The article Twitter pour l’apprentissage des langues, published by Elisabeth Buffard on the website of the Académie d’aix-Marseille (for our readers of French), has the virtue of being clear, even for novices. She explains what Twitter is, its advantages, and its potential for the language classroom. She then proposes concrete scenarios for incorporating this medium into language classes. Her examples not only serve as food for thought, but can easily be adapted to your own teaching context.

E. Buffard also reminds us of Twitter’s potential for teacher training (lifelong learning).

For the author of this article, Twitter promotes the learner’s autonomy and represents a “learning booster” as part of a virtual toolkit that plays a role in the autonomous and social learning in which the learner is the main actor and user.

This article is an absolute must-read! http://www.anglais.ac-aix-marseille.fr/spip/spip.php?article470

If you have other examples of how to integrate Twitter in the language classroom, I would be very grateful if you would share your experience with us by posting a comment. Thank you!

In his long expected “language plan”, the Flemish minister of Education, Pascal Smet, made some (baby)steps towards the legal introduction of CLIL in Flemish schools. Although this type of education is already well established in Wallonia and the rest of Europe, it seemed that the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium remained blind for this innovation. The political climate and the fear that French will somehow take over the country did not help our plea for a legal introduction of CLIL.

However, after the evaluation of the pilot projects and the pressure of both Europe and many schools and parents, the minister has included a part about the introduction of CLIL in Flanders in his new language plan. He states that starting from the first year of secondary education onwards, CLIL must be able to be introduced, as learning languages is very important on many levels.There are a number of conditions however. It can only be introduced for 20% of the curriculum and the regular programme in Dutch still has to be available. The languages that can be used for CLIL are also limited, being the two other national language French and German, plus English.

Although this is of course not enough and we would like primary schools to be able to start with CLIL as well, we are very happy with this. It is a start and considering where Flanders (or at least politics in Flanders) comes from, this is a major leap. It is planned that in 2014 this should definitely come into action. Until then, schools using CLIL or wanting to implement CLIL will have to remain doing so in the grey areas of the law. But considering the enthusiasm of schools, we don’t see how this would be an issue.

After a word of welcome by Marc Maes, Piet Van de Craen, a famous expert on CLIL from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, will start the day with a discourse on CLIL in Brussels, Wallonia, Flanders and Europe. Next a presentation by Gerda Calders, who is one of the key figures in the implementation of CLIL in Brussels and principal of the school group Brussels, will be given. After a coffee break, Bram Moors and Dirk Geeroms, from the secondary school in Dilsen will share experience with the implementation of CLIL in their school. Moving from this “in the field” experience to a more “top-down” view, the views of the Ministry of Education will be presented by Katrien Mondt. After enjoying the lunch that will be provided, this seminar will continue with the presentation of Sera De Vriendt and Marie-Jearnne De Vriendt, affiliated with the Vrije Universtiteit Brussel and the Université libre de Bruxelles, on the implementation of CLIL in secondary education. Marie-Thérese Boyen, principal of the Hotelschool Hasselt, will give a presentation on her experiences with the implementation of CLIL in the technical secondary education school she runs. Inspiration and ideas for the future when CLIL will be hopefully more applied can be found in the presentation of Onno Van Wilgenburg from the European Platform in the Netherlands, who will discuss how the follow up, evaluation and assurance of quality of CLIL in the Netherlands is done. The meeting will end with a conclusion of Rita De Boeck, who is the pedagogic advisor of the primary education schools of GO!, followed with a drink. There will be enough time for questions and to raise other concerns after every presentation.

For those of you who are interested of coming to this very interesting seminar can mail to sgr8.boco@g-o.be . Please mention if you will be staying for the lunch. I hope to see you all there!

The Language Teaching Centre (SprachLehrInstitut – SLI) in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau will hold a conference from September 28 – 30, 2011 entitled “Multilingualism in Society, the World of Work, and Politics. New Challenges for Teaching at Institutes of Higher Education/Universities”

This year, the discussion concerning multilingualism is to focus on the areas of “the economy”, “the employment market” and “integration”.

