Self-Organised Learning Environments (SOLEs) at International

House, London: A Pilot Study

James Stanfield, SOLE Central, Newcastle University

Varinder Unlu, International House, London

Abstract - This paper introduces the concept of Self Organised Learning Environments
(SOLE), a learning approach which seeks to increase student engagement in the classroom
and develop important 21st century skills. SOLEs are created when educators encourage
students to work as a community to answer big questions using the Internet. Students are
free to organise their own groups and are then asked to present their findings to the rest of
the class towards the end of the lesson. The teacher facilitates the presentation, review and
feedback session providing encouragement and posing further questions. The majority of
the research published to date on SOLE has focused on the potential of this approach in
primary education (Mitra & Crawley, 2014). Its relevance to older age groups and in
particular to adult students who want to learn English as a foreign language is not yet
understood. The purpose of this pilot is to help better understand if there is any potential
to use SOLEs to help adults learn English as a foreign language. In this pilot study, 18 adult
students participated in a one hour daily SOLE session at International House, London over a
4 week period. Student’s attitudes towards the approach were mixed and there was no
significant impact on test results. However, feedback from the students and teachers
suggested that the approach did have a positive impact on student confidence and their
levels of fluency. More rigorous research is now required to explore these issues further
and to take into account existing practice and research on the use of technology and
different pedagogies in this subject area.

Keywords: Self Organised Learning Environments (SOLE), big questions, engagement,

English language learning.
1. Introduction
In recent years there has been increasing criticism of the traditional teacher led model of
schooling and its failure to engage children and help them to develop important 21st
century skills (Anderson, 2014). In response teachers, schools and colleges have been
experimenting with a variety of different approaches including project based learning, peer
learning, enquiry based learning, blended learning and the flipped classroom. All of these
approaches have been deliberately designed to improve student engagement in the
classroom and to help students develop important new skills.

A less well known approach is ‘SOLE’, which stands for Self Organised Learning Environment.
In a SOLE teachers attempt to spark curiosity by asking children to explore a big question,
using the Internet and working together in small groups. Towards the end of the session
each group is then invited to present their findings to the rest of the class.

There are a number important features of SOLE that have emerged that help to maximise its
effectiveness. Firstly, the ‘big question’ plays a prominent role and when a relevant and
challenging question is posed many children do respond positively and engage in the lesson.
Secondly, the SOLE approach enables teachers to integrate the use of the internet into the
lesson in a safe and constructive manner. Finally, the teacher is expected to stand back and
play a much more minimal role in the lesson, enabling children to collaborate and seek out
the answers themselves. The teacher therefore becomes much more of a facilitator. For
reasons such as these, SOLE may provide a particularly effective method of engaging
students and helping them to develop important 21 st century skills such as problem solving,
critical thinking and presentation skills.

While the approach was originally developed within a primary school setting (Mitra &
Crawley, 2014), researchers are now examining its relevance to secondary, further and
higher education. This paper reports on a pilot at International House, London, which aims
to develop a better understanding of the potential use of SOLEs in helping adults to learn
English as a foreign language.

The catalyst for this pilot was a key note speech delivered by Sugata Mitra at the International
Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) Conference in Harrogate in April
2014. To suggest that this speech was greeted with a ‘mixed response, would fail to capture
the extent of the disagreement and anger that was expressed by many of the people in the
audience. While some members of the audience stood and applauded, other members
walked out. These mixed sentiments would subsequently be repeated in a number of
strongly worded blogs which the reader is encouraged to read1. A lot of the controversy
focused on comments relating to the future role of the teacher and if technology could one
day replace the teacher.

The controversial arrival of SOLE on the ELT scene therefore provides the context in which
the following pilot took place.

The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. SOLE is described in more detail in
section 2. Section 3 describes the pilot study conducted by International House and SOLE
Central, Newcastle University in February 2015, and Section 4 presents the preliminary
findings. Finally, section 5 outlines the conclusions and recommendations for future
research.

