NDLR Modern Languages’ Community of Practice

Learning and Teaching in an Intercultural Field: a discussion with Dr. Alison Phipps, Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Glasgow.

Alison Phipps talks about some key issues raised in Learning and Teaching in an Intercultural Field, a book that Alison co-authored with Dr. Mike Gonzales (see review here). This book challenges many traditional understandings of modern language teaching and learning, and presents alternative approaches to teaching modern languages in Higher Education. A thought-provoking and stimulating discussion. This podcast was updated on 7 June 2006.

Our next podcast will be on Tuesday 30 May, when we will be chatting with Dr. Alison Phipps, Senior Lecturer in German at the University of Glasgow.  Our discussion will focus on Learning and Teaching in an Intercultural Field,a book that Alison co-authored with Dr. Mike Gonzales (see review here).  

This book challenges many traditional understandings of modern language teaching and learning, and presents alternative approaches to teaching modern languages in Higher Education. Alison will also discuss some of the key issues in language teaching, and will provide some generic and specific solutions to these problems. 

Paul and Labhaoise are away this week in Sligo for a workshop on Copyright issues, followed by attendance at EdTech 2006 – the annual conference of the ILTA (Irish Learning Technology Association). The workshop is entitled ‘Ownership of Intellectual Property Rights in the Third Level Sector – Law, Reality and Urban Myths’  and is by  Prof. Robert Clark (UCD).

The conference (not the workshop) will also be “webcast” by HEAnet/Sligo IT and if you’d like to sneak a peak at proceedings, you can do so by clicking this link: http://www.itsligo.ie/online/edtech2006.htm

The events will be recorded and made available after the conference.

Our latest podcast features an interview with David Newton, Higher Education Development Officer at CILT – the UK National Centre for Languages.   David discusses Crossing frontiers: languages and the international dimension, the third biennial conference for languages in higher education which is being held in Cardiff on July 6-7.

An interesting article which gives some of the wider context for this idea of “creative commons” and sharing of educational content has just been published in a book I’ve been editing with some colleagues from Galway and the University of Dortmund. “Open Knowledge Resources for Higher Education: Scholarly Publications, Course Materials and Software,” by Thomas Pfeffer of the University of Klagenfurt in Austria, provides some interesting examples and starts off with the rather provocative statement by a Dean at MIT “Long ago we outsourced publishing to publishers. Now we need to take it back.”

A few months ago we asked Thomas to give a seminar presentation to us, but he couldn’t make it due to a complex schedule, however he had a webcam and broadband connection so were were able to get him to videoconference with us (if you are on the NUI, Galway campus network, you’ll have to use this other link instead). Even though this is only low cost (~20 Euros for a webcam) videoconferencing it is an indication of how the technology is becoming more and more accessible and it surely is time for academic staff to consider more serious use of this type of approach in their teaching or seminars. With proper videoconferencing hardware, of course, the audio and video quality is really good in comparison to this, but nonetheless, it does add an interesting dynamic to teaching and learning.

If you’ve tuned in for today’s podcast (every Friday we have one available), apologies. A slight delay with an interview means we won’t be posting the latest edition until Wednesday. In the meantime if you want to hear an example of Creative Commons in action listen to our “intermission” music.

Also, Paul has posted some contact details of all those who responded to his email about becoming members of the languages community of practice. Click on the “Members” tab at the top of this page/column.

Our second podcast, introducing the team behind Modern Languages support in the NDLR is available here.

In addition, the other big news is that we have started digitising, uploading and cataloguing materials on the NDLR. A sample of a “legacy” audio tape in Spanish can be heard here. Please start sending in details of materials that you are willing to contribute to the Modern Languages team (mail to: ndlrmodernlanguages@nuigalway.ie). He can convert materials in any format and will deal with all the technical issues for you. Remember that you can provide text, images, audio, video or even web-links.

OK, so it’s slightly old news these days, but Google Earth is still an astonishing resource, with tremendous educational potential. Not only can it help me see what my neighbour has planted over the garden hedge, but it also let’s me work out the detailed directions to my friends’ house in Provence.

Satellite images galore, wrapped around the globe, with varying levels of resolution, depending on the availability of free imagery for various regions; roadmaps; some 3D relief buildings and mountains; spectacular vistas of famous places, etc – all combined in a simple to download and install piece of free software. If you haven’t wasted hours on it yet, why not?