Category: Learning
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What does a materials-lite course look like?
This is a great example of how to teach without a coursebook. Sometimes called Dogme but always working with emergent language. The lesson plan comes at the end as a summary and is used as a springboard to the next lesson and there is a lovely bit at the end of this 30 minute talk,…
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Public service announcement: Learning styles
I am including this 30-minute talk debunking the myth of learning styles because many of the teachers I deal with in teacher training believe that learning styles exist and I have tended only not to agree rather than to actively disagree. It is disappointing to find learning styles included in the syllabus of respected programmes…
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Barrier or Badge?
What does integration mean? Without a common understanding of this, is it possible to devise a valid and meaningful test? In this panel debate we heard examples of completely inappropriate test items requiring respondents to describe in the target language how things are done “in your own country” even though they have been living in…
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Personas: what are they good for?
When I learned about personas recently I thought this is so obvious, why haven’t we done this before? But often the best ideas are the ones that seem obvious after the fact. The idea of building up a description of one or more users can have several applications. I see it now as a possibility…
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Assessment 3.0
Mark Barnes has discovered a big problem in education and believes he can solve it. That is the aim of the book Assessment 3.0 sub-titled Throw out your gradebook and inspire learning. The problem is that grades get in the way of learning and are not even very good at reporting on the amount of…
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Online course: The first 24 hours
I recently started a new online course as moderator and documented the first 24 hours of activity. Read from bottom to top. Does anything need explaining?