2. Self-Organised Learning Environments (SOLEs)

Since 1999, a number of experiments have been building up to a pedagogical method that is
considerably different from the traditional teacher led approach. In one of the first of these
experiments, often referred to as the ‘‘Hole in the Wall’’, computers, connected to the
internet, were embedded into walls in villages and urban slums in India. In a study that
lasted over 5 years, Mitra and his colleagues (Mitra et al. 2005) found that children could
learn to use the computers to play games, download media, and search for information with
minimal adult intervention. It is also important to note that the children invariably worked
in groups, interacting constantly with each other, in a somewhat chaotic way. From the
research carried between 1999 and 2012, the following findings were documented:

 Children can learn to use computers and the internet by themselves, irrespective of
who or where they are and what language they speak (DeBoer 2009; Mitra et al.
2005).
 Children can achieve educational objectives by themselves, related to: standard
school examinations in computer science and mathematics (Inamdar and Kulkarni

1
This talk generated a significant amount critical analysis of Sugata Mitra, the SOLE approach and the research
carried out to date. The following blogs by Graham Stanley (IATEFL Harrogate Online: Sugata Mitra Part 1
http://blog-efl.blogspot.com.ar/2014/04/iatefl-harrogate-online-sugata-mitra.html) and (IATEFL Harrogate
Online: Sugata Mitra Part 2 http://blog-efl.blogspot.com.ar/2014/04/iatefl-harrogate-online-sugata-
mitra_7.html) provide access to these discussions and debates.
 2007); improvement in their English pronunciation (Mitra, Tooley, Inamdar, and
Dixon 2003); and improve their school achievement (Dangwal, Sharma, and Hazarika
2014; Dangwal and Thounaojam 2011).
 Children showed self-organising behaviour that resulted in learning in ‘‘minimally
invasive’’ environments (Dangwal and Kapur 2008, 2009a, b).
 Children understood content that was years ahead of that expected for their age
group (Inamdar 2004; Mitra 2012).

The insights from these results, supported the case for creating unsupervised learning
environments for children inside the traditional school environment, to help better
understand its potential as an alternative learning method or approach. This is now known
as a Self-Organised Learning Environment (SOLE) and a SOLE inside a school attempts to
simulate the environment of the outdoor ‘‘Hole in the Wall’’ design.

This can be created by having computers with group seating arrangements so that a group
of children can easily share a computer and by ensuring that the number of children in the
space is 4 or 5 times that of the number of computers. For each session, the teacher,
facilitator or mediator will provide the class with a big and challenging question which the
children would find extremely difficult or impossible to answer if they were sat by
themselves in a traditional classroom with no access to the internet. The children are then
invited to form their own groups around each computer. Given the ratio of children to
computers, this happens naturally. Children are allowed to change groups, talk to one
another, talk to other groups, and walk around looking at others’ work. Towards the end of
the session each group is then invited to present their findings to the rest of the class.

2.1 Big questions

Big questions are a crucial part of any SOLE session and developing a big question can often
be the hardest part of running a session. An interesting and relevant question will help to
fire children’s imaginations and curiosity and so it is important to frame the question as a
genuine process of discovery. How the question is posed by the teacher is therefore
important. Some big questions are ambiguous, some precise, some light-hearted, and some
poignant. They can relate to what the children are learning at school, they can come from
their everyday experiences, or they can be something completely new. Critically, big
questions should encourage research, debate and critical thinking. The focus is not on
getting the ‘right’ answers, but on learning the methods and skills needed to find the
answers.

2.2 Teaching mindset

In order to make the most out of the SOLE experience, teachers are encouraged to adopt a
particular mindset, especially during the research phase. Firstly, teachers are encouraged to
be open minded and to acknowledge the fact that students may be capable of
understanding more than they are usually given credit for, especially when they are in a
flexible environment where they are encouraged to experiment. Secondly, teachers are
expected to be encouraging. The most effective educators are great witnesses, supporters,
and structure providers, but they are not answer-suppliers. The Internet will help students
to answer almost any question and so encouragement from teachers will help them have
the confidence to be resilient and to solve the problems for themselves. Finally, teachers
are encouraged to be patient. This is important because it may take some students time to
adapt to the new way of learning. Regular sessions over a period of time are therefore
required in order to fully understand the impact this approach has on individual students
and the group as a whole.

