What my two-year-old has taught me about language learning – Part 2 | ETp Learning a language is a complex process and the ease with which nearly every child becomes a native speaker in their language has perplexed many for generations. The child learns to discriminate between the individual sounds of his/her language, identify word boundaries, attach meaning to lexis and acquire the complex grammatical structures, all of which is considered difficult for the second language learner, but yet seemingly effortless to the child. Although there are significant differences between first language acquisition (FLA) and second language acquisition (SLA), I have found through observing my two-year-old daughter’s language development important lessons even for the EFL teacher. In my last blogpost, I looked at the blurry distinction between lexis and grammar, the importance of imitation without fear, and the power of inductive learning and pattern-deduction. Here are two more things my two-year-old has taught me about language learning: 7. 8. Bibliography Yu, C., D.
Top 12 Ways to Increase Student Participation Call it "active learning," or "classroom participation" -- every teacher wants to know how to motivate students to particpate, and how to nurture more involved students and fewer apathetic ones. With a little extra planning, that is possible. Below are four common reasons students don’t participate and techniques to solve those problems and spice up your lessons. Problem: The content is repetitive. Maybe it needs to be repetitive because the students don’t really “get it,” or maybe you’re reviewing for a test. Solution #1: Assess their prior knowledge. This could be as simple as asking students, “What do you know about (topic)?” Technology in the classroom tools that keep parents informed about classroom... To kick off this holiday week, we want to spread a little Thanksgiving joy with... Teaching strategies to help guide your students through a writer’s workshop... Exciting ways to use video conferencing in your classroom. Fed up with building pilgrim hats out of paper bags?
Anatomy of an Ally | Teaching Tolerance - Diversity, Equity and Justice Illustration by John Hersey. Teenagers in Arizona wear lettered T-shirts that together spell out a racial slur. Transgender boys in a Wisconsin school are given detention after using the boys’ restroom. Male students in a California high school create a “slut page” on Instagram featuring embarrassing photographs of their female peers. In schools across the United States, students experience oppression based on their race, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, ability and other identities. Allyship Starts With IdentityIn the past, being an ally in an educational setting was a role associated with white teachers doing anti-racism work. While any educator can become an ally, the journey might look different depending on identity, experience and familiarity with issues of power and privilege. Travis learned almost immediately that developing a sense of his own identity was vital to the process. “We had to do a lot of low-stakes investigating,” he says.
edutopia Pamela Randall: Social-emotional skills are the essential skills for success in school, work and life. Natalie Walchuk: Social-emotional learning centers their mind and body. It reduces their emotional tension, so they can be open to new content and material. We find that academic outcomes increase exponentially when students are nurtured, loved and cared for. That we get much more out of them when we first address social-emotional needs. So for us, it's actually an academic intervention, and not just an emotional one. Pamela: If we expect students to be college and career ready, it's important for us to focus on these skills and competencies: Self-Awareness; Self-Management; Social Awareness; Relationship Skills; and Responsible Decision-Making. Natalie: We find that Self-Awareness is one of the hardest things for young people. Pamela: Self-Management is the ability to self-motivate, to have self-control, to regulate one's emotions. Student: You're in my boat if you have a bully now.
