LEARNER-CENTERED VERSUS TEACHER-CENTERED APPROACHES:THE NEED FOR COMPROMISE

Abstract

#It is taken for granted that lecturing is the normal mood of university style of teaching. This is true of many third world countries of which Yemen is one, and it is not peculiar to departments of English only, but to almost all other departments. That may justify why terins like 'lecture', 'lecturer' and 'lecture hall' are part of the university jargon. Lecturing is one form of traditional teacher-centered approaches; how this comes to be associated with college teaching methodology is uncertain, but what is certain is that it is there. Though lecturing may be required with certain subjects and with particular activities related to these subjects, yet, no one can confirm that this must be the principle. Learner-centered approaches [LCA], however, are meant to all situations where teaching/learning is involved and the learner is a component, whether the instructional institution is a school or a college. In Yemen, the culture of learner- centeredness {LC] is still in its infancy-luckily not a still-born one. One of the objectives of this paper is to contribute to establish a learner-centered culture in the field of ELT in the Yemeni universities. This paper, therefore, is an attempt to shed some light on the area of learner- centeredness. Among other things, the paper investigates the possible constraints that may impede implementing an ideal learner-centered approach to ELT in departments of English in the Yemeni universities. The new thing, this paper presents, is the compromise- the combination of some elements of both approaches in one that satisfies the local situation. For the researcher, this recommended compromise can best suit the Yemeni contexts for its different and salient features, which he lists at the end of the paper.