2.3 Presentations, review and feedback

Students should be encouraged to present their findings in any way, shape or form and
creative inputs are encouraged. While the teachers role may be minimal during the
research phase, this is not the case during the presentations, review and feedback phase.
However the role of the teacher changes as they are now expected to encourage further
debate and facilitate a discussion about the question itself and their investigation process.
This may involve inviting students to share their stories of collective discovery and
identifying the similarities and differences between their answers. Students can also be
asked to carry out their own review and to consider what they would do differently next
time, both individually and collectively.

It is also important to note that Self Organised Learning Environments are not expected to
be static. Instead they should continuously evolve. A willingness to experiment with new
ideas and approaches is therefore essential and student feedback can play an essential role
in this ongoing process of development.
2.4 Expected benefits from SOLE
The expected benefits from SOLE are still unclear. However, the SOLE Toolkit (Mitra, 2015)
suggests that educators will get better at asking big questions; become more in tune with
the interests of students; cultivate a learner-driven culture of curiosity; feel connected to
students on a more equal level and expand their understanding of how much students can
learn on their own. Students will also be expected to benefit by being empowered to take
ownership of their learning experience; enhancing computer literacy; developing the habits
of a lifelong learner; strengthening their interpersonal and presentation skills; getting better
at integrating what they already know into discussions both inside and outside of the
classroom and finally becoming more motivated to learn about different subjects and ideas.

These expected benefits are based on anecdotal evidence provided by SOLE practitioners
from different countries around the world. However, it is important to note that there has
not yet been any reliable research into the impact of this approach on different student
learning outcomes in different subject areas. Neither is there an agreed framework to
evaluate the impact of SOLE. In October 2014, SOLE Central, a research centre at Newcastle
University was established to help fill this research gap.

3. English language teaching – a brief overview

Over the years a variety of different methods and approaches have been tried and tested in
English language teaching, ranging from the grammar-translation to the audio-lingual
method, and from the direct method to the silent approach. Following the development of
psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics in the 1960s, the 1970s brought a shift in thinking
about how language is acquired. More humanistic approaches became the preferred way of
English language teaching with teachers, writers and publishers, all preferring more learner-
centered approaches. The two most popular approaches being Communicative Language
Teaching (CLT) and Task-Based Learning (TBL).

This shift away from the traditional more teacher lead approaches can therefore be traced
from the 1960s onwards and this has involved handing more control over to the learners
through more group and project based learning. It is therefore important to acknowledge
that in language learning the concept of students being left to investigate and perform
collaboratively is certainly not a new innovation. This suggests that the kind of student
enquiry encouraged by SOLE seems to fit well with many established English language
approaches.

For example, Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) in its original (strong) form, has some
similarities with the SOLE approach in that it suggests that a language is learned by using it.
For example, according to Allwright and Hanks (2009), learners develop linguistically simply
by “deploying their existing linguistic resources at whatever level, to solve their immediate
communication problems” (Allwright and Hanks, 2009). Cook (2008) has also previously
characterised this as a laissez-faire attitude – where learners are allowed to learn without
interference from teachers, and learn in ways that teachers cannot control (Hall, 2011).

During this period and in particular from 1990 onwards, technology has also increasingly
become a common feature of the language learning environment. Indeed, according to
Burns and Richards, “technology has facilitated the shift from teacher-centered to learner-
centered learning creating both new challenges and opportunities for teachers and
learners” (Burns & Richards). For example, Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has
been used in English language teaching for some time and is defined by Chapelle (2010) as

a variety of technology uses for language learning including CD-ROMS containing

multimedia and other language exercises, electronic reference materials such as
online dictionaries and grammar checkers, and electronic communication in the
target language through email, blogs and wikis (Chapelle, 2010).

Online or computer mediated communication (CMC) has also enabled learners to

participate in learning opportunities where and when they choose. Additionally, learners
are increasingly being empowered to become independent decision-makers through the
development of online English-using communities that lie beyond their teachers’
management and, indeed, knowledge (Chapelle, 2001; Allwright and Hanks 2009). Therefore
it is also important to acknowledge that the use of technology and in particular the internet
in the English language classroom is not a new innovation.

4. Pilot study
4.1 Purpose
The purpose of this pilot is to help better understand the potential use of SOLEs in helping
adults to learn English as a foreign language. Prior to the pilot taking place it was important
that the senior management at International House, London fully understood the nature of
the research. A Question & Answer Skype discussion with Professor Mitra was therefore
arranged, and Professor Mitra answered questions put to him by the Director and teaching
staff.

4.2 Participants
The participants in this study included 19 pre-intermediate (A2+) multilingual students who
are living and working in London2 and 3 International House employees. The students were
all aged 18 and above with an average age of 24. There were 10 male and 8 female
students. With reference to their country of origin, 10 students were from Spain, 3 from
Italy, 2 from the Japan, and 1 from France, Colombia and Bulgaria.

Three International House teachers volunteered to run the SOLE sessions. Teacher A has
recently completed a CELTA and has approximately six months of teaching experience.
Teacher B is a DELTA qualified teacher and has been teaching English for eight years. This
teacher is also studying for an MA TESOL. Finally, Teacher C supervised the project and has
over 24 years of teaching, teacher training and management experience.

4.3 Method
The students were invited to attend class from Monday to Friday for an hour and a half over
a four week period. To help make the room look and feel less like a traditional classroom,
the furniture was rearranged and softer, more comfortable seating was added (see Figure

2
International House, London run teacher training courses every month and offer lessons taught by trainee teachers at a
much lower price. Student volunteers for the SOLE pilot were recruited through this teacher training programme. A total
of 24 students enrolled but only 18 students participated.
1). Tea, coffee and biscuits were also made available.

Figure 1: the SOLE room

The students had access to their own mobile phones, an interactive white board and an
additional four laptops were placed around the room. The students were also given poster
paper and marker pens. The following process was then followed in each SOLE session:

 Students were set a big question at the beginning of every lesson by the teacher.
The teacher then left the room.
 Students were then given 40 minutes to work in small groups to research the answer
and prepare a 2-5 minute presentation.
 Students were free to set up their own groups and were also free to move around
the room and change groups.
 The teacher then returned to the class to observe the presentations, but again was
not expected to intervene.

The fourth and final part of the process referred to above is a significant departure from the
SOLE approach being adopted in primary and secondary schools, where the teacher is
expected to intervene, pose further questions and facilitate discussions, during the
presentations, review and feedback stage. This facilitating role towards the end of the
session is increasingly being viewed as a critical part of a successful SOLE session. This
departure was not planned but provided an additional opportunity to better understand the
importance of teacher input in the review and feedback in this context.
 Figure 2: SOLE activity

The students were tested at the beginning of the ‘course’ to assess their English level and
the test was repeated at the end of the four weeks to measure how much progress (if any)
was made. The International House, London online placement test was used which tests
the students’ knowledge of grammar. It consists of forty multiple choice questions which
the students answer in twenty minutes. The reading comprehension test was taken from a
Pre-Intermediate course book titled New Headway Pre-Intermediate by John and Liz Soars.

Students were invited to give a recorded interview after the pilot had finished and the
teachers were also encouraged to keep a reflective journal to record what happens in each
lesson and how students are learning and progressing.

Table 2 shows the big questions that were used over the four week pilot. The choice of
question used for each day changed during the pilot to help maintain student interest. For
example, the original set of questions were all unrelated to the subject of language learning.
However, after the first two SOLE sessions it was decided that a more language related
question (Can children learn languages more quickly than adults and if so why?) would help
the students relate the programme more to the task of learning English as a foreign
language.

Table 2: Big questions

Week one
Monday How will we access the internet in 2065?
Tuesday How does the brain work?
Wednesday Can children learn languages more quickly than adults and if so why?
Thursday Why does our memory decline as we get older? Identify three simple methods of
improving memory when learning a language.
Friday Identify three different websites/sources that can help you improve your
 pronunciation. Can these do the same job of a teacher? If not, why?

Week two
Monday Identify five top apps for language learning.
Tuesday Identify the best and the worst place to live in the world giving reasons to justify each
location.
Wednesday Reading comprehension exercise
Thursday What caused the financial crisis in 2008 and can we stop it happening again?
Friday What is happening now (after the financial crisis)? What are the results of what
happened in 2008?

