I am looking for suitable words to get out of the classical term of ‘trainer’, which gets too narrow in times of widespread and ubiquitous knowledge sources. More and more, a trainer has developed out of an instructor to a facilitator, a coach, a mentor etc., be it on eye level or even as a servant.

We easily construct the counterparts with an -ee ending, which sorts an active role from a passive, a more competent role from a less competent one, a leading from a following one:

• trainer – trainee
• coach – coachee
• mentor – mentee
• employer – employee
• …

Why not extending this to a situation which we describe as self-directed learning, autonomous learning and alike, where the learner is the more active part, who is picking the sources he or she is willing to integrate into the personal learning journey.

Shouldn’t we consequentially call Learnee the one, who is approached by a learner as a source, who serves the development of the learner? This would follow good old linguist de Saussure and wouldn’t this put the emphasis more to the active learner?