Search results for " Learning"
showing 10 items of 5299 documents
Online Intercultural Exchanges Through Digital Storytelling
2017
This article focuses on the affordances of a digital storytelling project in developing students' language, digital and other skills: learning and innovation, creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, team working, and life and career skills. The project was undertaken by university English for Specific Purposes students and was conducted within an Online Intercultural Exchange between the Cyprus University of Technology and the University of Valencia. Its design was based on a Project-Based Learning (PBL) methodology. It incorporated active learning and multimodal resources and capabilities. The need for transforming language teaching pedagogies was borne in mind, as it is necessary …
Beyond the “student” position: Pursuing agency by drawing on learners’ life-worlds on an EAP course
2018
AbstractIn today’s world, individuals should be able to maintain their expertise amidst constant changes. Thus, this type of agency should be supported in higher education. One approach for a teacher-researcher to examine supporting agency and how it manifests itself in higher education courses is through the learning design. In this article, learning design is defined as the planned course path and the way in which that path is enacted in the course in a real-life setting. Thus, the learning design of a blended EAP course is examined, with a focus on the course assignments in two different groups in two consecutive years. Different types of agency were assumed through the tasks and those t…
Training the modern translator – the acquisition of digital competencies through blended learning
2019
This paper presents the ERASMUS+ DigiLing project, which aims to teach and improve linguists’ and translators’ skills and knowledge of digitalisation to prepare them for today’s job market. Against this background, it discusses the development of digital competencies and distinguishes them from traditional domain-specific and general competencies. For the purpose of competence acquisition, six online courses have been created which all revolve around the field of ‘digital linguistics’, including localization in the digital age and post-editing machine translation. We provide an overview of the project, the course contents and the didactic methodology. In addition, we discuss which competenc…
Knowledge ecology for conceptual growth:Teachers as active agents in developing a PluriLiteracies approach to Teaching for Learning (PTL)
2017
This article explores how a group of educators and researchers enacted an inclusive process of conceptual growth involving teachers and teacher educators as active agents, knowledge builders and meaning-makers in the development of a Pluriliteracies approach to Teaching for Learning (PTL). The evolution of a working model based on five emergent principles, foregrounded the need for stakeholders across different languages, cultures and disciplines, to work together from the start so that learning spaces were created where teacher development went alongside researcher development, and theorizing was not only inclusive of praxis but validated by it. A growth cycle emerged using theories of pra…
Affordances and constraints: Second language learning in cleaning work
2016
This paper examines opportunities for language learning in a cleaning job, which is a typical entry-level job for immigrants. An ethnographic case study approach is taken to investigate examples of the conditions that allow or prevent language learning for the focal participant, a sub-Saharan man who works as a cleaner in Finland. This case illustrates on a micro-scale the impact of the new economy on a worker in a company that has outsourced its cleaning services. Theoretically and methodologically, the study applies van Lier’s (2004) ecological approach to language learning and Scollon and Scollon’s (2004) nexus analysis. The analysis of interaction order shows that within outsourced clea…
Researching pronunciation learning strategies: An overview and a critical look
2018
Disparate goals that learners might have in learning second or foreign language pronunciation and the scant classroom time that can be dedicated to teaching this target language subsystem dictate that learner autonomy is of vital importance in this case and adept use of pronunciation learning strategies (PLS) can be viewed as key to the development of this attribute. Surprisingly, research on these strategies is scarce, mainly focusing on the identification and classification of PLS, diverse instruments are used for data collection and the findings are inconclusive. The paper provides an overview of the available research on PLS with respect to their identification, learners’ preferences co…
Collaborative Game‐play as a Site for Participation and Situated Learning of a Second Language
2009
This paper addresses additional language learning as rooted in participation in the social activity of collaborative game‐play. Building on a social‐interactional view of learning, it analyses some of the detailed practices through which players attend to a video game as the material and semiotic structure that shapes play and creates affordances for additional language learning. We describe how players engage with the language resources offered by the game, drawing on the vocabulary, constructions, prosodic features and utterances modelled on game dialogue, in building their own actions during collaborative play. With these resources, the players display their ongoing engagement with the g…
CLIL: A European Approach to Bilingual Education
2016
Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is a term used especially in Europe for forms of bilingual education where an additional language, in most cases English, is used as the language of instruction in non‐language school subjects. This chapter outlines the development of CLIL, embedded both in European level policies and in growing awareness of the new orientations to language learning introduced, for example, in language immersion research. Because of its potential to serve as a context for meaningful language use and situated language learning, CLIL has been regarded by EU institutions as an important instrument to foster European citizens’ bi‐ and multilingualism, to be offere…
From face-to-face to blended learning using ICT
2016
This study examines the development of the education model created in connection with the Master Studies in Mathematical Information Technology. The model has developed from the first stage, where there was only face-to-face teaching supported with Learning Management System, to a stage where studying is possible also fully in online and students may choose themselves how much to take advantage of technology in their studies. The examination of the development of the education model is made from the viewpoints of accessibility, increased role of technology and interaction. In earlier studies, the education model has been evaluated for example from the viewpoints of changes in the participat…
University Teachers’ Conceptions of Their Role as Developers of Technology-Rich Learning Environments
2017
This phenomenographic study examines how a diverse group of university teachers conceptualised their role as developers of technology-rich learning environments at one university in Finland. The research findings illustrate a variety of conceptions. Five qualitatively different ways of understanding teachers’ roles regarding the development of technology-rich learning environments were found: 1) innovator, 2) early adopter, 3) adaptive, 4) sceptic and 5) late adopter. In order to connect the whole set of interconnected roles to a theory of change, Everett Rogers’ innovation diffusion theory was exploited in the last phase of analysis. Finally, hierarchically structured categories were creat…