Category: Teaching

How international study enhances student cultural comprehension

“Every student emerges from primary schooling with a vague awareness of other countries and cultures… this isn’t the same thing as comprehending them”

With connectivity and modern advances, the world has only gotten smaller and will continue to do so. Despite this, there are many channels for our biases and perceived differences to persist and be amplified elsewhere.

It’s important to remember that each of us is just one small piece of humanity. This is why international study opportunities can be so powerful for developing well-rounded, culturally aware, humanistic students and citizens. The following is a look at why cultural education is so important and how studying abroad supports it.

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Do you speak English? It’s complicated.

“Identifying the gaps in language proficiency for each individual is only the beginning”

Kate Bell is co-author of the EF English Proficiency Index. In this blog, Bell examines how subtleties in employee proficiency affect the types and depth of language training that employers must provide.

From the outside, foreign language proficiency looks simple—either you speak a language or you don’t—but anyone who grew up receiving calls from grandparents abroad or who has worked for a few years in a foreign country knows that most people’s linguistic terrain is more of a swamp than a soccer field.

This is because our language skills develop over the course of decades as a result of inclination, exposure, education, and practice.

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Professional academic development at higher education in Mauritius

“The modern Gen Z student is critically insightful about what they expect from higher education study”

What exactly is meant by academic development? Perhaps you know it as ‘educational development’ or ‘teacher development’ in higher education? In a sentence, it is professional development that supports the improvement of quality in tertiary education; by enhancing all dimensions of learning, teaching, assessment and scholarship in higher education.

In Britain, Australasia and parts of Europe and Asia this falls under academic staff professional development; or instructional development in Canada, or faculty development in the USA. Such programmes and activities have been a feature of more mature tertiary education systems for more than 40 years.

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How emotional intelligence improves cross-cultural classroom communication

“Emotional Intelligence covers five major areas and serves as a gateway to educational and career success”

Educators need keen emotional intelligence (EI) to manage the ups and downs of classroom life. Their ability to control and respond positively to their feelings enables them to act as role models for their students. This principle remains true even when cultural constructs throw up communication roadblocks.

International educators face barriers of both verbal and non-verbal language with their students. Exercising EI lets them check their immediate responses to external stimuli. It allows them to step back and consider the learner’s perspective and prevents them from making snap judgments.

This awareness gives them the requisite mental pause to reflect on the cultural influences on behaviour.

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Your ABCs are still the building blocks of a STEM powered future

“We must recognise the power of STEM learning and its potential to equip our children with the skills they will undoubtedly need in the future”

STEM is a real buzz word in the education sector at the moment and it seems to be its answer to everything.

Many educators and policymakers increasingly argue that more and more areas of education should focus on STEM, to future-proof our kids for a world that seems to be ever more technology-driven.

But what does STEM actually mean, and is it really the answer to everything?

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. These are the top-line subjects that make up the acronym, but a wide range of specific academic disciplines such as Chemistry, Astronomy, Statistics, Biology, Electrical Engineering and Psychology all fall under STEM.

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The most important job in the world

“Collectively, we need to tackle the learning crisis for the one in two children being failed as they never even learn the basics”

Teaching is the most important job in the world. The quality of any nation’s education cannot exceed the quality of its educators. Each teacher has the opportunity to shape and impact tens of thousands of young lives over the course of their career. It is not unusual to hear someone reflect on a favourite teacher from their school days or to ascribe their success in life to the advice or guidance given by a teacher.

Yet, in many low and middle-income countries teaching is an extremely difficult profession. Once trained, teachers can find themselves teaching in a range of challenging situations; days away from the nearest town; with little or no support or guidance; textbooks that aren’t aligned to the material or the age of the children they are attempting to teach and overcrowded classrooms with children sitting on the floor.

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Ideas To Make Your Students Love To Learn English

“If a student genuinely wants to learn English, then the motivation to learn English should come from within a student”

A teacher plays an essential role in motivating the student to make them love English. But it is not as simple as you think – motivation should come from inside. Many non-native students have an urge to learn English since the language is necessary for them to reach their ultimate goal. But there are different strategies to help your students learn English.

  1. Create creative lessons with the conceptional understanding

Conceptual understanding makes learning easy and deep. A student who went through the process can apply it across various domains, especially the things which they have learned in class.

The process helps a student to learn more than what’s there in their syllabus- all the facts and methods. Create lessons which are flexible, creative and assess conceptual understanding. If you try to raise your student’s block on English, then teaching English would be easy.

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How Scandinavian teaching at a primary school differs from British methods

“Parents receive a more holistic progress report about their child’s development, this may seem somewhat strange to UK parents”

Earlier this year, the Department for Education announced plans to change the way that children across England are tested by using a statutory reception baseline assessment.

The Government hopes to introduce this by autumn 2020, but as we have seen, the decision to test children on communication, language, literacy, and maths when entering primary school, has been controversial debate around how early children should be academically tested.

Many parents and teachers argue that children should not be academically tested at four years old, as it puts too much pressure on them at such an early age, whereas others believe that introducing testing at an early age is vital.

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Developing Effective International Strategies

“Strategy is about more so much more than glittering generalities or the constraining rigidity of fixed plans”

With the sector facing unprecedented challenges – and with internationalisation at the heart of many of these challenges – now is a critical time to think deeply about what constitutes an effective internationalisation strategy.

A recent review of some 52 university strategies undertaken by Goal Atlas found that nearly two-thirds of these ended in 2021.  When I spoke at the annual conference of the British Universities’ International Liaison Association (BUILA) in July, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my session on developing effective international strategies in uncertain times was the largest attended session of the conference.

Clearly, there is both a need and an appetite for strategy. But what makes a strategy a good strategy?

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Upskilling and technology tools to help educators

“Upskilling isn’t just about staying relevant, studies show that it can also boost motivation and self-confidence”

A report by the World Economic Forum on “The Future Of Jobs” says that by 2020, more than a third of the desired skillsets for most occupations will be comprised of skills that are not yet considered crucial to the job today.

As technology continues to evolve, so do many sectors of the global economy. And with this reality, comes a growing trend for the need to “upskill” in the workforce.

Simply put, upskilling is defined as the process of learning or teaching new skills, and in today’s digitalised world, it is becoming a necessity to stay relevant. Whether its a vocational worker employed by a manufacturing facility or a financial analyst who relies on software to run numbers for their clients, every job will require some form of new learning in the future.

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