Week three
Monday Can online gaming help you learn a language? If so, how?
Tuesday Advanced Use of English test
Wednesday Reading comprehension exercise
Thursday Why do so many children hate school? What is the solution?
Friday England, France, Spain and Italy all used to have a global empire. What was their
purpose and why do they no longer exist?

Week four
Monday Design a two week course of study
Tuesday Add more detail to course of study designed on Monday
Wednesday How did life begin?
Thursday Advanced Use of English test
Friday Reading comprehension (last day of course – skype meeting with SOLE Central).

On Wednesday of week two a reading comprehension exercise was also introduced to add
further variety to the programme. In line with the SOLE approach the reading
comprehension exercises that the pre-intermediate level students were given were at the
advanced level. Students also worked in groups and had access to the internet.
5. Findings
This section presents the results from the pre and post tests administered to the students
and also describes the results of the student interviews and the teacher’s reflective journals.

Table 3: Test results

Name Online test Reading comprehension

Week one Week four Week one Week four
18 14 5 8
Student A 33 - 9 9
Student B 15 - 5 5
Student C Very low level - 5 5
Student D - - - -
Student E 17 16 5 5
Student F 18 22 6 10
Student G 18 20 4 8
Student H 17 - 9 9
Student I 19 - 6 6
Student J 28 - - 6
Student K 19 - - -
Student L - - 5 4
Student M 15 - 2 -
Student N 17 17 - -
Student O 7 24 - 6
Student P 25 24 5.5 7
Student Q - - 5 9
Student R 22 23 - 10
Student S - - - 10

With reference to the online test only seven of the eighteen students completed the test in
week one and week four. Of this seven, two students saw their marks drop by one point,
one student saw no change and four students received a higher mark. The only significant
difference was experienced by Student O, whose mark increased from seven in week one to
twenty four in week four. Does this suggest that the SOLE approach could be more effective
with those students who are starting from a low initial score? Further research is obviously
required to explore this further.

5.1 Student perceptions of SOLE

As noted in the previous section, the students were invited to be interviewed in the week
following the pilot. Only four students agreed and they were asked the following questions.
Their responses are summarised below.

Question 1: What did you enjoy about the programme?

 Question 2: What didn’t you like about the programme?

Question 3: Would you recommend the programme to a friend?

Question 4: What would you change about the programme?

With reference to Question 1 concerning what the students enjoyed about the programme
the responses included the following:

 they enjoyed meeting with and speaking to new people

 they enjoyed the challenge of answering big questions
 they found it interesting because they had to search for information that they did
not know about, and finally
 they enjoyed the opportunity to think about different subjects in English

In response to Question 2 some of the students stated that they got bored with the same
big question format in each session which reinforced the need for a variety of different
activities to maintain student interest.

With reference to Question 3 and whether students would recommend the programme to a
friend the general response was yes - if the friend wanted to learn how to speak in public or
improve fluency and confidence. However if the friend wanted to learn grammar then the
answer would be no.

Finally, in response to Question 4 concerning the proposed changes to the programme the
following suggestions were made:

 change the first lesson to focus on grammar so that you then have a base or a level
at which everyone can start
 allow the teacher to remain inside the class to maintain order and to make sure the
students are making an effort to speak in English, and
 include more activities such as different tests and writing exercises

The following written statement provided by a student helps to reinforce the suggestion
that in the short term this approach may have a positive effective on student confidence
and fluency but no effect on grammar:
 I believe the course has been good for improve my English. Maybe I make the same
mistake of before, but I learned new words and I'm more confident speaking. I think
my speaking is more fluently than before and I'm happy about it!

This feedback from students is obviously severely limited as only four out of the eighteen
students made a contribution. More robust methods to capture student feedback will
therefore be required in any future research.

Furthermore, in a SOLE student feedback should not be viewed as a one off process carried
out for research purposes. Self organising systems, in general, depend on a continuous flow
of user feedback to help them adapt to the changing external environment. The same will
apply to a SOLE operating in an ELT context. Mechanisms therefore need to be developed
to enable this feedback to be shared and integrated into how the SOLE looks and functions.

5.2 Teacher perceptions of SOLE

To understand the teacher’s perceptions of the SOLE approach, each of the three teachers
was encouraged to keep a reflective journal and make notes during and after the pilot.