Using analysis and discussion, the conference aims to shed light on the challenges involved in multilingualism policies and their implementation in the EU and its institutions. A further goal is to examine the intercultural aspects that impact upon the realization of such policies. Special emphasis will be paid to the role intercultural aspects play in the heterogeneously comprised lecture rooms at colleges and universities. Closely connected to this is the question of the purpose and quality of study paths that are offered and occur in a foreign language. Particularly at German institutions of higher learning, English is most often the language of choice. Among the issues to be considered here are: what language barriers must instructors and students overcome during class or in advising sessions or working groups?  What level of language proficiency is needed in order to competently convey and understand course content?  What standards apply, for example, when selecting “the right” English to be used in the learning environment, or which pronunciation rules can, will, or must be adhered to in class? 

Plenary lectures and a podium discussion will be used to generate ideas and provide an introduction to the key topics. Presentations given in the framework of the various sections will examine selected aspects of the key topics more intensively and provide opportunities for more thorough analysis and discussion.

In addition to developing new perspectives and conclusions, a further intention is to continue the academic discussion which began during the 2010 conference and pool the results of both conferences.

Publication (paper or online) of a follow-up work containing the results and papers from the 2010 and 2011 conferences is planned.

More information in German, English or French on:

http://www.sli-konferenz-mehrsprachigkeit.de/

Today I’d like to reflect with you on another way of promoting our learner’s autonomy: linking classroom learning with individual and cooperative learning.

Many approaches are possible and also successful, with different objectives and degrees of autonomy. Some teachers may allow for a certain amount of time for self-access learning or blended learning offering a range of tasks à la carte for the learners to choose. Others may propose creative tasks on a project basis, letting learners choose according to their personal interests and motivation: presentations, interviews, videos.

The way I would like to describe in this post is how  to support learners in defining and accomplishing an individual learning plan. How do I do it?

Step one: defining individual/relevant goals

Once the course has started and students are getting familiar with the institutional learning objectives, I ask them to assess their competencies in one or more skills with a language portfolio: what can they already do? Are they satisfied with what they can do? I allow part of a session for this type of self-assessment. On the basis of the results of the self-assessment then I let the students discuss which aspects they would like to improve for themselves, first in small groups, then in a plenary session. In my experience both as a teacher and as a language advisor I find it is very difficult for many learners to formulate realistic learning goals. So, the teacher can have an important role in this respect and act as an advisor, by helping them to formulate their goal in a SMART way (specific, measurable, attractive, realistic, trackable and time-bound). So, for instance, the result should be “I would like to learn how to write a personal letter” instead of, “I want to improve my writing”.

Step two: choosing materials and tasks

The next session takes place at the self-access centre. Keeping in mind what they would like to improve, students get familiar with the materials and the resources they can use: movies, authentic texts, materials for different skills, audio books, online materials. As a teacher, I support them by giving advice.

At this point students should be ready to move on to the next step: matching their learning goals with materials and tasks. This is a very central issue, and it can be a new challenge: some students may have clear in mind what they want to learn, some others may be motivated by a certain book, by a website, by a movie and may be willing to reformulate their goal according to it. Again, the teacher can help them to identify their priorities and to make a decision, giving advice about tasks and strategies.

Getting started /Carrying out the plan

Once a goal is formulated and a first general learning plan is drawn, students can involve in their learning quite autonomously. Nevertheless, it is crucial to support them during the whole process: therefore it can be useful to discuss their learning on a regular basis. I usually ask them to speak about this in the classroom with questions like: what are they working on? Which materials are they using? Do they find the tasks and the materials useful? This phase doesn’t have to be too long. A few minutes’ report for each student can be enough. A very nice collateral effect of these reports is that students learn from each other, give each other advice and sometimes they are ready to listen with much more attention to their peers than to the teacher. The discussion can also take place in a discussion forum or in a blog.

Moreover, the teacher can support the students individually, by advising them in the office hours, by chat, by email.

Some students may also want to present some of the materials, of the tasks or the results of their learning plan to the classroom. If so, the teacher can allow for extra time. And trust me – this is never wasted time!

Reporting and reflecting on the learning plan

At the end of the project, I ask the students to make a short report on their own learning. According to their goals and attitudes, this can be a written report, a video, a poster, a powerpoint presentation. In this report, I ask students to reflect explicitly on their learning experience: did they achieve their goal? Were the materials and the tasks chosen suitable for their goal? What was their personal commitment and motivation like? Would they have needed more support? If so, what for?

The teacher’s reflection

The teacher’s role in this experience is to support learning. Instead of being the first actor on stage, the teacher does his/her job on the backstage and acts as a facilitator, an advisor, a trainer. He/She is not responsible for all decisions anymore, on the contrary, she turns this responsibility over to the students.

