English Language Teaching Asia and NZ

Is using English as a medium of instruction always beneficial for learners in an EFL context. Some food for thought here:

English medium instruction may have negative learning outcomes for students - E L Gazette Students taking a course in English performed worse than their counterparts taking the same course in their native language, according to a new study. The study from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden took 2263 students and divided them randomly between...

Some very useful advice from Lauren Piovesan from ESL Reads.

Five tips to improve your speaking confidence When you first come to Australia, it can be scary to speak English. You might worry about saying the wrong words and being misunderstood. You might find the Australian accent hard to understand and worry that you won’t know what anyone is saying.

During the class today, I played a game with students, a part of which was writing down 10 yes/no interesting questions to ask the teacher. As they were completing this task, I noticed that all of them were typing. It came as a bit of a surprise because the students from previous years' intakes preferred handwriting for tasks that required some creativity. Even when I had classes online last year, I could see the students taking notes on a piece of paper rather than typing.
This seemed like quite a notable change to me, and I thought that I might be a bit old-fashioned in using a pen and paper, not only for short tasks, but also when I need to come up with an idea, think it through, analyze/evaluate, and make notes.
On checking out what science thinks about it, it turned out that multiple studies confirm that writing by hand and typing activate different areas of the brain. Even not-so-recent (about 10 years old) research suggests that neuronal activity in brain areas that are activated when writing by hand is important for memory and for the encoding of new information, which provides the brain with optimal conditions for learning. Writing by hand has a stronger effect on such aspects as critical thinking, conceptual understanding, and memory recall as compared to typing.
Definitely something to consider.

Link in comments.

❤️ A real goldmine for teachers! ❤️
This booklet is full of warmers, icebreakers and fillers – categorised by age and language level – and with complete instructions for how to use them in class.
👉 Download it here:https://www.britishcouncil.es/sites/default/files/warmers_and_fillers_booklet.pdf
Thanks British Council España
😀Marcus

Calling all teachers of English to speakers of other languages! Check out the Extensive Reading Foundation 6th Congress scheduled for August 2023 in beautiful Bali. https://erfoundation.org/erwc6/
Extensive reading is a wonderful support to learning another language. Even if you can't make it to Bali in 2023 for the Congress, check out the ER Foundation website for news about extensive reading world wide, and links to useful resources and journals. Our Cert PT course gives a full introduction to extensive reading. And watch this space for more posts about reading.