I’ve been trying to integrate Twitter into my French class for quite some time now, as I am absolutely convinced of its value and still (to my great astonishment!) underdeveloped potential in language learning.

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 our MOLAN project closing conference a couple of weeks ago someone took me by surprise. It was Day Two, all of us following the swing of the formal-PowerPoint-enhanced presentations informing us of aims, activities, and achievements that I felt swept into my childhood and teenage classes of English in a provincial town of central Spain in the early nineties. Thing is, when comparing what I was seeing and hearing with my school memories being nostalgic about the past was out of question. Three-hours three days per week and with neither the conversational method nor the task-based approach in my teachers’ mind it was the same old drudgery of grammar explanations, applied exercises in book, reading aloud, and responding in a quivering voice to a question my teacher put. I even remember lying sometimes; Read More

A very interesting article for our readers who can understand French is available on the website of the Agence nationale des usages des TICE. The article addresses the issue of learning with serious games – video games combining learning with entertainment. The impact of using serious games for learning a foreign language has been illustrated by Mark Peterson, professor of Linguistics at the University of Kyoto.

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Did we ever have doubts about it?

Some of you may already know how much I am in favour of using online learning communities and Web 2.0 tools to empower language learning and learners’ motivation.  So, imagine my enthusiasm to have the opportunity to spread the Word and announce the publication of the Pedagogical Innovation in New Learning Communities report! Read More

In a month’s time the International House London, an established language school with over fifty years of experience in providing language courses and teacher training programmes, will be holding its fourth Modern Languages Teachers’ Conference. Their spacious and fully-equipped campus near Covent Garden welcomes you on Friday 12 and Saturday 13 November to discuss the teaching of languages for business purposes and the usage of technology in the classroom –£50 for the two days. Friday’s talks, delivered in English, vary from sessions on technology in the language classroom and tips on how to cope with students unwilling to cooperate in communicative learning classes, to neuro-linguistic programming techniques to boost language learners’ confidence. Saturday’s workshops, delivered in the delegates’ target language, focus on Arabic, French, Italian and Spanish language teaching. Read More

(Interview Part III)

Q: What are the success factors of internationalisation for your school?
A: The Tilff-project with Germany and Switzerland is a self-sponsored project. Costs are kept relatively low since we are self-catering. Therefore we don’t need to pay any external staff. All costs are divided among the participants. For this project no EU-sponsorship seems to be possible, although we keep on searching for the appropriate fundraising programmes. Our Comenius school partnership has been fully sponsored by EPOS, our national agency, covering all travel and accommodation costs. It goes without saying that all international projects together cost money: printing costs, ICT-equipment, promotional gifts, catering, travel costs etc., so clear and full support of the school management is an absolute necessity.

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Q: What initiative is your school most proud of??
A: It’s difficult to say: the Comenius school partnership has been a fantastic experience for our teachers and to a smaller extent to our pupils but definitely the Euroclass Project in Tilff is a more personal achievement, since we managed to adapt the original European Classes idea into our own situation and to our specific needs. For our pupils of technical education we made the framework less strict and more inviting to be creative in expressing their ideas, in presenting their own presentation work. All this reflects in the willingness to speak with new people, in a foreign language most pupils had so far only be using within classroom walls.

Q: How do pupils participate in the organisation? Read More

A stimulating example of how secondary schools motivate pupils to learn and practice languages is the Miniemeninstituut (MI), a technical and vocational school in Leuven, Belgium.
MOLAN interviewed Kris Florquin, the school’s Headmaster and Dirk Staf, European Coordinator.

Q: Kris, when exactly did your school decide to move into internationalisation? And what was the underlying policy?
A: 2005 was the year in which two of my teachers Diederik Roelandts and Dirk Staf took part in the European Classes Project in Alden Biesen, organized by the Flemish ministry of education and supported by the Flemish Community. The project idea is to communicate in at least two foreign languages on a broad EU-linked topic elaborated by the pupils. For us it was a good opportunity to broaden our network of contacts with other schools in order to get new Read More

Don’t Give Up! Is a European Union language project that has written a book of 48 best practices for every level of language educators (schools, managers, and teachers). The best practices will help improve the motivation and the results of language courses for adult learners. The project spent 2 years researching and analyzing the problems of adult learners, language educators were asked their opinions and ideas, as well.

The best practices cover aspects of managing language schools and classes, enhancing lessons, engaging and motivating students and dealing with many aspects of the problems adult learners face to learn a language. The best practices are summarized on the project website http://dontgiveup.eu with some examples. The 138 page Don’t Give Up! Book is available in English, Czech or Spanish.