Vitall: Video Ideas for Teaching and Learning Langauges
1. Vitall Project Video Ideas for Teaching & Learning Languages A partnership approach to professional development of language teachers Céline Healy, Kevin McDermott Angela Rickard & Karen Ruddock ESAI Conference: 15th April 2011
2. Who? Education Department, NUI Maynooth; Post-Primary Languages Initiative (PPLI); Professional Development Service for Teachers Languages Section (PDST); PortlaoiseEducation Centre; National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR) [project funding support]; Language teachers & learners.
3. What? Open online archive of short video recordings language teaching ideas real classrooms in Ireland.
4. Why? Professional development of pre-service and in-service Modern Languages teachers Links to other language teachers (esp. lesser taught languages) Encourage & support innovative, active methodologies Capturing authentic classroom practice Provide a focus for reflection & discussion of teaching & learning
5. How exactly? Agreed broadly the themes & list of teachers to be approached (based on ‘insider knowledge’) Schools contacted, times agreed, etc. Teachers’ ‘thinking about language teaching’ Living Theory Appreciative inquiry Recordings, edits, discussions, revisions… Raising questions about what is ‘innovative’…
6. A forum for cooperation & dialogue: within and between different language associations & subject depts. in schools Link pre-service and in-service language teachers and methodology lecturers Establishing links among methodology lecturers across different Schools of Education Students Lecturers Professional development of TP supervisors Concrete samples of good practice Value to other subjects/disciplines
7. Questions emerging? How is innovative practice supported and encouraged in schools? How is this captured and, indeed, who defines innovative practice in the first place? What informs the choice of topic for recording? How do we reckon success or the educative value of the classroom interactions? How are teachers facilitated to become critics of their own practice?