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Showing posts from November, 2013

Ceibal English blog posts

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The Ceibal English  ( Ceibal en Ingl és ) is a project involving  language teaching via video-conferencing in Primary schools throughout Uruguay.  The British Council Uruguay is managing the Ceibal English ( Ceibal en Ingl és )  project for Plan Ceibal and I was working as the project manager. ( update: I am now Country Director for the British Council in Uruguay ) As it develops, expanding from 500 to 1,000 classes a week in 2013, and doubling again to 2,000 classes a week in March/April 2014, I am recording and relfecting on different aspects of the project.  This page lists all of the blog posts I have written about the programme. Start here: Ceibal English interview  (British Council podcast and transcript) More information:   Remote Teaching for Success Ceibal English - Invitation to feedback session for forthcoming chapter Remote Teaching, distance learning, team teaching or blended learning? (updated) Interviews with Remote Teachers on Ce

Frameworks for effective technology use: SECTIONS

When adopting or adapting technology for effective teaching and learning, it often helps to use a framework. One such framework, produced by Dr. Tony Bate s, Research Associate for Contact North , is SECTIONS , devised by the University of British Columbia , and mentioned in Planning for Effective Teaching with Technology ,  part two of the great series of articles Understanding the Building Blocks of Online Learning . SECTONS stands for:- S - Student needs E - Ease of Use C - Cost considerations T - Teaching and learning (your  approach to) I - Interaction for students (desired level of) O - Organisational support needed N - Novelty factor S - Speed with which the technology or materials can be adopted/adapted Rather than just designed to be used at a teacher or classroom level, this framework has been devised "facilitate decisions with regard to choice of technology at both the strategic and the tactical level". How to use the framework: 1

Use of L1 in Ceibal English Remote Teaching

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One of the issues we have been discussing in the Ceibal English project is the use of L1 by the two teachers- the CT (classroom teacher) and the RT (remote teacher), and after observing a great number of classes, I can see this varies a lot. Teachers attitudes to using L1 in the classroom varies a lot. I remember when I first started my teaching course, I was told that this was to be avoided at all cost, but when I started teaching young learners I realised that some use of L1 was necessary - mainly to save time and for classroom management reasons. There are some very interesting posts about this. In particular, I encourage you to read what Scott Thornbury wrote on his blog about translation  (and the comments!) and the response by Isabela Villa Boas . In particular, I think the following points are most relevant to the Ceibal English situation: Use of L1 interferes with the development of the L2 system Dependence on L1, at the expense of the learner constructing an indepe