SAC What?
Often referred to as SACs or SAC Pacs, Self-Access Centre Packages are organised collections of texts and tasks that are used by students to develop their language skills. Working within guidelines that outline minimum requirements and deadlines, individual students select tasks and determine the sequence of learning activities.
SacPacs are an ideal way to accommodate a broad range of learners in terms of ability, attitude, and language experience within the one classroom context.
Advantages of using a SAC Pac
- Supports multi-level learning (different learners and learning styles)
- Provides flexibility and choice, which motivates and empowers students
- Promotes peer tutoring, collaborative learning
- Frees teachers to be facilitators of learning
The use of SACs and SAC Pacs also allows for learners to have a wide exposure to different modes, registers, and ‘voices’ of authentic target language text, and in addition provides for the monitoring of learners through the use of authentic rather than contrived tasks.
Challenges
- Students need to learn / be taught how to work independently.
- Teachers need to learn how to relinquish control.
- Collecting texts, creating tasks and designing an organising framework can be time-consuming.
Flexibility is the key for both students and teachers. A fully fledged self-access centre is quite rare but there are many teachers who use SAC Pac in part of their teaching and learning program, for example for two weeks, one unit or half a term.
Visit our story Open the Door using SAC Pacs - Prepare, Plan, Build to see an example of a SAC Pac for a Chinese language program.
