Learning re-envisioned

This post showcases slides from a remote presentation to PIGATE on Saturday, March 11th.

Comments and questions about the slides or the actual presentation are welcome on this post.

A Long Road to Becoming a Language Teacher

This post showcases a presentation from the Pigate gathering on March 13, 2021. In that presentation pab presented a sweeping retrospective on 60 years in education.

Questions and reflections are welcome in comments on this post.

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Neurodiversity: An award-winning poster presentation from JALT 2020

Alexandra Burke's presentation on Saturday, November 21st, 2020, characterized "the impact of ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, [and] color [vision] issues and how they affect learning for nearly 12.6 million people in Japan." It also "cover[ed] ... clues to look for and where to find publicly-available resources" (session description, https://jalt2020.eventzil.la/session/355 [emphases added]). 

 

Burke asserted that the understandings and behaviors of teachers "are the keys to success for students with hidden disabilities" (poster element). A PDF of the poster is available for download here:

• Neurodiversity, Studying, and Teaching Language

For advice on improving poster presentations in general, please watch psychologist Mike Morrison's videos:

• Generation 1 - Create a better research poster in less time ... (2019.03.25), and
• Generation 2 - Create more a impactful scientific poster with UX Design tips (2020.07.13).
  

Motivation matters!

Image source: YouTube, Education Week (2019.12.19)

Education Week recently showcased a series of four videos of Larry Ferlazzo and Katie Hull Sypnieski explaining ways for teachers to foster learner motivation:

•  What Teachers Can Do to Boost Student Motivation (2019.12.09).

The short videos covered "four specific ways to nurture a sense of intrinsic motivation in students" (¶1), namely:

1. Granting students autonomy,
2. Applauding effort rather than ability;
3. Cultivating interpersonal relationships, and
4. Helping students discover the relevance of learning activities.

A list of further readings followed the videos on the Education Week article, and Larry Ferlazzo linked to additional resources in a follow-up in an Education Week Teacher blog post.

• Everything You Wanted to Know About Student Motivation, But Were Afraid to Ask (2019.12.11).

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A Visual Summary: 32 Learning Theories Every Teacher Should Know

In his post, A Visual Summary: 32 Learning Theories Every Teacher Should Know, Terry Heck displayed a detailed graphic by Richard Millwood.

In that post, Heck asserted that "there are dozens of theories that underpin what and how you teach already, and that the better you understand them, the better chance you’ll have to master your current approach and begin to bring new possibilities into your classroom..." (¶4).


Heck then posted brief additional explanations of the concepts in Millwood's graphic. 

The graphic itself is available ... [as a PDF]: 

• http://blog.richardmillwood.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Learning-Theory.pdf (PDF)

and in a hypertextual concept map with loads of links to additional resources here:

• https://cmapspublic3.ihmc.us/rid=1LNV3H2J9-HWSVMQ-13LH/ (Cmap).

A follow-up comment by Millwood (2019.06.18) on his one of his own posts that introduced the map (2013.05.10) suggested that he was preparing a new version.

References

• Heck, T. (2019, January 12). A Visual Summary: 32 Learning Theories Every Teacher Should Know [weblog post]. Retrieved from https://www.teachthought.com/learning/a-visual-summary-the-most-important-learning-theories/
• Millwood, R. (2019, June 18). Learning Theory [comment on 2013, May 10 weblog post]. Retrieved from https://blog.richardmillwood.net/2013/05/10/learning-theory/#comment-54999 

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Linguistic paranoia – why is Australia so afraid of languages?

For most other countries speaking more than one language is the norm.

Misty Adoniou, University of Canberra

Image from www.shutterstock.com.au

About 20% of the Australian population speaks a language other than English. In fact, around 250 languages are spoken in homes around the country. This would seem to be cause for celebration. After all, successive governments have spent millions trying to increase the numbers of students studying languages in schools. However there is little connection between the languages taught in schools, and the languages spoken in homes.

Foreign language learning in schools

In 2001 the Howard Liberal government set a target of 25% of Year 12 students studying a foreign language. The same target was set by the incoming Rudd Labor government in 2007. In 2014, the new Abbott Liberal government upped the ante to 40% of Year 12 students studying a foreign or classical language within the decade. This was ambitious given that the previous targets of 25% had never been reached.

Barely 10% of Year 12 students study a language. Yet 20% of the population speaks a language other than English in the home. How does that add up? The answer is governments pay little heed to the languages spoken in Australian homes; they prefer “foreign and classical” languages to “local and community” ones.

Not all languages are equal

There is a clear hierarchy of languages in Australia. English is at the top. Next are the “classical” languages like French and German, particularly when learned at school. These are followed by languages deemed useful for Australia’s economic prosperity - e.g. Chinese, Indonesian and Japanese - but only if they are being learned as “foreign” languages. Because that is quite clever, learning a foreign language.

But if they are languages already spoken in the home, they slip down the hierarchy of languages, into the community languages pile along with about 245 other languages. Somewhere towards the bottom of that community languages pile are the Indigenous languages of Australia, about which most Australians know nothing.

The chances of those 245 community languages surviving in Australia are remote. Australia is remarkably adept at wiping out languages. Of the 250 Indigenous languages in existence at the time of British colonisation, only around 20 remain viable today. The languages immigrants bring with them are usually dead within two generations.

It seems remarkably odd policy to pour millions of dollars into setting consistently unachievable targets for learning foreign languages at school, while simultaneously watching community languages slide into oblivion.

Is it just linguistic snobbery?