Teacher A found the project interesting and thought it was great to see how much the
students could produce by themselves:

One group went on a tangent and started discussing the wider question of language
learning with the whole group. It was interesting to watch the conversation develop
without any guidance from me.

However, this teacher also found it difficult to hand over to the students completely and
also wanted to give more feedback on specific aspects of the content but wasn’t sure if this
was allowed:

As language teachers we usually praise students’ use of language, so it’s difficult to

judge what to comment and praise.

Teacher A also noted that some students had started to correct each other’s pronunciation
and grammar, which was perhaps due to the lack of teacher intervention. This is an
interesting development and it raises questions about how this behaviour could be
encouraged and what lessons can be learnt from existing peer correction strategies that are
currently used within second language learning (Sultana, 2009). Since the pilot this teacher
has also experimented with SOLE in some other classes and found that the students had
really enjoyed it. Teacher A concluded:

For me, the experience served to highlight where I’m needed as a teacher but also
how much the students can learn for themselves if given the independence to do so.

Teacher B started the project with a fairly open mind but also raised some doubts about
their role as a teacher. The first big question used by Teacher B was ‘How does the brain
work?’ and the primary concern was whether a group of pre-intermediate students would
know or understand the word ‘brain’. However, some students were soon seen pointing to
their heads which left Teacher B with the confidence that they would soon come to
understand the word as a group.

Teacher B continues:

The resulting presentations an hour later were startling. They produced 4 posters
each showing different aspects of how the brain functioned, what we use it for and
what the different sections are called. More importantly, they seemed to understand
what they were saying and seemed proud and motivated by what they had
produced.

However, Teacher B also reported that due to poor and unclear pronunciation the groups
didn’t seem to understand each other. This was identified as the main problem throughout
the project:

During one particular discussion on global politics and dealing with poverty the class
was very engaged and animated and several students made thoughtful
contributions; but these were not built upon as you’d expect in a conversation of this
type as students simply could not follow each other. If I could have asked some
leading questions to aid with understanding, the discussion would have been a lot
more satisfying for the class – however, this was not so and students looked
frustrated.

Teacher B concludes:

On the whole, despite my misgivings about not being able to correct or guide, this
method of allowing independent, unsupervised study has a lot of validity from my
 observations. As long as the question or task being set is engaging and thought-
provoking, the class will get involved.

The comments from Teacher B helps to reinforce the important role played by the teacher
in the presentation, review and feedback stage, particularly in relation to asking questions
to encourage more debate. It may be the case that in language learning this role becomes
more even more important. Further research is therefore required to explore this role in
more detail. Similar to Teacher A, Teacher B has also started to use this approach in other
lessons. Further research is therefore required to understand more about how SOLE is
being used in these different contexts and perhaps most important of all, what has been the
overall impact of SOLE on the teachers practice in the classroom and their attitudes to
teaching in general?

Teacher C supervised the pilot and observed a number of sessions. By Thursday of the first
week Teacher C reported that one student left the class and complained at the lack of
teacher intervention. In response, students were given a more language focused question
the following day and the teacher spent more time in the classroom. Following the SOLE
session on the Friday of the first week, Teacher C asked the students for some general
feedback and documented the following:

I did some feedback with the group after the lesson and they all felt pretty much the
same. They didn't think this was a good way to learn and that they needed a teacher
to teach them.

On the following Monday the dissatisfied student returned and took part in the session. In
order to reassure the students, Teacher C stayed in the classroom during the research phase
and periodically walked around the room to observe what the different groups were doing.
Following this session Teacher C reported the following:

The dynamics of the groups changed a bit. They were not as lively as they normally
are when no one is in the room. They also stopped what they were doing every time
I walked up to their group to see what they were doing. It felt more like a classroom.

Comments such as these help to reinforce the point that the teacher’s presence in the
classroom will have an impact on how students behave and interact with each other. This
raises further questions about the potential of using teacher absence as a tool to help
promote and encourage collaborate learning.

According to Teacher C the big question which didn’t seem to work was ‘Identify the best
and the worst place to live in the world giving reasons to justify each location?’, as the
students were ‘very superficial with their answers and didn't take it very seriously’. With
the benefit of hindsight, this was not surprising as this was not a challenging big question for
this age group. It is the kind of question that children would be asked when at primary
school. This reinforces the importance of using big and challenging questions and it also
highlights how fragile this approach can be.