Students can react very differently to this challenge. Some of them may feel unable to do it on their own and may need regular support. Others may be enthusiastic in the starting phase, but lose motivation and commitment in the following weeks. Some others may be able to carry on their own plan and to help their peers. All these reactions should be seen as an occasion for discussing their learning process and therefore for enriching the classroom work. Since I carry out this experience from B1.2 level, students are mostly capable of discussing all this in the target language, which is a considerable added value! Just try and see!

Dr Maria Giovanna Tassinari,  tassinar@zedat.fu-berlin.de

for vocabulary’s sake.

Our energetic speaker in Day Two moved her arms, waved at us, did not really need a microphone, and I absolutely loved her. She was YSWYG-type; crystal clear. The project that she has been co-ordinating from 2007 up to recently, thanks to funding from the Comenius Multilateral Projects of LLP, is called ‘Broad Sweeps of Imagination’ (BSI).  Bringing together partners from Turkey, Bulgaria, Italy and Romania, BSI aims to disseminate a new teaching method to redress the widespread deficiency in communicative language teaching and usage. The main elements of the BSI method are, and I am quoting here from the guidelines book circulated during the final conference: ‘enthusiasm, teaching pronunciation, correct use of texts, clumsy pictures, dramatization, out-of-class activities, reflection files, and evaluation’. Willing to open a window to let in a breeze of creative in your classes? Having a look at the BSI method is indeed worthwhile!

Broad Sweeps of Imagination (BSI) at http://www.bsiproject.com/

From the results on the healthy aging processes, it seems that bilinguals clearly have an advantage on monolinguals when it comes to cognitive control. The only test where monolinguals outperformed bilinguals was a lexical retrieval test. The gap between these two, however, does not enlarge during the aging process.

Results on the pathological aging process, more specific on the development of Alzheimer’s disease, are very promising. Bialystok et al. (2007, 2010) found that being bilingual can delay the onset of Alzheimer with four years. Other research somewhat confirms these results, although some questions can be raised on the social environment and whether the status of the first language plays a role on the fact that the individual is a bilingual. However, research on cognitive aging has shown that cognitive stimulating activities have a delaying effect on the onset of Alzheimer’s, so it seems plausible that bilingualism can has the same effect. More interesting research on this is without a doubt to be expected!

References:

Bialystok E, FIM Craik, M. Freedman 2007: ‘Bilingualism as a protection against the onset of   symptoms of dementia’ in Neuropsychologia 2007;45:459–464.

Bialystok, E., FIM Craik & M. Freedman 2010: ‘Delaying the onset of Alzheimer disease:  Bilingualism as a form of cognitive reserve’ in Neurology, 75,1726-1729.

Dr Giovanna Tassinari teaches Italian at the Language Centre of the Freie Universität Berlin. She is the head of the Independant Language Learning Centre and is the author of the case study “Tandem programme at the Language centre of the FUB“. She published in 2010  Autonomes Fremdsprachlernen, Peter Lang Verlag.  As a specialist of learner autonomy, she agreed to participate to this forum and sent us this article. More are to come. Thank you, Giovanna !

Promoting learner autonomy in the classroom: a motivating experience both for teachers and learners

Learner autonomy is the buzz word of the moment. It’s considered to be one of the musts in language learning and teaching nowadays. It’s a prerequisite for life-long learning; it increases motivation; it contributes to individual development and increased social interaction, to critical thinking and much, much more. But what exactly is learner autonomy in the classroom? How do you implement it? Have you ever tried to foster it in your own classroom? Was it successful, effective? How do you feel about this?

Leni Dam has shown everybody that this is possible. And many other teachers are doing it in very different ways, at different institutions. I thought it would be interesting to start a discussion in this blog about this. Therefore, I’d like to start by telling you about the way I do it and I really would like to hear about your experiences.

I teach Italian alongside managing the self-access centre at the Freie Universität in Berlin. Our language modules are described in the study regulations for a range of study programmes that cater for specialist philology as well as non-specialist students from other disciplines (cf. I.Ortiz case study). Therefore, we have to deal with many institutional constraints. 60 contact hours per term, exams at the end of the term, demanding progression schedules, students busy with BA and MA study programmes, just to mention some of them. Nevertheless, my experience has shown me that there is always room for learner autonomy – and that this increases the quality of language teaching.

Core aspects of learner autonomy are:

-       choices (the opportunity and the ability to make choices),

-       awareness (language awareness, language-learning awareness)

-       and, more generally, the capacity to reflect on and review one’s own choices.

