Migration has become an increasingly debated topic over the last few years. The language and assessment industry is part of the debate and should have a sound position on its own rather than allowing policy-makers to dominate the discourse. However, important questions still remain open.
For example, how much language really is needed for participation in society? The telc signature event will explore the language needs of migrants as well as the role of mainstream society.
The following speakers have been invited to contribute different perspectives in the panel discussion:
Piet Van Avermaet, Director of the Centre for Diversity and Learning, Ghent University, Belgium Horatio Clare, writer, journalist and broadcaster Sibylle Plassmann, head of test development telc – language tests Nick Saville, ALTE Manager Representative of the British Council (TBD) Representative of the city office for Multicultural Affairs, Frankfurt, Germany (TBD)
I taught Polish as a foreign language in traditional settings at the Wroclaw University of Technology for about 41 years. I have been teaching English to speakers of other languages for over 25 years.
In 2000, I became an American Citizen.
In 2010, I started my online adventure mainly on WizIQ. Since that time I have been using technology in my classes.
I have been training in both face-to-face and blended learning arrangements.
Overview
Are you unsatisfied with your level of Spoken English?
Do you want to become a forward-thinking speaker and reach to a greatextent fluency?
Is joining English meetings very challenging? Is it difficult to participate and communicate efficiently?
If so, my course is for you!
Target Students
·Are you nervous about communicating in English with foreign colleagues?
·Do you have a good command of English, but feel like your flexibility may be lacking?
·Would you like to learn how to sound more natural when making small talk and discussing problems?
·Do you feel the need to improve your conversational skills?
A commonly held belief is that human behavior is the result of rational decision making based on available information. A closer look into the science of behavior reveals the powerful role our emotions play in our decision making process. In this animated video we look at the behavior change process using Jonathan Haidt’s analogy of an elephant, a rider, and a path.
Teacher extraordinaire Mr Keating appears as the epitome of the charismatic teacher – one that his students are sure to remember long after their school years are over. Way over the top as this might be (though I am sure that, whatever we may say, many of us would love to feel we are a little bit like Mr Keating) it is only natural to ask ourselves: does the personality of the teacher matter in this Brave New World of technology and on-line courses? As teachers we are in the business of influencing people. How can we do that? It helps if we imagine each individual as a big elephant with a rider sitting on top of it (a metaphor first used by J. Haidt 2006). The elephant is our emotional side; it is big, strong, somewhat impulsive and not as predictable as we would like it to be. The rider is our rational side; it can guide the elephant and the latter usually allows itself to be directed by the former (but if there is a disagreement, we all know who we should bet on! J ) So how can we influence people? There are 3 ways: a) We can motivate the elephant; this is what charismatic teachers do – they inspire their students, and this clearly works best in a f2f context. b) We can direct the rider – appealing to the logical part of our students and telling them what to do. This can work equally well in a f2f and an online context. c) We can shape the path down which the elephant and the rider will walk (an idea first proposed by Heath & Heath 2011 – click here to watch a 2-min clip). By careful use of choice architecture (see Thaler & Sunstein 2008), we can ‘nudge’ the duo in the direction we would like them to go. * An on-line environment is ideal for such an approach. However….
References:
Bloom, P. (2008) Introduction to Psychology. Yale Courses, You Tube
Haidt, J. (2006) The Happiness Hypothesis. London: Arrow Books
Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2011) Switch. London: Random House
Lieberman, M. (2013) Social. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Thaler, R. & Sunstein, C. (2008) Nudge. Michigan: Yale University Press
When we decide to teach adults, the awareness, as well as comprehension of whom we teach and what we teach, is essential here.
1)Adults do not want to waste the time.
Some adults take language courses because of a job requirement while others have their specific goal to attain (such as a language exam or a professional interview ).
Adults expect direct, practical benefit. All of them will raise the similar questions
·Why,
·What for,
·How,
·Who (is my teacher?),
·What else could I achieve instead?
·Is the time well spent?
All lessons must have a clear outcome, perhaps even a practical takeaway. It is necessary to define specific profits at the end of the lesson and associate the benefits to the individual learning purposes.
2)Adults are reflective learners; they think about
·what is challenging or where I require more support
·individual learning strategies and self-evaluation
·maintaining a sense of responsibility for learning and achieving goals
3)Motivation is varied, and flexibility is crucial.
Teachers have to be flexible and ready for different approaches, wide-ranging content or even unconventional paths to lead to the same goal.
Creating a context for meaningful learning is one of the tasks.
4) Mature students feel the need for direct benefit as well as dominant language skills.
·Learners are looking for a solution to an exact problem at hand, immediately.
·The fundamental question is: “What should I do to get this to work?”
·Mature learners usually want to accomplish a particular task, or at least, see a noticeable benefit for the future.
·Adults want to use language for a real-world reason.
5) The different abilities of adult learners are evident.
I am against using grammar tables, linguistic terms and other abstractions in language teaching. However, if they can help the grown-up learner why do not explain the grammar rules?
The song is broken into four verses, with a bridge between the third and fourth and a chorus sung at the beginning of the song, and after the second and fourth verses.
Musically, it is written in a Jewish klezmer style.
Through the first two verses, Tevye dreams of the material comforts that wealth would bring him. Sung boisterously and comedically, Tevye first considers the enormous house he would buy and the needless luxuries he would fill it with, including a third staircase "leading nowhere, just for show," then the poultry he would buy to fill his yard.