Teacher C found that the most noticeable difference in the students was their increased
level of confidence and improved fluency and concluded with the following statement:

One particular student whose level of English was noticeably lower than the rest of
the group and his pronunciation was very poor seemed to flourish in this
environment. By the end of the four weeks, he was able to stand up in front of the
class and give a two-three minute presentation without difficulty.

The findings suggest that the SOLE approach has got the potential to improve confidence
and fluency in adult language learners. This would help to reinforce previous research by
Tseng (2015) who found that the use of cooperative learning via different group tasks in
language learning helped to alleviate student’s anxiety. He also found that peer assessment
of group presentations enabled students to reflect on their own work and helped them to
identify any gaps or weaknesses of their own. Further research is therefore required to
measure the impact of SOLE on confidence and fluency over a period of time and to look
into the potential of peer assessment within a SOLE environment. There also needs to
further consideration about the kind of assessments that could be used to measure levels of
student confidence and fluency and other important 21st century skills. The challenge of
measuring 21st century skills is an issue at levels of education and not just within English
language teaching (see Griffin, McGaw & Care, 2012). Some important questions also
remain unanswered especially with reference to the impact of SOLE on students’ learning
outcomes in grammar and reading comprehension.
6. Conclusion
As noted previously, SOLE made its entrance into English language teaching under a cloud of
controversy. Two of the issues raised related to the lack of reliable research to support
some of the claims being made (about the ability of students to teach themselves) and also
the suggestion that the future role of the teacher may well be diminished, as the use of the
internet and other smart technologies becomes more prevalent. To the best of our
knowledge this is one of the first SOLE pilot studies carried out within an EFL context and we
hope that more rigorous research can now follow. This will hopefully help to develop a
better understanding of the ability of students to teach themselves English as a foreign
language (when working in groups and with access to the internet) and the changing role of
the teacher within this new kind self-organised and sometimes learning environment.

With reference to the future role of the teacher within an EFL SOLE environment then the
following tentative conclusions can be made. Firstly, the pilot reinforced the important role
played by the teacher during the last stage of a SOLE when groups of students present their
findings. During this period teachers are expected to facilitate, question, encourage and
summarise the key findings from the class as a whole. This role may be even more
important in an EFL context.

Secondly, the pilot also highlighted the fragile nature of a SOLE when a question was used
that was neither interesting nor challenging. Again, this reinforces the important role
played by the teacher in choosing a big question that is suitable for that particular group of
students. A good understanding of the student population will therefore be essential and
this kind of understanding can only come from the teacher. This should not rule out the
potential of students to find their own big questions but teachers will still be expected to
take the lead when introducing this approach. It is also worth noting that the task of finding
big questions that are suitable for a particular group of students (who have access to the
internet) is a challenging task in itself and this is an area where teachers could benefit by
collaborating and sharing examples of their own big questions.3

Finally, an unexpected finding from this pilot relates to the impact the SOLE experience had
on teacher behaviour following the pilot and in their normal classroom environment. It’s

3
See https://www.theschoolinthecloud.org/big_questions for an example of an online platform that enables
educators to share their big questions.
too early to give further details but a number of questions have been raised including, how
are teachers using and adapting the SOLE approach within their traditional classroom
environment and does exposure to SOLE produce more confident teachers who are more
willing to experiment? This might suggest that the SOLE experience could be a useful tool
that teachers can use to reflect on how they teach and behave in the classroom and also
how they interact with students. A SOLE is therefore viewed as a way of stripping the
traditional classroom experience down to its bare minimum. The teacher introduces the
subject and provides the big question and then leaves the classroom, only returning to
facilitate and listen to the presentations and make the final conclusions. The emphasis is
then placed on the teacher who must then reflect and consider what additional
interventions, if any, they can make to improve this learning experience. This would involve
continuously listening to student feedback combined with a continuous process of
experimentation with different interventions. The one mindset change required for some
teachers would be to recognise that additional teacher interventions will not necessarily
result in an improved learning experience and that the absence of the teacher can be used
as a pedagogical tool itself.
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