3- Student-Cenered Teaching (SCT)?

Student-Centered Teaching
(SCT)

We understand from the literature concerning Student-Centered Teaching (SCT) that in this approach teachers focus their planning, teaching and assessment around the needs and abilities of students. The main idea behind this approach is that learning is most meaningful when topics are relevant to the students’ lives, needs and interests. Unlike Teacher-Centered Teaching (TST), in SCT the teacher is not the only source of information. The teacher works as a monitor and a facilitator. Teachers cannot simply lecture and let students take a passive role. On the opposite, they have to design activities that let their students take initiative and discover meaningful information for their own lives.
In this regard, I sometimes start a unit by asking the students what they want to learn about in that unit. If they want to learn about the American music, for example, I would look for an activity (or design one if I don’t find any) which is based on various aspects of this music. We could also discuss the different lexical items they think they would need to know (names of instruments, different types of American music…etc.) and I would even let them do some planning how they want to learn in the unit. Sometimes we do this in Arabic.

What do you think guys... Is this how you do things in your classrooms?