The Language Gym
Giofranco Conti PhD is a practicing language teacher at Garden International School in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.
He is a prolific producer of resources for the teaching of French, Italian and Spanish which are accessible online on his The Language Gym website.
He has come to the attention of Resourceful Indonesian, not for his work in these languages, but instead for his incisive blogs on language pedagogy which both challenge and debunk some of the common practices that many language teachers take for granted or fear to express personal doubt or speak out against because of the direction that all teaching in general is being taken in by the technology gurus with their colorful charts, graphs and pedagogical wheels. He gives compelling voice steeped in research to the concerns that we all feel and he writes in a way that is accessible to all educators and administrators.
He has gained international recognition for his work by receiving the 2015 TES Best Resource Contributor Award. For a refreshing view and commentary on what we do (and shouldn't do) in our language classrooms, I urge you to open the links to his articles below. It could prove the best professional development you have received in a long, long time.
He is a prolific producer of resources for the teaching of French, Italian and Spanish which are accessible online on his The Language Gym website.
He has come to the attention of Resourceful Indonesian, not for his work in these languages, but instead for his incisive blogs on language pedagogy which both challenge and debunk some of the common practices that many language teachers take for granted or fear to express personal doubt or speak out against because of the direction that all teaching in general is being taken in by the technology gurus with their colorful charts, graphs and pedagogical wheels. He gives compelling voice steeped in research to the concerns that we all feel and he writes in a way that is accessible to all educators and administrators.
He has gained international recognition for his work by receiving the 2015 TES Best Resource Contributor Award. For a refreshing view and commentary on what we do (and shouldn't do) in our language classrooms, I urge you to open the links to his articles below. It could prove the best professional development you have received in a long, long time.
Six Contexts in Which We May Not Want to Use the Target Language
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/six-contexts-in-which-we-may-not-want-to-use-the-target-language/
Things Learners Do Not Enjoy About Their Foreign Language Lessons
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/things-learners-do-not-enjoy-about-their-foreign-language-lessons/
To What Extent Does Bloom’s Taxonomy Actually Apply to Foreign Language Teaching and Learning?
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/to-what-extent-does-blooms-taxonomy-actually-apply-to-foreign-language-teaching-and-learning/
Six ‘Useless’ Things Foreign Language Teachers Do
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/06/25/six-useless-activities-foreign-language-teachers-do/
Five Central Psychological Challenges Facing Effective Mobile Learning
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/five-central-psychological-challenges-facing-effective-mobile-learning/
Of SAMR and SAMRitans – How the Adoption of the SAMR Model as a Reference Framework May Be Detrimental to Foreign Language Learning
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/05/27/of-samr-and-samritans-how-the-adoption-of-the-samr-model-as-a-reference-framework-may-be-detrimental-to-foreign-language-learning/
Micro-Listening Tasks You May Not Be Using Often Enough in Your Lessons
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/06/16/seven-micro-listening-enhancers-you-may-not-be-using-often-enough-in-your-lessons/
‘Noticing’ the L1-L2 Gap in the Foreign Language Classroom – How It Can Enhance Learning
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/noticing-the-l1-l2-gap-in-the-foreign-language-classroom-how-it-can-enhance-learning/
Why Teachers Should Not Bother Correcting Errors in Their Students’ Writing (Not the Traditional Way at Least)
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/why-teachers-should-not-bother-correcting-errors-in-their-students-writing/
The Least Talked-About Yet Most Important Attribute of An Effective MFL Teacher
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/the-least-talked-about-yet-most-important-attribute-of-an-effective-mfl-teacher/
Eight Important Facts About Working Memory and Their Implications for MFL Teaching and Learning
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/eight-important-facts-about-working-memory-and-their-implication-of-mfl-teaching-and-learning/
Lessons in Demotivation – Forty Years of Uninspiring Modern Foreign Languages Curriculum Design
https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/lessons-in-demotivation-forty-years-of-uninspiring-modern-foreign-languages-curriculum-design/
The following article is not by Giofranco Conti but by Chaz Pugliese who is a freelance ELT consultant and author based in Paris. His book, Being Creative, is published by Delta.
Let Creativity Into The Language Class
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/mar/13/creativity-in-language-classroom
