some agree and disagree statements. For example, companies should never outsource their core competencies. Printed newspapers will go the way of the dinosaur. Job security is more important than money. So this would be maybe it would be a lesson where we might review sort of giving giving opinions, agreeing, disagreeing. And then I would actually sort of follow it up that I would send the students home and say, next week, come in with your own statements. So this has really sort of also led in all different directions. They're bringing in their interests. They have to think about what they're doing, what they want to talk about. So this will be an example. Driverless cars will become mainstream in 20 years. Of course, Bayern Munich is the best football team in the world or in Europe. So this is going to cause a lot of conversation in in Germany. So, you know, I've got a lot of Russia Dortmund fans. So so this is really sort of so they're bringing in what they want to talk about. And this is just making it whole the whole experience more authentic. You could also do it with sort of a two students like just jumble the sentences and ask the students to unjumble them. So dogs are more loyal than cats. And they would maybe able to just one or two sentences. They agree or disagree. I would then actually follow it up and ask the students to write their own comparative statement. So it would be maybe sort of London is more expensive than Munich or whatever. So it's a nicer way of sort of doing a little bit of grammar instead of in kind of gap filled sentences. Just to sort of finish up the kind of the message here is just kind of if the students are more involved, it just makes the whole conversation more authentic. And for example, students might write their own suggestions. Everybody has cards. Talk for a minute. So instead of getting so instead of using my suggestions, the students would actually sort of write their own suggestions. So talk for a minute about your chair, your car, a film you watched recently. This could be done on paper or it could actually be done. Is everybody familiar with the website line of it? Yeah, it's a kind of a online pin board where you can kind of share all your ideas in the class. They have their iPads or their smartphones and their sort of brainstorming. OK, so also I as I teach a lot in companies, I've noticed over the years that a lot of the the business books, a lot of the meeting scenarios, you know, my students just can't identify with these business scenarios. So I turn it around and get them to suggest what they would actually like to talk about. So in one company, the week before last, the one person wrote outsourcing our travel management division was a bad decision. So they this actually happened in their company. So they were able to, you know, talk about it. And the same here, changing that they to cut costs, they had to to buy at least 25 percent of the parts from Asian suppliers. So this was, you know, this was a real situation. The message here is just ears and eyes, awareness outside the classroom. You know, the news, bring it into the class, newspapers, your images. You've got students going around Dublin. Why not take a photo of nice building, bring it into class, talk about the building, whatever. And advertisements, I love advertisements. I was in London just before the Olympics and I had a marketing group and there was some some fantastic advertisements. There was an advertisement for Capris and they were weightlifting. So I brought this into the marketing group and, you know, they had a ball. We just it just elicited so much conversation. And it all led to unplug teaching. And that's what a lot of my students want, because they say when they meet, when they're at a business meeting, they have to be spontaneous. So there's no room for all this sort of practice. OK. Yeah, I'm just interviewing. Why not interview the secretary at the at the language school? And so just the idea here is just open up your eyes, get out, bring pictures, information into the class and have a good conversation, practice. OK, thank you very much.