Learners Catalogue
Main categories of learners
About Learners Catalogue
Our research has revealed due to the complexity of different profiles of adult learners, language schools and teaching professionals often fail to provide efficient support to adult English learners. While it is hardly surprising that the ’one size fits all’ approach delivers poor results, the recent changes in communication and learning styles have emphasized the need for an accurate taxonomy of adult learners as a base for providing language training and courses at a much higher level of efficiency.
The first output of the I-BLU project is a state-of-the-art catalogue of learners’ profiles, needs and learning styles. Designed from an in-depth analysis of a comprehensive range of adult learners, the catalogue represents a novel tool for language teaching professionals, with the potential to channel and modify the teaching process towards improved efficiency and a significantly larger scope.
Innovative learning
Teaching enhancement
Personalised approach
In-depth analysis
Benefits for learners and teachers
The Learners Catalogue is also used to produce a pedagogical framework, including interaction types, content, and user experience in order to facilitate the easy implementation into blended learning courses for A2-B1 adult learners. However, LC is uniquely transferable and will be available to institutions providing language training to adults. Therefore, it is expected to continue its use as a valuable asset in planning and delivering language training to adults by many educators.
The Learners Catalogue contains six main categories of learners, according to the various roles that they assume in society. Each role represents a sum of objectives for respective language-learning paths. In addition to the much-needed understanding of the different profiles of learners, the Learners Catalogue will also capture:
- a list of functional domains associated with the role, in which a learner might participate
- the motivation factors on the one side and the limiting factors on the other,
- typical learning habits of distinctive learners types
- challenges and motivations each group faces with the challenge of autonomous learning and using digital resources for language learning.
The Learners Catalogue will enable to:
- define types of adult learners progressing towards B1 – independent ESL user
- identify commonalities in support needs both across categories;
- assess the current gap between needs and provisions;
- reach a consensus around the circumstantial constraints and opportunities
Methodological takeaways
The Blended Learning dimension of the I-BLU course
The I-BLU course is designed to support a large volume of fully independent work by the learners. Some of its features that enable this include:
The activities are standardized
They have clear objectives and outcomes related to CEFR can-do descriptors
The learning process is methodologically graded
The learning process develops along the learning pathways
the I-BLU course is fully adaptable to blended learning
There is a set of progress tests that can be done independently
Categories of main learner types, based on social roles and communicative situations
The I-BLU course allows teachers to plan, structure, and assign tasks to individual learners or groups of learners. It allows classroom instruction time to be replaced by online learning experiences, and online learning can include varying degrees of interaction or just time alone in independent study and learning activities.
However, in a quality blended learning experience, the content and activities of both in-person and online learning are integrated with one another and work toward the same learning outcomes with the same content. The various learning experiences are synthesised, complement each other, and are planned or orchestrated to run in parallel.
Considering that the main focus of the I-BLU course for learners is placed on upskilling adults, it must be assumed that the communicative situations in which English is used take place in real-life environments. Compared to traditional courses, the I-BLU learning course will therefore tend to shift emphasis to more independent work by the learners, as well as towards developing strategies for independent learning.
Both teachers and learners can benefit by choosing the category and the learner type offered within the I-BLU learning course, in order to focus on individual priorities in the use of English as a second language.
The twenty basic learner types presented in the Learners Catalogue are at the same time the base for the Learning Pathways in the Blended Panoply learning course.
