INFOGRAPHICS: A FUN WAY TO TEACH AND LEARN ENGLISH

 #infographics #ELT #Piktochart

The students can create their own infographics.

Recently, we’ve been assigned to create an

 informational infographic on ethical and

 legal issues related to effective technology

 use. We’ve been asked to choose one issue

 of our interest and I have chosen ‘plagiarism’.

 I’ve chosen this topic because ‘plagiarism’ is

 an important issue regarding both written and 

online work.

I’ve used the website ‘Piktochart’ for creating my infographic. Piktochart is a practical infographic website that presented me many templates. Though, there was also an option which you could create your infographic from scratch, and I went for it as I wanted to create my own design. At first, I felt a bit indecisive about where to start but when I started experimenting on the colours, fonts, and icons everything fit into place. As the words started to spill down on my computer screen, I felt a bit surprised at my ability to blend information and humour.

In my opinion, infographics could be an amazing way to teach and learn English. If we consider the students’ general complaints about the lesson (the lesson being too teacher-centred and boring), infographics with their colourful and eye-catching design and semi formal language could be a fun language learning strategy. Clear, concise, and step-by-step explanations and examples about complex topics could assist the students to grasp the topics in an authentic way. Furthermore, the students could be asked to create their own infographics on a language topic (such as present perfect tense or vocabulary about cooking) to get a grip of the course topics.

You can check out my infographic from the link below:

https://create.piktochart.com/output/63536217-what-is-plagiarism-azra-yakici-101022049-2-d

See you soon and take care!

References

Hurst, D. (2008). Children at School [Photograph]. Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Children_at_school_%288720604364%29.jpg

WE ARE LIVING IN THE AGE OF TECHNOLOGY: 21st CENTURY LEARNING

 #21st century learning #ELT #Technology

Technology of our daily lives seems extremely normal to us these days but there is truly more than meets the eye. We couldn’t underestimate the effect of technology on fundamental areas of our lives, such as education. The education in the 21^st century is much more different than it was in the 20^th century. There is even a new concept emerged as ‘21^st century learning’.

However, now technology is literally everywhere,
and we are engaged with it almost every minute.

Back in the 1950’s it was a such a thrill to watch TV with your
family. The best way of being in touch with the technology
and the whole world.

Like many people, when I hear the concept of ‘21^st century learning’ the skills like creativity, collaboration and communication technology literacy comes to my mind. However, life/job skills, ethical/emotional awareness, and cultural competence are also crucial skills for 21^st century learning (Kereluik et al., 2013) To be more specific, these skills are very important for language learning as learning a language means interpreting the world from a new lens with the help of the acquired language. To be even more specific, the technology integration and the most ethical ways of doing it is a vital thing in an English classroom in 21^st century. As we all know, language reflects our life and thoughts, and our lives are partly affected by the languages that we born with and choose to learn. Thus, it is impossible for us (the teacher candidates) to consider our lives (or technological lives) and language learning in disparate means.

Time changes, our educational habits too.

References

Chan, C. W. (2017). Crowded Subway Hong Kong [Photograph]. Getty Images. https://www.vox.com/2017/4/25/15408846/study-mobile-ads-crowds-purchase-subway-commuters

Deen, P. (2009). Cute Young Boy Using Computer in Nature [Photograph]. IStock by Getty Images. https://www.istockphoto.com/tr/foto%C4%9Fraf/cute-young-boy-using-computer-in-nature-gm182145764-10026562?searchscope=image%2Cfilm

Kereluik, K., Mishra, P., Fahnoe, C., & Terry, L. (2013). What knowledge is of most worth: Teacher knowledge for 21st century learning. Journal of digital learning in teacher education, 29(4), 127-140. https://doi.org/10.1080/21532974.2013.10784716