In recent years we have come to hear the phrase ‘focus on the learner’ more and more. Teachers are exhorted to promote student‐centered learning, where the teacher assumes a role that is not so much the giver of knowledge as the facilitator in students' discovering that knowledge themselves. The details of just how the teacher is to do this effectively are often much more sketchy than the details of why she/he should. And for some of us as teachers, there is that little inner fear that the class will founder if we are not obviously at the helm every minute during the class. How can we ‘let go’ of our students, while providing meaningful and structured activities