Playing to Learn | Exploring the vital connection between play and learning. When Cops Choose Empathy About four years ago, in a city park in western Washington State, Joe Winters encountered a woman in the throes of a psychotic episode. As he sat down next to her, she told him that she had purchased the bench that they now shared and that it was her home. “I didn’t buy the hallucinations, but I tried to validate the feelings underneath them,” Winters told me. Defining Student Engagement: A Literature Review » SoundOut Student engagement is increasingly seen as an indicator of successful classroom instruction(1), and is increasingly valued as an outcome of school improvement activities. Students are engaged when they are attracted to their work, persist in despite challenges and obstacles, and take visible delight in accomplishing their work.(2) Definitions and Differences Student engagement also refers to a “student’s willingness, need, desire and compulsion to participate in, and be successful in, the learning process.”(3) Definitions In a number of studies student engagement has been identified as a desirable trait in schools; however, there is little consensus among students and educators as to how to define it.(4) They frequently include a psychological and behavioral component. SoundOut defines student engagement as “any sustained connection a learner has towards any aspect of learning, schools or education.” Another study identified five indicators for student engagement in college. Requirements
edutopia Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy has the capacity to transform individual lives for the better while helping to bring about positive social change in schools and communities worldwide. In psychology, there are currently two common approaches to empathy: shared emotional response and perspective taking. Shared emotional response, or affective empathy, occurs when an individual shares another person’s emotions. Perspective taking, also known as cognitive empathy, occurs when a person is able to imagine herself in the situation of another. Here are some strategies our graduates around the world use with their students to help develop both affective and cognitive empathy. Modeling Teachers can be role models who, by example, show students the power of empathy in relationships. Teaching Point of View We use the numbers 6 and 9 to teach students about different points of view. Using Literature to Teach Different Perspectives
~ Tales of a Trainee Teacher ~ The other day, I was watching a documentary about extreme weather and natural disasters, and their effects on schools across the globe (it really wasn’t as dull as it sounds, honestly!). I was amazed at how well handled some events were, but totally shocked in other ways. For example, the documentary showed footage of an earthquake hitting a school in Japan. As soon as the room started shaking, the teacher ordered everybody under the desks, and obviously having done earthquake drills, this was all completed safely within about two seconds flat. A minute or so later, [what I’m guessing was] a more senior member of staff ran to all the classrooms, and ordered everybody out of the building, which was also carried out quickly and calmly. Another clip showed a strong tornado hitting a school in America (I’ve completely forgotten which state, sorry!).
Empathy Is Still Lacking in the Leaders Who Need It Most Many people and a host of commentators instinctively recoiled at the callous management practices described in a scathing New York Times article last month about Amazon. So did Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and chief executive. In a memo to Amazon employees, he wrote, “Our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.” He’s right, not only on humanitarian grounds but also for reasons that should appeal to a hard-headed businessman like him. At Amazon and other businesses, the “e-word” should be the watchword. For three years my colleagues and I at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism crisscrossed the U.S. and travelled to other nations asking business leaders what attributes executives must have to succeed in today’s digital, global economy. These so-called “soft” attributes constitute a distinctive way of seeing the world. Frankly, when empathy kept coming up in our research, I was surprised. What is empathy?
Using Positive Student Engagement to Increase Student Achievement Teachers and school-based administrators alike have searched to find ways to increase student achievement in their schools. Several widely known and discussed strategies include using data to drive instruction, employing highly qualified teachers, and improving school leadership. Additionally, positive student engagement in the classroom is another compelling factor—but not as widely discussed—that research has reported to be critical in enhancing student achievement (Akey, 2006; Heller, Calderon, & Medrich, 2003; Garcia-Reid, Reid, & Peterson, 2005). Positive student engagement is not an easy term to define, yet we know it when we see it. Students are engaged when they “devote substantial time and effort to a task, when they care about the quality of their work, and when they commit themselves because the work seems to have significance beyond its personal instrumental value” (Newmann, 1986, p. 242). Engaged students also are more likely to perform well academically. Conclusion
Being Me Skip to content Being Me Thanks for all your entries they were all great. Please check out the gallery page to see what's important about being you! image gallery Being Me By Lauren 5C Bee (NSW) By ALP Elanora State School (QLD) By Jack Surf hand By Surf Tacking Point Public School (NSW) Rainbow By Rainbow me Happy By Tacking Point team 1 Me being me! By Murf Natone Primary School (TAS) By MOT amazon.co I know it is absurdly early in the year to be choosing the top book of the year, but here goes. I recommend Empathy by Roman Krznaric for both the quality of the content and its importance. Empathy, he tells us, is ‘the art of stepping imaginatively into the shoes of another person, understanding their feelings and perspectives, and using that understanding to guide your actions.’ Krznaric rejects the self-interested individualism that has been promoted for over 300 years by thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud and Richard Dawkins. He argues that we need to ‘switch on our empathetic brains’ if many of the world’s ills are to be solved. We need to overcome barriers such as prejudice, authority, distance and denial if we are to boost our empathy skills, he says. He utilises some pretty impressive case studies to argue that it is possible; from Oskar Schindler to Beecher Stowe - author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin - to Gandhi and Mandela.