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Erin Fontaine

The Importance Of Teaching Culture In The Foreign Language Classroom - 0 views

  • In reality, what most teachers and students seem to lose sight of is the fact that ‘knowledge of the grammatical system of a language [grammatical competence] has to be complemented by understanding (sic) of culture-specific meanings [communicative or rather cultural competence]’ (Byram, Morgan et al., 1994: 4).
  • Culture in language learning is not an expendable fifth skill, tacked on, so to speak, to the teaching of speaking, listening, reading, and writing. It is always in the background, right from day one, ready to unsettle the good language learners when they expect it least, making evident the limitations of their hard-won communicative competence, challenging their ability to make sense of the world around them. (Kramsch, 1993: 1)
  • According to them, the teaching of culture has the following goals and is of and in itself a means of accomplishing them: To help students to develop an understanding of the fact that all people exhibit culturally-conditioned behaviours. To help students to develop an understanding that social variables such as age, sex, social class, and place of residence influence the ways in which people speak and behave. To help students to become more aware of conventional behaviour in common situations in the target culture. To help students to increase their awareness of the cultural connotations of words and phrases in the target language. To help students to develop the ability to evaluate and refine generalizations about the target culture, in terms of supporting evidence. To help students to develop the necessary skills to locate and organize information about the target culture. To stimulate students’ intellectual curiosity about the target culture, and to encourage empathy towards its people.
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  • teachers should ‘present students with a true picture or representation of another culture and language’ (Singhal, 1998). And this will be achieved only if cultural awareness is viewed as something more than merely a compartmentalised subject within the foreign language curriculum; that is, when culture “inhabits” the classroom and undergirds every language activity
Joan McCabe

Language and Critical Thinking - 0 views

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    Discusses how using a foreign language in itself is critical thinking.
William Meredith

Assisting Students with Foreign Language Learning Difficulties in School | LD Topics | ... - 1 views

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    How to help students learn a foreign language, if they have language difficulties. 
ian august

Learning by teaching - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - 0 views

  • Students as teachers in order to improve the learning-process
  • Jean-Pol Martin developed the concept systematically for the teaching of French as a foreign language and gave it a theoretical background in numerous publications.[9] 1987 he founded a network of more than a thousand teachers that employed learning by teaching (the specifical name: LdL = "Lernen durch Lehren") in many different subjects, documented its successes and approaches and presented their findings in various teacher training sessions.
  • . The new material is divided into small units and student groups of not more than three people are formed. Each group familiarizes itself with a strictly defined area of new material and gets the assignment to teach the whole group in this area
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  • Advantages Student work is more motivated, efficient, active and intensive due to lowered inhibitions and an increased sense of purpose By eliminating the class division of authoritative teacher and passive audience, an emotive solidarity is obtained. Students may perform many routine tasks, otherwise unnecessarily carried out by the instructor Next to subject-related knowledge students gain important key qualifications like teamwork planning abilities reliability presentation and moderation skills self-confidence Disadvantages The introduction of the method requires a lot of time. Students and teachers have to work more than usual. There is a danger of simple duplication, repetition or monotony if the teacher does not provide periodic didactic impetus.
  • Sudbury schools, since 1968, do not segregate students by age, so that students of any age are free to interact with students in other age groups. One effect of this age mixing is that a great deal of the teaching in the school is done by students.[18] Here are some statements about Learning by teaching in the Sudbury Schools:[19] "Kids love to learn from other kids. First of all, it's often easier. The child teacher is closer than the adult to the students' difficulties, having gone through them somewhat more recently. The explanations are usually simpler, better. There's less pressure, less judgment. And there's a huge incentive to learn fast and well, to catch up with the mentor. Kids also love to teach. It gives them a sense of value, of accomplishment. More important, it helps them get a better handle on the material as they teach; they have to sort it out, get it straight. So they struggle with the material until it's crystal clear in their own heads, until it's clear enough for their pupils to understand
  • This cooperative atmosphere mimics potential workplace scenerios that students would expect to find in there careers after college
  • Jean-Pol Martin (1989): Kontaktnetz: ein Fortbildungskonzept, in: Eberhard Kleinschmidt,E.(Hrsg.), Fremdsprachenunterricht zwischen Fremdsprachenpolitik und Praxis: Festschrift für Herbert Christ zum 60. Geburtstag, Tübingen. 389-400, (PDF 62 KB)
Irene Watts-Politza

Digital Natives: Fact or Fiction? - 0 views

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    Zöe Handley considers the notion of the so-called "digital natives / digital immigrants" divide and whether such a divide exists between learners of English as a foreign language and their teachers.
Amy M

It's like hearing a foreign language - 0 views

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    a take on teaching math like a second language
Amy Varano

