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Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Simulated immersion

Simulated immersion
What is simulated immersion?
Simulated immersion is based on the idea that the best way to improve your listening is to be immersed in the target language in a native speaking environment. In the absence of such an opportunity, we try to simulate the conditions that make immersion favorable.
 Those conditions are:

  • Large amounts of time spent simply hearing the language - several hours per week rather than mere minutes spent in a typical class
  • Maximal exposure to authentic texts
  • Exposure to a wide range of situations and language forms
  • Emphasis on bottom up processing to aid in real-life scenarios

Practical ideas
This is my daughter listening.



Hearing versus listening
In class, teachers invariably set tasks to accompany ‘listenings’. This is understandable - it would be a bit weird to simply press play and hope the students got some value from it.

But simply hearing a language - being exposed to it in the background, in the car, on the radio or TV, or in the form of music, for example, is extremely valuable. It’s a much looser, less structured form of practice than is found in class, but it acclimatizes the learner to the sound systems and structures of the language. I will call this type of listening passive listening.
 Tom Haytonfreelance teacher and trainer
http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/simulated-immersion

Friday, June 24, 2016

Discover the Global Scale of English



Global standards are everywhere. In business, energy, science and nature. Even chillies have their own scale! So why not English language learning? Why is there no single standard that every person, company and institution can use to benchmark learning progress? Well now there is - the Global Scale of English (GSE), the world's first truly global English language standard which will allow you to measure progress on your English language journey.
http://www.wiziq.com/halina-maria-ostanko

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Transforming Schools into Democratic Communities | Ramin Farhangi | TEDx...



Published on Jun 22, 2016Ramin believes that we can build a democratic society if we have the courage to transform our schools into democratic communities.He quits teaching to create a democratic community in which children are free to do whatever they want with their lives. 5 years ago, Ramin decided to resign from the Boston Consulting Group to follow his lifelong passion for education. Throughout his experience with teaching Math and Physics in high school, his doubts grow all the way to completely losing faith in the modern schooling system. He quits teaching to create a democratic community in which children are free to do whatever they want with their lives. Dropping out from the rat race, from school, from his own mind... Ramin is traveling beyond limits which only a few daring pioneers are challenging today throughout the world
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx