Search Results (6)

This article reports on a case study where students of Initial Teacher Education in Spain and Germany collaborated with in-service teachers from around Europe on the theme of Foreign Language materials development. It examines to what extent engagement in this model of virtual exchange contributes to student teachers’ and in-service teachers’ intercultural and didactic competence development. The study also explores how students’ perspectives on teaching foreign languages and their future profession change through collaboration with in-service teachers and how the student teachers’ and in-service teachers’ roles unfold in this type of collaboration. It is based on a qualitative content analysis of focus-group interviews, learning portfolios, recordings of online meetings, and questionnaires with open-ended questions. The findings indicate that this type of collaboration can reduce the gap between theory and practice: through the classroom experiences of in-service teachers, student teachers gain intercultural, professional knowledge and motivation, while in-service teachers gain knowledge about recent methodologies and technology through the alternative perspective of student teachers. We use the findings of our study to make recommendations on how other teacher trainers can use this Virtual Exchange model in the classroom. Full article

Developing the language assessment literacy (LAL) of pre-service foreign language (FL) teachers is thought to be beneficial both to trainee teachers themselves and to their future students and schools. However, it also presents a number of challenges to teacher educators involved in training these cohorts. Ensuring that pre-service FL teachers are fully confident and competent in assessment requires the design of a preparation programme that is detailed and relevant to their needs. While Taylor has argued that different stakeholders have different language assessment literacy needs, there will also be different needs within groups according to their specific assessment responsibilities. Thus, for language educators, the needs of pre-service teachers are likely to be different from those of in-service classroom teachers, and this should be reflected in the content of their training. However, research has shown that across Europe, training practices vary considerably, often with no training provided in teacher training programmes at all. In this study, I address this issue through a discussion of current approaches to the pre-service development of language assessment literacy across Ukrainian universities. Due to the principle of organizing the learning process at Ukrainian tertiary institutions in blocks of disciplines of general and professional preparation and practical training, students acquire knowledge and develop skills in the field of assessment gradually, through studying various subjects, and not only within one course. This interaction of different subjects with each other and with school placements presents synergies that can enhance LAL, if the corresponding programme takes into account these connections. In order to have a full picture of Ukrainian pre-service teachers’ language assessment development, the current study presents a description of the training system and its LAL-related components retrieved from educational and professional training programmes and discipline curricula of the Ukrainian universities providing relevant preparation programmes. I provide a list of components and discuss didactic conditions that aid the acquisition of LAL by future teachers. I argue that these synergies in the Ukrainian system may provide a useful example of practice for other universities in the European context. Full article

Phenomenon-based learning (hereinafter PhenoBL) is widely studied in the majority of European countries, especially given that research data indicate that PhenoBL is more successful in providing effective learning, better student achievement, a stronger interest in science, and even a higher happiness index. However, there are sparse data on the educational practice of this method in Lithuania, particularly in foreign language teaching (FLT). Thus, teachers’ professional preparation for the effective implementation of PhenoBL remains one of the most relevant research problems. For this reason, this study aims to analyse the experiences of Lithuanian foreign language teachers in incorporating PhenoBL into FLT. Fifteen individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, and the obtained data were analysed by applying qualitative inductive content analysis. An inductive content analysis of the interview reports revealed six themes and related categories: the perception of student-centred teaching, the development of subject integration competencies, teamwork development competencies, research-planning skills, the positioning of personal responsibilities and duties, and foreign language usage emancipation, i.e. setting free from personal fears (fear to make grammar, vocabulary mistakes, while speaking in public) to speak a foreign languages. The content of the revealed themes indicated that teachers highlighted the flexibility of PhenoBL from the perspective of its application to different language learning levels within one group. The majority of the respondents underlined the necessity for the development of an active didactic competence. Other respondents mentioned the importance of the correlation between personal creativity competence development and success in PhenoBL. It was also stressed that if a teacher wants to be successful while using PhenoB, they must to be prepared to work with integration-based and communication-emancipatory methods, must be student-centred, must have competencies in teaching several subjects, must be good at teamwork, and must be good at managing learning time. Full article

