Creative activities for Language Learners at home

Introduction

The British Council is committed to supporting the use of technology for the continuation of education in a crisis. As many teachers find themselves in an unfamiliar situation of having to teach their classes online, with little or no experience, the British Council TeachingEnglish website is committed to providing as much support as possible to help you navigate your way through the world of online teaching.

This is the seventh in our series of webinars aimed at supporting teachers working in an online context. It is also the first in a series of twelve webinars by winners of the British Council's English Language Teaching Research Awards (ELTRAs)

About the webinar

With school cancellations, many primary school children around the globe spend a significant amount of time with their families and try to develop new routines in challenging times. Teachers, educators and language practitioners can guide parents and children to engage in creative activities that make language learning fun and enriching. In this webinar, we present the Language Suitcase – a toolkit full of activities developed collaboratively by artists, teachers, and researchers. Parents do not need to act as teachers and children just need to activate their curiosity. We will share these activities and explain how they can be tailored for home use.

Date: 6 May 2020

Watch a recording of the webinar below

About the speakers

Dr. Lavinia Hirsu is a Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Glasgow. Her research and teaching are multidisciplinary as she works at the confluence of theories of cultural diversity and social inclusion, translingual pedagogy, digital literacies, rhetoric and academic writing. She has recently been involved in international projects in contexts of migration, displacement and other unstable environments. Recent collaborations with creative artists have led to the development of training workshops for language teachers and practitioners in multilingual contexts.

Dr. Sally Zacharias is a lecturer at the University of Glasgow. She has had over 25 years of teaching experience in a variety of contexts including primary, secondary and tertiary education. She worked in Germany and France for a number of years before moving to the UK. She's interested in how language shapes thought, cognitive linguistics, cognitive diversity and what happens in multicultural settings. 

Dobrochna Futro is a doctoral researcher at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Glasgow. She explores how contemporary art engages with multilingualism to design new approaches to language teaching in a multilingual context. With a background in visual art sector and Polish philology, she is currently developing a portfolio of art-based resources for teaching L3 Polish in Scottish primary schools. Member of Bilingualism Matters, Polish Education Committee and AILA ReN Creative Inquiry in Applied Linguistics.

Read the presenters' related ELTRA research paper to this webinar.