Breaking out of the walled garden

Your Name and Title: Mrs Teresa Mackinnon

School, Library, or Organization Name: Language Centre, University of Warwick

Area of the World from Which You Will Present: UK

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience(s):Language teachers

Short Session Description (one line): Breaking out of the walled garden – an account of creating a portal to foster best practice in language teaching and learning.

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

Classrooms can be exciting places, places where great teachers inspire young minds, modelling good learning behaviours and building the confidence of their young apprentices as they explore and navigate new areas of knowledge together. However, we also have to recognise that some classrooms can be uncomfortable places where transmission takes precedence over discovery, rigid roles and poor subject knowledge limit learner autonomy, where the curriculum is overly dominated by an unhelpful assessment regime. At the Language Centre (University of Warwick) I have been busy developing an online setting which reflects and supports the very best of classroom experiences for language learning whilst encouraging the development of a community of practice for our educators as they become more familiar with embedding blended learning opportunities into their practice. My aim is to mainstream change in the nature of language teaching for both learners and practitioners.

Websites / URLs Associated with Your Session

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRi0dnSWfKI

http://youtu.be/Os9o-PdpSig