Another interesting article I read this week was a blog post entitled Why today is my last day teaching online Despite being somewhat of an expert in digital technology in the classroom, the author is quite adamant that it is the learning experience that is paramount, above and beyond the learning outcome. In the China…
Week 2 started with Joe Dale’s article in The Guardian about langauges and education technology One of the questions that is brought up in the article is how to keep up with the plethora of tools available today. It is easy to feel overwhelmed. Indeed, I’ve started a Popplet to note the tools we will…
It’s the end of Week 1, and nothing has gone as expected. Personal issues abound, and the immediate reaction is to question the logic of my initial study schedule (Morning – Chinese, FX Trading Practice & Non-DTLT blog stuff, Afternoon – DTLT). I know I am a morning person, and therefore Priority 1 is to…
The time has arrived. The time to begin my Masters studies with the University of Nottingham. Week 1 has been mostly administrative, logging into Moodle, getting to know the tutors and students via various online tools, reading the programme handbook and selecting this semester’s modules. Both students and tutors alike are international, multi-lingual, with strong…
Last month, I met up with a friend from Singolingua, a publishing house that deals exclusively with teaching and learning Chinese materials. He has collaborated with Yale University on a series of books called Encounters. These books, which have accompanying multimedia components, were trialled with a select group of beginner students this past summer at…
Google map of students and tutors on the University of Nottingham’s MA in Digital Technologies for Language Teaching (Distance Learning) 2014-2016 course. We are a small group: two students are in Vietnam, two more are in central Europe, and one other is challenging me for the ‘Furthest Away from Nottingham’ title, over in Canada….
EXPERT CORNER Last week, I was lucky enough to spend time with a Beijing-based university professor. She has accumulated a wealth of experience in Teaching Chinese Methods or “Patterns”. In her opinion, the following US-Sino collaborations implement some of the best practices for teaching Chinese (on intensive Chinese language summer programmes) today: 1. ACC –…
EXPERT CORNER A new Teaching Chinese Online platform, Mandaring, is in soft launch. I was lucky enough to meet up with one of the Beijing-based Mandaring team a couple of weeks ago. Since then I have enjoyed being one of their guinea pigs, trailing their online lessons. 45 minutes of intensive speaking and listening left…