I am reading this fascinating book by Denise and Deirde Mithaug, Martin Agran, James Martin and Michael Wehmeyer about ‘Self-instruction pedagogy. How to teach self-determined learning’. Although it focuses on general education (not language) and predominantly on special needs education, it still has a lot of interesting ideas. One of those is a questionnaire for teachers to determine the teacher- or student-directedness of their teaching. You can find it on pages 33-35 of the book (reference below). What’s interesting in that in their own study using the instrument, their 253-teacher sample was significantly more teacher- than student-directed. It’s not a perfect tool (the rankings are strange for example, with a jump from ’sometimes to ‘almost always’) but it’s neat and I thought worth sharing.

Mithaug, D. et al (2007). Self-Instruction Pedagogy: How to Teach Self-Determined Learning. (2007). Springfied, Ill: Charles C Thomas.