If You Teach English and Read This Blog....

I found another incredible speaker on the subject of learning. He did not necessarily focus on English as a second language, but the countries where he was doing his research were not English speaking.  Like myself, he went into a classroom in a country where the students could not speak English, and he sent their teacher away for a while. He and the students did not have a common language.  By only writing a question on the board, in English, he was able to get the answers from the students.  How?  Technology. Other than the students and the speaker in the classroom, the students had enough computers in the room to work in teams. The important factor was the students had to work in teams; not individually.  These students do like I do when I do not know a word. They google translate the question and then do a google search for the answer. Working in groups, these students came to the understanding of what a child of that age should not logically understand. But, returning to them a year later and testing without computer assistance, these students scored just as high as they did on the initial test a year ago, with computer assistance.  Conclusion?  Team work and technology are valuable tools in learning. But even more; team work is what causes the retention because the questions and answers are discussed among the group. This method allows the learners to retain what they are exposed to when they are collaborating.

How kids teach themselves