The future of language teaching

A Virtual Game to Teach Children Languages - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com via kwout

This was published today in the "New York Times"... How long before we see this kind of technology integrated into our classes, I wonder?

Teaching teens

Kathie Nunley reports:

Students during early adolescence often struggle academically due to help avoidance and diminished interaction with the classroom teachers. Help avoidance varies for both gender and race. A recent study compared boys and girls of European American and African American race. All groups increased in help avoidance as they transitioned to middle school. European American girls were less likely to avoid help than E. A. boys. Researchers found no difference in help avoidance between genders of African American students.
Ryan, A. et al. (2009) Developmental Psychology. Vol 45(4), 1152-1163.

I believe this implies we teen teachers must be ready to make special efforts to offer help in as many ways as possible ("privately" as well as "publicly") and be particularly sensitive to requests for further support. Any delay or objection from us might be taken as a clear hint for help avoidance!

Do you think similar results would be obtained if researchers observed our classes?
Gladys

Reading Strategies

Longman-Pearson offers an online course for teacher development. As we turn into the discussion of reading, I'd like to invite you to explore the section of the module on this skill they offer for free. It's been developed by Jeremy Harmer, and you can watch videos, read texts and even submit your answers!

Click Here To View

After you've tried the module, why not share in the comments an interesting idea you've learned from it?
Enjoy!
Gladys