This paper explores how pre-service EFL teachers perceive the variety of methodic-didactic and pedagogical forms of differentiation that they consider as acceptable in their teaching practice and which shed light on knowledge areas related to adaptivity competence. Our investigation looks into (a) qualitative questionnaire data that depict pre-service FL teachers’ conceptualizations of what it means to be a “good” and “bad” foreign language teacher; and (b) pre-service FL teachers’ quantitative evaluations of existing differentiation approaches designed for accommodating learners, especially ones experiencing specific learning differences such as difficulties with memorization, classroom communication, anxiety, or lexical and grammar confusion. Our results show that, despite expressing general agreement towards supporting individual learners’ needs, participants’ knowledge regarding how to respond to the needs of all FL learners appropriately is incomplete. Full article

With the development of China, learning the Chinese language has received more and more attention from international students. Teaching Chinese as a foreign language (TCFL) is crucial for spreading Chinese culture and promoting cultural exchanges. In recent years it has become the focus of attention of many scholars, and the heterogeneous cultural backgrounds and diverse language needs of learners determine that TCFL should promote the development of students’ intercultural communication competence in language practice with the use of educational technology. In this study, 82 preservice teachers as an experiment group and 64 preservice teachers as a control group participated in this study; this research aims to improve the quality and level of TCFL, using innovative teaching tools as a means to target preservice TCFL teachers and create a teaching–learning design strategy based on the smart teaching tools Moso Teach (MT) and Rain Classroom (RC). The findings from this research show the importance of the use of smart teaching tools and the improvement of preservice teachers during the experiment compared to preservice teachers with traditional methods. This paper answers the following questions: (1) How to improve preservice TCFL teachers’ competencies by integrating smart teaching tools into their learning process? (2) How to integrate technological, pedagogical, didactic, and social competencies into preservice teachers’ daily teaching CFL? Full article

One of the most important tasks of higher educational institutions is the training of specialists to be able to adapt to changes in their professional life. At the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the 21st centuries, some methods for developing foreign language competence, needed for their future professional activity, were created by teachers. However, the effectiveness of these methods has not been studied. This fact has aroused the authors’ interest and generated the idea about the necessity to conduct scientific research in order to identify the most effective methods of teaching foreign languages for special purposes. Methods: The given research paper is based on the analysis of Russian and foreign scholars’ scientific works covering the problem of teaching foreign languages for special purposes to the students of humanitarian professions, as well as on the basis of the results from questioning students of bachelor degree programs who study foreign languages for special purposes in the field of humanitarian professions, and also of the results from questioning teachers specializing in teaching foreign languages for special purposes. Results: In the students’ opinion, the most effective methods of teaching foreign languages for special purposes in the field of humanitarian professions are the following: discussion, ICT (information and communication technologies), and SCRUM (framework that helps teams work together, encourages team to learn through on a problem). According to the interviewed teachers’ opinion, the most effective methods are discussion, ICT, and round table. The “dilemma” method is the least effective according to the students. As for the teachers, the less effective method is CLIL (content and language integrated learning). Conclusions: The study showed some common views among teachers and students concerning the effectiveness of methods of teaching foreign languages for professional purposes, such as discussion and ICT. The effectiveness of the discussion method is explained by the fact that it allows the integration of students’ knowledge from different areas when solving a problem and provides an opportunity to apply language knowledge and skills into practice. This contributes to forming students’ ability to think clearly, to perceive information critically, to highlight the main idea and find the means and arguments to confirm and substantiate it, and, consequently, to improve the understanding of any theoretical material. The use of ICT in the educational process allows the efficiency of the educational process itself to be improved significantly and leads to new approaches and organizational forms of educational work. In fact, while preparing educational programs and creating didactic materials, special attention should be given to the implementation of ICT methods and discussions in educational activities. Nevertheless, the respondents’ subjective opinion should not reduce the scientific value and effectiveness of other methods of teaching a foreign language for professional purposes. The authors of the paper believe that methods that have not found much support from students and teachers should be studied more thoroughly and carefully. To this end, it could be recommended to organize special training seminars that would allow teachers to be informed of new methods of teaching foreign languages for professional purposes, of their particularities, and to help their active implementation in the learning process. Full article