Innovative Language Teacher and Practice 2022

Innovative Language Teaching & Practice 2022

Winnie So Languages Teacher

The conference, Innovative Practitioners, Innovative Practice 2022, explored a variety of topics that discussed innovative learning of language and culture. It is evident that while Australia is a v society, schools, however, have a monolingual mindset, viewing the learning of additional languages unnecessary (Clyne, 2004; Ellis, 2006; Pennycook, 1994). Cultural awareness, the ability to notice other cultures beyond your own, is, therefore, a relevant area of focus at The King’s School. The topic of operationalising teacher dispositions for global competence and language engagement for life was examined at the conference by educational researcher, Suzanne Barry. Her presentation of the KARDS model of language teacher education for a global society addressed five main components:

• Knowing: the teacher’s ability of paying attention to and reflecting on professional, procedural, and personal knowledge.

• Analysing: the teacher’s ability to determine learners’ needs, motivations, and autonomy.

• Recognising: the ability to recognise and renew identity and beliefs.

• Doing: the choices a teacher makes when interacting in the classroom.

• Seeing: how the application of knowledge is being observed by others.

The five components of the KARDS model have similarities with Byram’s (1997) model for intercultural competence in terms of helping teachers to interpret and analyse events from another culture, acquire and interact with new cultural knowledge, and being open to identify and reflect on personal biases to recognise their own beliefs. The King’s School would greatly benefit from combining the two approaches to promote Intercultural education. This requires both teachers and students to engage in self-reflection to determine one’s own worldviews regarding culture and to develop comfort when confronted with cultural differences. Dr Angie Knaggs spoke about how we need to create a new value proposition for language learning, so that our leaders of tomorrow can make sense of the value of language as a twenty-first century skill. The value proposition involves moving away from seeing the learning of additional language due to cultural background or family language, to creating a statement that communicates the clearest benefit that students will receive by pursuing language studies. This statement includes showing the value of language learning for employability; for example, when competing with 300 other graduate accountants who are all capable of doing accountancy, language learning can show one’s interpersonal skills and ability to work in a multicultural team. Another example of the value of language learning is highlighting how it could help develop empathy and other people skills for junior doctors.

The focus of a new value proposition for language learning is on transferable value. Transferability is the skill that an individual learns through the process of learning a language that can be used anywhere. It is the component that will travel with students wherever they go and whatever they do. Knaggs also mentioned that there are transferable skills that will help students succeed in mainstream subjects, such as English and Mathematics. Evidence suggests that creativity, curiosity, vulnerability, grit, metacognitive skills, and self-efficacy developed through language learning is correlated with stronger and better performance in both Mathematics and English.

Innovative Language Teaching & Practice 2022

CONTINUED

Language learning is the ultimate employability factor and offers greater opportunities to connect and excel on a global scale. At The King’s School, students need to be reminded consistently that there is deeper transferable learning occurring when they are learning a language because we know that our students learn best in the moment. If we coach them in the language of employability now when the learning is happening, we know they are going to recall it. Students involved in language learning will have an advantage as they seek employment and graduate positions.

Another keynote speaker, Dr Gianfranco Conti, discussed enhancing L2 learner motivation through a self-efficacy building curriculum. Intrinsic motivation, which includes enjoyment and relevance of content, will produce the ideal outcome of self-efficacy in learning. Creating a culture of success is another important strategy to enhance intrinsic motivation. A student may be more intrinsically motivated if they see their peers achieving success in their language studies.

Teachers at The King’s School should ensure students see failure as an instance that can be addressed and rectified by showing them a path to success. Teachers should strive to create an atmosphere of empathy in which students are supportive of one another and do not mock other people’s failure. Implementing a curriculum built on self-efficacy at The King’s School will encourage three very important elements of learning: enjoyment, relevance of content, and the capacity for students to reach their complete learning potential. The creation of animated gifs (Graphic Interchange Format for animated and static image files) to instruct and inspire the learning of languages in the classroom was discussed by Joe Dale. Animated gifs can be utilised to bring language learning to life by reinforcing sentence structure, practising dialogues, modelling grammar use, and giving personalised fun feedback. It is an effective way to connect with students and make learning more interactive. Encouraging teachers and students at The King’s School to utilise gifs in the classroom will promote enjoyment and connect students to their learning environment. Teachers can use gifs to build community and engagement while fostering intrinsic motivation, thus resulting in full comprehension of learning.

The development of the whole teacher requires the above topics to be intertwined in every story. More specifically, the process of continuous self-reflection is inherent to language teaching and will enhance students’ motivation to learn culture and language. References

Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Multilingual Matters.

Clyne, M. (2004). Trapped in a monolingual mindset. Principal Matters, (59), 18-20.

Ellis, R. 2004. The definition and measurement of L2 explicit knowledge.

Language Learning 54 (2), 227-275.

Pennycook, A. (1994). The Cultural Politics of English as an international language.

Longman.