Page 16 - ELG2005 May Issue 470

SPECIAL FEATURE
100% Online Professional Zoom to the future? Contents

Development Courses for
Across all sectors the UK’s language AMPLE EVIDENCE
every step of your career lockdown has sent learning online but What works for languages?

there is still a future for schools, says 18 Welsh study summarised
Melanie Butler

ll over the world, education is still going on. Learners are CROSS EXAMINED
still learning, teachers are still teaching, even the Feedback from NILE Norwich and
researchers are still squirreling away their stats. It’s just all
Athe buildings that are shut. 20 Graham Stanley on Welsh findings
Is this the Brave New World the educational technologists have
always promised us? Will schools be replaced by screens and
teachers by robots? Or will artificial intelligence-powered earphones FULL MARKS FOR AI
make language learning a thing of the past?
Probably not. Though as John Roscoe reports on page 22, AI is Will digital markers
closing in on humans in the world of testing. And as Graham 22 take over testing?
Stanley points out on page 20, automatic speech recognition does a
splendid job helping 7 to 9-year-olds with pronunciation, especially
when it’s gamified. Did you hear that Alexa?
Stanley is responding to the results of a Welsh research study. TARGET PRACTICE
Asked to find the best method for teaching language, in this case Training zooms as teaching
Welsh, in schools, a team of researchers scoured hundreds of studies. 23 practice goes on line
As you can see from our summary of their findings on pages 18 and
19, they found teachers, not methods, made the most difference.
Something the commercial language teaching industry has a
tendency to forget.

Learners, it turns out, can survive
without schools, colleges and
Boost your career by taking a course in: universities. But they need teachers
to continue to learn.

But not just any teachers: they need to speak the target language
Online Tutoring and they need be trained and supported. In other words, just the
sort of training and support the world’s teachers could have done
Academic Management with when they suddenly found themselves asked to work online at
a couple of days’ notice.
Learners, it turns out, can survive without schools, colleges and
Teaching Very Young Learners universities. But they need teachers to continue to learn.
And those teachers need training. In fact, training centres, at
Teaching Young Learners and Teenagers least EFL training centres, have seen a mini boom. After all, EFL
has been delivering diplomas by distance for over 30 years, and some
of the online Masters we list on page 24 go back at least as long.
Teacher Training What hasn’t gone online, at least until the coronavirus crisis, is 23
teaching practice, or practicums as our US readers call them.
As we report on page 23, Zoom has zoomed into our lives, making
Advanced Methodology it easier to practise teaching groups online. Even crusty old
Cambridge has crumbled and allowed all Celta teaching practice to COURSE FINDER
be done online, at least during the lockdown. UK ELT-related
Surely some online teaching practice should be standard going 24 online Masters
forward? After all, most language teachers will spend some of their
ihworld.info/OTTI career online. In the US, the trainers at Bridge certainly think so,
and on page 26 they tell us how and why.
Is the future of education now online? MASTER CLASS
We’ll certainly see more online, especially for adults for whom, as What unis can learn
we explain on page 25, research finds distance learning is as effective.
But blended learning is significantly more effective, so the classroom 25 from their ELT staff
Some courses are moderated by combined with the computer screen may be the way to go.
But kids need schools to learn, and parents need schools for them
to go to. As long, of course, as all the teachers are prepared to come BRIDGE THE GAP
back to class.
US trainers take on
MELANIE BUTLER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF 26 the virtual challenge

editorial@elgazette.com 17