Innovative Practice Personalising Learning: Content, Assessment and Language Enrichment

Abstract Normal practice in course and text book construction is to provide learners with preselected material chosen by the authors to illustrate a predetermined grammar, content or teaching syllabus. The same may be said of ‘lesson planning’. This paper will firstly discuss the effect of the reversal of this process, in which selection of content and choice of exploitation of linguistic material was personalised to the wishes of the individual learner. Secondly, the paper will look at personalising assessment by measuring progress and improvement achieved by the student individually, not referenced to the progress of others. Finally, the discussion turns to personalising creativity, involving the provision of explicit instruction in techniques of enrichment of vocabulary, style and syntax, including training in self-criticism and checking for accuracy.