How to implement this in the classroom?

1. First of all, I give my students the necessary information to make an informed choice: I let them know about the learning outcomes of the course, about the goal of the task I’m proposing. This might seem time consuming – and it is, but it’s also worth doing because the students get more involved when they know what they are doing and why.
2. Then I let the students participate in making choices: for instance, I let them choose between two different tasks or two different texts in order to reach a goal.
3. I also let them participate in pedagogical decisions by asking them, for example, about whether we should review the past tense forms together or whether we should move on to a new topic?
4. I also try to “get off the stage” as a teacher and let students do things themselves. For instance, I let them do peer-reviewing and reflection on language structures in pairs, instead of doing it myself in plenum. This also increases their language awareness and promotes cooperation.
5. I plan sessions on language learning strategies for single tasks or skills, for example, how to do listening comprehensions.
6. I set aside time to discuss with them in the classroom their individual learning experience (also informally, e.g. I ask them to tell me about tasks they may have done, texts they may have read, grammar topics they may have worked on) and I give feedback on this. This makes them aware of what they are already doing outside the classroom and can help them in making new choices for their further learning.
7. I listen to the students, even if it’s difficult, respect them as individuals and acknowledge their work and efforts, even if they are not successful.

Of course, this may seem too much and too challenging if you think of this all together. But I do it gradually – of course with a wider plan in my mind, but I do not mind, let alone panic, if things turn out differently than I planned.

I have presently (fall term 2010-11) two wonderful classes, very different students, of course. And it’s really a pleasure for me to walk into the classroom and work with them. With the B1 class we worked on poetry last week and students came up with the idea that they should write each other a poem. Why not? Great idea (even if this is not part of the learning outcomes). And yesterday we had an impromptu poetry session in which the students read their own poems – and what poems! Autonomous language learning can be inspiring.

I’ve many other things to tell you about  learner autonomy, but I’d also be glad to hear about your experience. So, why not post a comment? I’m sure you’ve got lots to tell us about!

Contact G. Tassinari: tassinar@zedat.fu-berlin.de

Dam, Leni (1995): Learner Autonomy 3: from Theory to Classroom Practice. Dublin: Authentik.

Ortiz, Isabelle & Tassinari, Maria Giovanna (in press) Eine integrierte Lernumgebung zur Förderung von Lernerautonomie. In: Autonomes Lernen und Motivation. Beiträge des 2. Bremer Symposions zum autonomen Fremdsprachenlernen. Bochum, AKS Verlag.

Ortiz, Isabelle, case study ABV languages modules at the Language Centre of the Freie Universität Berlin

Tassinari, Maria Giovanna (2008) Wie schätze ich mich als autonomer Lerner ein? Ansätze zur Selbsteinschätzung von Strategien und Kompetenzen für Lernerautonomie. In: Martinez, Hélène / Meißner, Franz-Joseph / Mertens, Jürgen / Reinfried, Marcus (eds.): Lernstrategien und Lernerautonomisierung. Themenheft Französisch heute 2008/3: 249–266.

Moo games

In one part of the study based on  MOO games (multi- users computer games), the analysis of the output of American students learning German and German students learning English revealed that the interactions between learners generated a positive attitude towards the target language, an intense written interaction showing efforts to make oneself understood and more autonomous language learning. It is also said that using avatars encourages learners to ask themselves the meaning of unknown words and thus extend their vocabulary.

Simulation games

From examples of simulation games in which learners are confronted with with real-life situations, the study revealed that these games embolden pragmatic communication, as players need to communicate as precisely as possible to give each other clear instructions and to understand them.

Serious games appear to have an impact on the learner’s motivation to learn a foreign language by making the learning more pleasant, focusing the learning on precise outcomes, extending vocabulary and enhancing interactions between learners.

When they are used in a favourable environment and meet certain requirements, serious games have a high potential to enhance the learning process and motivate learners to learn and improve language skills.

Happy New Year, Frohes neues Jahr, Feliz año nuevo, Bonne année!

This month the Molan blog celebrates 8 months of existence.  Since its launching in May 2010, 27 posts have already been published. They all address the issue of motivation from a variety of angles: innovative teaching, intercultural skills, learning practices, e-learning, etc.  A few posts are dedicated to the announcement of current events or initiatives that relate to teacher and learner motivation. More posts are to come this year.

We hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as we enjoy preparing the articles for you.

Thank you for reading the Molan blog !