TechTiger's Weblog - 0 views

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    "Uncanny" may be a feeling that most of the parents of students in my online course may be feeling as they support their child in taking an online class.
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    Some of the students in my online course may identify with the character TechTiger. Being part of the millennial generation, they may feel misunderstood by their parents and teachers.
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    According to Michael Wesch, 112.8 million blogs have been created over the last five years. Anyone could be a published writer!
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    Click on Kanying's name. We are familiar with blogs and journaling, however it is amazing to see a blog that is written in a different language. It is even more amazing to think about the 112.8 million blogs that are created and how many of them are in foreign languages. If we were cultural anthropologists, what could we learn from viewing these diverse digital journals?
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    This is a common misconception for parents. They think that because their child is working on a computer it is unconstructive. In some ways their theory is true, especially if their child is not taught how to constructively use the computer as a learning tool. How do we instill in our children and students that the computer is a powerful learning tool?
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    These are just a few things students could do using a web blog. What if they were instructed on how to use this technology based environment in an educational setting? The child's learning possibilities would soar.
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    Parents, teachers, and administrators need to be instructed on how to create meaningful learning activities using new technology such as the computer. Students are longing for this kind of authentic and meaningful learning. What is the purpose of school if students are not presented with critical thinking and problem solving activities that bring them to a higher level of thinking and learning?
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    The resource I would like to add for the MERLOT project is actually a resource that I submitted to MERLOT back in April. The resource is a blog/power point presentation that is designed to be a resource for parents. The information in this power point presentation comes from Victoria Carrington's article "The Uncanny: Digital Texts and Literacy". The power point presentation is designed in an easy to read story book format which tells of a modern day child named "TechTiger" who changes the perspective of his parents, teachers, and other in the older "uncanny" generation due to his media literacy and experiences with contemporary culture. I will incorporate this resource into my online course by adding it to my parent corner. Since my Life Cycle course is intended for a third grade audience, I have designed an area for parents so that they are aware of what their child is learning in this course as well as ways they could enrich their child outside of my course on topics they are learning. Some parents who have their child enrolled in my online course may be "uncanny" to media literacy and have some of the concerns that are addressed in the resource TechTiger's Space. The resource TechTiger's Space may put into perspective some parent's fears with technology as well as the added benefits to put their minds at ease and support their child's online learning experience.
Donna Angley

Rosetta Stone - 0 views

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    Rosetta Stone website. What it's all about, and you can order.
Francia Reed

learners perceptions on feedback - 3 views

Furnborough, C. & Truman, M. (2009) Adult beginner distance language learner perceptions and use of assignment feedback. Distance Education, Vol. 30 (3), 399-418. DOI: 10.1080/01587910903236544 Th...

education learning feedback self-regulated

started by Francia Reed on 03 Jun 11 no follow-up yet
Erin Fontaine

eLearn Magazine - 0 views

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    Great article for us foreign language teachers.
Joy Quah Yien-ling

A Vision of Students Today - Some Additional Thoughts from Michael Wesch - Open Education - 1 views

  • What is the relevance of comparing reading books with reading e-mails and Facebook profiles?”
    • Joan Erickson
       
      the relevance is that it involves what human nature prefers. It is in our nature to gravitate toward light-hearted, less taxing mind activities. Also, some people do prefer reading books to reading social websites. Is it right to make such broad generalization?
  • the classroom environment. It speaks directly to those who propose the move from a ’sage on the stage’ teacher style to that of ‘guide on the side
  • I had become convinced that the video was over the top, that things were really not so bad, that the system is not as broken as I thought
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  • Surely it (higher education) can’t be as bad as the video seems to suggest
  • Scanning the room my assistants also saw students cruising Facebook, instant messaging, and texting their friends. The students were undoubtedly engaged, just not with me. “My teaching assistants consoled me by noting that students have learned that they can ‘get by’ without paying attention in their classes.”
  • Last spring I asked my students how many of them did not like school. Over half of them rose their hands. When I asked how many of them did not like learning, no hands were raised. And there’s the rub. We love learning. We hate school. What’s worse is that many of us hate school because we love learning
    • Joy Quah Yien-ling
       
      This was my experience. I loved to learn. But I always felt the learning in school had absolutely no personal relevance to me. Sad. I only began to enjoy school when I entered college, and learning things that were personally meaningful.
  • Some time ago we started taking our walls too seriously – not just the walls of our classrooms, but also the metaphorical walls that we have constructed around our ’subjects,’ ‘disciplines,’ and ‘courses.’ McLuhan’s statement about the bewildered child ….. still holds true in most classrooms today. The walls have become so prominent that they are even reflected in our language, so that today there is something called ‘the real world’ which is foreign and set apart from our schools
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    this article tracks Michael Wesch's progress with his media work and his teaching, after the "students today" gained popularity
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