We always seem more impressed by a native English speaker who has managed to learn another language at school than we are by those who learn their languages at home.

Everyone was quite impressed by ex Prime Minister Rudd’s proficiency in Mandarin, but I expect Senator Dio Wang’s Mandarin runs rings around Mr Rudd’s. I’m guessing Belgian born Finance Minister Mathias Cormann speaks German, Flemish, and perhaps also French. I suppose Senator Nick Xenophon speaks Greek, but perhaps he doesn’t. Maybe his Greek language heritage has been lost, which would be ironic as his surname means “foreign voice”. Does Deputy Opposition leader Tanya Plibersek speak Slovenian? Does the Malaysian born Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Penny Wong speak Malay and Mandarin or Cantonese or Hakka?

I don’t know. I’ve never heard any of them speak another language, or be reported admirably in the press for their linguistic prowess. They don’t note their bilingualism in their biographies on their websites. Perhaps they’ve lost their heritage languages - or perhaps it’s just not “Australian” to say you speak another language in your home or to your mum and dad. Either scenario is a sad indictment.

It seems, in Australia, if you learned your second language at school or at university - that’s clever and admirable. If your bilingualism comes from your heritage, we’d prefer to ignore it.

Multicultural but monolingual

Australia is generally happy to be multicultural, as long as that just involves some tasty food, and a bit of dance and music at an annual festival. We are definitely not comfortable with being multilingual. We are a country where you are free to speak another language, but preferably in the privacy of your own home or on an overseas holiday. It seems we like our foreign languages to stay that way - foreign.

Australia is currently in a social and political space where “unity” has overtaken “diversity” as the preferred political discourse. A country that speaks multiple languages in its everyday life seems somehow harder to manage. After all, who knows what they’re saying? A community that speaks foreign languages to foreign people in foreign lands is much more secure.

It is odd we should be so determined to keep our multilingualism in the closet. For most other countries speaking more than one language is the norm. With so many economic, cognitive, social and political advantages to multilingualism it seems simultaneously extraordinarily wasteful and absurdly paranoid to not celebrate and nurture the languages spoken in homes all around the country.

Misty Adoniou, Senior Lecturer in Language, Literacy and TESL, University of Canberra
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

ASCD Express 9.02 - The Why, What, and When of Assessment

ASCD Express 9.02 - The Why, What, and When of Assessment (Tomlinson & Moon, 2013b)

That newsletter article caught my eye this morning in a list of website bookmarks after discussion at an English Café gathering yesterday, in which participants ... considered ... [among other topics]: 

• Assessment practices in elementary school English-as-an-additional language learning activities slated to become mandatory coursework in the next few years (GU, n.d), and 
• Roles of assistant or partner classroom teachers in occasional or routine team-teaching. 

The article is an adaptation of Tomlinson and Moon (2013a, pp. 19-21), in which the authors described assessment of, for, and as elements of differentiated instruction. Tomlinson and Moon argued for assessments to identify differences in: 

• Individual learners' readiness to learn, 
• Their individual interests or passions, and 
• The learning modalities that individuals prefer (2013b, What to Assess, ¶1).

Tomlinson and Moon also outlined various types of assessment to use before, during, and after instructional units, namely: 

• Pre-instructional assessments,
• Formative or ongoing assessments, and
• Summative assessments (2013b, When to Assess, ¶1).

The article concluded with examples of, and purposes for, combinations of formal and informal assessments. Regarding informal assessments in particular, Tomlinson and Moon asserted:

Informal assessments are useful in giving a teacher a sense of what makes a student tick, providing a big-picture look at how the class as a whole seems to be faring at a given moment, and amassing a growing sense of how specific students work in particular contexts (2013b, When to Assess, ¶2).

The first few examples of informal assessments that Tomlinson and Moon mentioned in their article resonated with remarks that the English Café convener made yesterday with regard to what a team teacher could do when not directly involved in instructional activities.

References

General Union [GU]. (n.d.). MEXT's 2018/2020 "New Course Of Study In Foreign Language Education" Plan. [Retrieved 27 March 2018 from] https://goo.gl/sBjXpo

Tomlinson, C. A., & Moon, T. R. (2013a). Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Tomlinson, C. A., & Moon, T. R. (2013b). The why, what, and when of assessment. Assessment and Differentiation, 9(2). http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol9/902-tomlinson.aspx

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6 Tips for Going Gradeless (Sackstein, 2018)

Can we do some or all of this?

Sackstein, Starr. (2018.01.30). Six tips for going gradeless. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/F56hTKUk8j4

Play space necessary

Image source: https://pixabay.com/en/play-stone-network-networked-1237457

"The most powerful learning experiences often happen when children are simply given the space to work things out on their own — to come up with their unique way to occupy [their time]" (Gallup, 2017, p. 1).

Reference

Gallup, Inc. (2017). Time to play: A study on children’s free time: How it is spent, prioritized and valued [PDF]. Available from http://www.gallup.com/reports/214766/gallup-melissa-doug-time-to-play-report-2017.aspx

Oh, my yard! A mind map in development

The presentation that I've embedded in this post uses time-lapse screenshots to replicate several stages of mind map development. The mind map of a favorite place is a work in progress[.]

I created the mind map with FreeMind—free, open source software from SourceForge; and have continued to develop it with FreePlane—also available for free from SourceForge. The background photo in the penultimate slide, I took from my veranda on March 14, 2017.

If you have concerns or questions about mind-mapping tools; or suggestions of novel, possible, and practical uses for learning or teaching [with them]; please don't hesitate to spell them out in comments on this post.

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