Category: ESL

The Success of NorthStar: Enduring, Evolving, Engaging

Posted on | by Pearson

2014_FrancesFrances Boyd

The prize-winning academic English series NorthStar continues to meet the needs of students and teachers all over the world. In its fourth edition, the series endures by retaining its essential qualities. Yet NorthStar also evolves with updated content and expanded online tools. And the books continue to engage and challenge the hearts and minds of learners.

Enduring
Why have secondary and tertiary institutions all over the world continued to rely on NorthStar to help students reach their academic goals? What qualities have endured in the fast-changing textbook landscape?

The NorthStar series takes high-beginners to an advanced level in carefully scaffolded units. The series pioneered the two-strand design, offering both a listening & speaking and a reading & writing volume on each proficiency level. Students work with authentic or semi-authentic listening and reading material that respects their intellect and feeds their curiosity. Exercises and activities constantly integrate skills and recycle language. In addition, students engage in critical thinking on virtually every page of every book. This seamless blending of intelligent content and rigorous language study has been a hallmark of the NorthStar series from the start. Continue reading →

Some “Spicy” Principles for Language Teachers
Layers of the Onion

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DougBrown_2013H. Douglas Brown

How is an onion like a language learner? Think about the makeup of onions, used globally in almost every cuisine. On the outside, an onion looks like a single entity. Its skin comes in attractive colors—red, brown, yellow, white, and even purple! On the inside, it can be everything from zesty to spicy to mild. And on all those insides is an intricate, finely woven, tightly meshed set of layered compartments. Get the picture?

Good, so perhaps you can see a vivid metaphor here. Learners have skins of many colors, and they have thick skins and thin skins, so to speak. They also have layers of personality and learning styles that are not always easy to discern from the outside. They have varieties of “smartness” that might not be immediately perceived. Continue reading →

Brain-based Research:
Strengthening Learning and Memory

Posted on | by Pearson

Sarah Lynn 2013.1.1 Sarah Lynn

“If you’re just engaging in mechanical repetition,
it’s true, you quickly hit the limit of what you can retain.
However, if you practice elaboration,
there’s no known limit to how much you can learn.”
~ Brown, Roediger, McDaniel (2014)

Elaboration is essential for you to commit new learning to memory. Elaboration is when you explain new information in your own words. Once you begin to add examples and details, or make connections to other experiences and knowledge, you are enriching the new learning and making it more memorable and more  transferrable to new contexts.

Thinking Please wait

Elaboration involves the thinking strategies of paraphrasing, summarizing, creating analogies, answering questions, and describing connections. Elaboration activates the frontal lobe of your brain and brings your new learning to a higher level of awareness and articulation. Continue reading →

Advantages of Using Technology in Language Teaching:
Learning Management Systems

Posted on | by Pearson

As teachers we have two skill sets that we’re continuously trying to revise and adapt and improve.

The first of these is what I call “presence”. That is, the ability to deliver instruction in real time, to engage with the students, to interact with the students, to listen, to respond––to deliver instruction in ways that make sense in that particular context. Continue reading →

Microlearning and MyEnglishLabs

Posted on | by Pearson

SCAD Language Studio ? Professor Christina Cavage, Human Resources headshot, Fall 2013 ? Photography by Stephanie Krell, courtesy of SCADChristina Cavage

Why FLIP, or blend face-to-face learning, with digital learning? Well, the reasons are numerous. Many I have outlined here in the previous months. Moving some content outside of the classroom allows us more flexibility in the classroom. Additionally, it allows our classrooms to go back to a collaborative, communicative, rich language environment. However, it also allows our students to microlearn.

What is microlearning? While the term may seem new to you, the concept is not. Students learn best when content is presented in small chunks. Think of YouTube and Khan Academy. The success of these sites speaks directly to their appeal to digital natives—learning in bite-sized pieces for those ever-dwindling attention spans for traditional lectures. Recent research indicates that exposing students to new content in small doses is the most effective for learners today. Yet, while traditional learning methods are decreasing, media consumption is rapidly increasing for learners of all ages. Thus, the success of Khan Academy and TedEd. So, what about our ESL learners? How can we provide more microlearning for them? Continue reading →