Tevye switches his attention to the luxuries in which he would shower his wife, Golde, in the third verse. He talks of servants to alleviate her workload, fancy clothes for her pleasure, and mountains of food. The song is sung in the same boisterous, comedic style.
The music and vocals intensify during the bridge, when Tevye starts lamenting his place in the community as a lowly milkman, and considers the esteem and importance that wealth would bring him.
In the final verse, Tevye softens as he further considers his devotion to God. He expresses his sorrow that the long working hours he keeps prevents him from spending as much time in the synagogue as he would like, and how wealth would allow him to spend less time working and more time praying and studying the Torah, and finally asking God if "it would spoil a vast eternal plan" if he were wealthy.
A repeated phrase throughout the song, "all day long I'd bidi-bidi-bum," is often misunderstood to refer to Tevye's desire not to have to work. However, in an interview with Terry Gross, Sheldon Harnick said he basically made up syllables that he thought would give the effect of Chassidic chanting. The first person to play Tevye, Zero Mostel, then replaced the syllables Harnick had written with ones that Mostel thought would be more authentic
In the mid-1950s, humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow created a theory of basic, psychological and self-fulfillment needs that motivate individuals to move consciously or subconsciously through levels or tiers based on our inner and outer satisfaction of those met or unmet needs. I find this theory eternally relevant for students and adults, especially in today's education.
Learning means bringing changes, by learning human enters new society and culture. When they learned new understanding, they perform on it. Otherwise, they lose it.
As stated earlier, learning transfers changes (behaviorism) and creates new knowledge or increases information (cognitive skills).Education empowers our brain and beliefs, so it encourages our intellectual power to improve knowledge.
Most important theories related to language learning.
1.Behaviorist,
2.Cognitive,
3.Constructivism,
4.Chomsky’s Universal Grammar
5.Schumann’s Acculturation / Orientation in a new culture,
6.Krashen’s Monitor
7.Conversation
The conversation theory is a transdisciplinary learning theory. Developed by Gordon Pask in 1975, it is influenced by a range of cybernetics, linguistics, computer science concepts, cognitive psychology, and neurophysiology.
What learning theories do you follow and why?
How do you incorporate them into your teaching? Try to be as specific as you can.
I use the mix of different theoriesIt depends on the kind of my students.
In my view, theoretical concepts do not yield concrete prescriptions for classroom application, but the good theory can be used flexibly and creatively by teachers in their planning and educational practice. At the same time, not all learning takes place in the classroom as much of it occurs at home, on the sports field, in museums and so forth (non-formal education), and sometimes implicitly and effortlessly (informal learning).
Non-formal education and informal learning are vital for improving language learning.
How People Learn and What are their Learning Styles?
Nowadays the dominant theory is socio-constructivism which can be defined as an approach according to which individual knowledge relies on its social construction of it. (Piaget, Doise and Mugny, 1984). Particularly relevant in this respect are the communication processes (learning dialogs) occurring in situations where at least two persons try to solve a problem. The social world of a learner includes the people that directly affect that person, including teachers, friends, students, administrators, and participants in all forms of activities. Accordingly, learning designs should enhance local collaboration and dialogue but also engage other actors (e.g. domain experts) to participate in certain ways. Research on collaborative learning is particularly interested in learning mechanisms that are triggered by specific collaborative activities.
Key functionalities of a socio-constructivist learning environment are:
Theoretical concepts do not produce actual prescriptions for classroom application, but the good theory can be used flexibly and creatively by teachers in their planning and educational practice. At the same time, not all learning takes place in the classroom as much of it occurs at home, on the sports field, in museums and so forth (non-formal education), and sometimes implicitly and effortlessly (informal learning).
In the mid-1950s, humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow created a theory of basic, psychological and self-fulfillment needs that motivate individuals to move consciously or subconsciously through levels or tiers based on our inner and outer satisfaction of those met or unmet needs. I find this theory increasingly relevant for students and adults, especially in today's education.
Additionally, I would like to highlight Constructivism as one of the hot topics in educational philosophy right now. It potentially has profound inferences for how current `traditional' instruction is structured, since it goes with several highly exposed educational trends, for example:
the transition of the teacher's role from "sage on the stage" (fount/transmitter of knowledge) to "guide on the side" (facilitator, coach);
teaching "higher order" skills such as problem-solving, reasoning, and reflection (for example, see also creative learning);
enabling learners to learn how to learn;
increasing flexibility in the evaluation of learning outcomes;
cooperative and collaborative learning skills.
For me, language learning through conversation and open communication is the most effective teaching technique.
I want my students tobecome active learners. As the brain works on a use-it-or-lose-it style, means students must apply whatever they learn.
It is necessary to use the new phrase or character in a real situation. Also learning the words and phrases through original videos helps to learn faster.
Moreover, I encourage my students to make language learning a passion.
I combine the fun of language learning with the commitment to follow through. They should remember that feeling the need to learn a new wording is not enough to take an action. Give yourself clarity on what exactly compels you to learn a new language.
My tips are;
Figure out the how to comprehend a desire to learn.
What’s the goal behind it?
What’s the bigger picture?
How will learn a new language open opportunities in future?
Just answering these questions will motivate learners to get to the much higher level to take action when necessary.
