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Teachers' Writing Corner

Learning Beyond Our Classrooms:

the Importance of Self-directed

st
Learning in the 21 Century

Ms. Lam Ming Yee and Ms. Hung Sui Ha

The world is changing drastically and therefore so must society. We are
witnessing certain jobs disappearing and some skills are no longer important.
To keep up with the societal needs, our way of teaching and learning needs
to be changed. The traditional learning style focuses on rote memorisation of
lots of information and the way of teaching also measures itself by the amount
of input given to learners within the classroom. However, the amount of input
has always been constrained by the limited time available for teaching in the
school. Our students, therefore, need to possess the ability of self-learning.

Self-directed learning means students have an active role in learning (Lee,
1998). They take initiative in what they are going to learn and decide what they
are going to focus on. In our school, taking learning English as an example,
students are encouraged to prepare for lessons using different materials that
have been chosen by our teachers and uploaded onto Edmodo before the
lesson. This can help students to prepare themselves for their learning or they
may choose to read the information after the lesson to aid their revision and
understanding of the content. In this way, students can choose which specific
areas of a topic they are most interested in and decide what they want to read
or watch for each unit that they are currently learning or going to learn.

Besides Edmodo, each student can go on to the online reading platform
“Raz-Kids” to read any books they like. The books are categorised and put into
different ability levels, so students can therefore decide which level of books
they want to try to read. Since students can make their own choices, they have
more motivation to read on their own. It is hoped that through the platform,
students’ reading habits can be gradually cultivated and their English learning
will then be enhanced as a positive reading habit is a key determiner of English
language learning (Chettri & Rout, 2013).

The principal aim in encouraging self-directed learning is to enable
students to find their own intrinsic motivation towards learning. More often
than not, students in Hong Kong are driven by extrinsic motivational factors,
especially their exam scores. However, crucially these external factors are not
ever lasting. Students will therefore lose their interest for continual learning

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