All entries for Monday 28 May 2007

David Little's talk

Writing about web page http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/circal/12mayevent/david_little/

Do you have any comments or questions relating to David Little's talk? If so, feel free to post them below. Alternatively, you may have a response to one of the following stimulating comments/questions contributed by two members of the audience on slips of paper at the end (slightly rephrased below from the originals):

1. Recently I attended a talk at a symposium which was promoting the idea of ELF (English as a lingua franca) rather than EFL. I found the concept worrying as it seemed to throw competence competence out of the window and replace it with "intelligibility". While this approach might greatly facilitate autonomy, it worries me that such "creativity" or "dumbing-down" with the language by foreign speakers might lead to deterioration of the language itself. Is the concept of the ELP (European Language Portfolio) moving towards the teaching of all languages as 'linguae francae'?

2. I noticed the focus in both your and Leni’s talks is on producing some visual evidence of self-generated rules, curricula and self-assessments etc. I myself am very averse to form-filling and am much more of a "sound-based" learner. For students like myself, would the recording of sound diaries or audio-based logs be helpful? How could such technology be introduced and integrated?

Richard Smith : 28 May 2007 14:41 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Introduction

Writing about web page http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/circal/12mayevent/introduction/

With reference to the title of the conference 'Learner Autonomy in Language Learning: Widening the Circle', we explained in our Introduction that when we started to organize the conference we didn't have a fixed view of what it means. Does it resonate for you? If so, how do you interpret the title? Any other comments about the Introduction to the conference / the way we're presenting the record of the event?

For more information on the IATEFL Learner Autonomy SIG, see www.learnerautonomy.org

For more on CELTE, go to: www.warwick.ac.uk/go/celte

Richard Smith : 28 May 2007 14:17 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem