What does it mean when learners make funny “mistakes” in their new language? Valerie “Magna” Borey suggests that language play and humor reveal developing insights into the communicative process and give learners a chance to share these insights with others.
Everyday problems and challenges provide valuable chances for language learners. Mundane, unpredictable interactions like asking for more bread, dealing with incorrect change, or issuing an invitation to play are all opportunities to take language instruction out of the classroom and ‘into the wild’ of real life in another country. Heidi Hamilton discusses how learning ‘in the wild’ can benefit all language learners, from young Concordia villagers to adult international migrant communities.
Follow the journey that leads one villager/staff member/teacher through door after door of opportunities, all opened for him by a passion for learning language and culture.
Here are good reads from around the globe that have caught our attention for the month of May.
Cassandra Glynn, Director of the Master of Education in World Language Instruction for Concordia College, and Brandon Locke, Dean of Educator Programs for Concordia Language Villages, continually strive to help teachers make connections between practices in the Language Villages and those in their own classrooms. The idea for this post stems from their session at the ACTFL 2015 conference entitled Live the Language: Integrating Experiential Learning into the Classroom. In this blog they highlight two examples from their professional development work with teachers.
