LEA Newsletter Apr 2024

Greetings on the LEA Newsletter Apr 2024!

Dear LEA followers,

We’re on the eve of the International Workers’ Day (also known as Labour Day or May Day). This is a day which serves as a poignant reminder of the resilience and solidarity of workers across the globe. It commemorates the historical struggles and achievements of workers in pursuit of fair working conditions, equitable wages, and a just society.

If you, too, are a part of the teaching workforce, then your contributions to the workforce and society should be acknowledged. Don’t be afraid to give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back for all your diligence and commitment to being the beacon of light for our learners!

I set out at the end of last month to promise us expansion of new content areas in LEA, one of which is a gallery of INFOGRAPHICS that can help us remember important concepts, proven tips and key learning points from research relevant to language education. I am elated to inform you that it’s LIVE now! As with other resource pages, as this just marks the initial launch of the page, we can look forward to a richer set of infographics in time to come.

Last month, we’ve also received our first monthly “issue” of LEA NewsWatch. Trivial as it seems (only a list of curated news!), I’ve made efforts to extract most updated news from areas about which we care most. I’m still working on how to make it more efficient, so that we can also have option to view it weekly on priority topics tailored to our personal interests. In the meanwhile, do spread the news to fellow language educators so that they can also benefit from this tool (sign up at the official LEA NewsWatch page).

Riding on the same path, I have also created the wireframe for another page that we may be looking forward to a list of events, both online and offline, that language educators may want to follow: professional learning events. This can include conferences, webinars, workshops – both paid and free. I know there are many among us eagerly looking for such opportunities, but may not always receive notification of one in time. Look forward to the launch of this page, which I commit to updating at least once a month so that we can always have updates of events that we may want to attend.

For new content, I promised an article on Naturalistic Language Input. Here it is, as I combed through the major benefits of naturalistic input, such as exposing learners to contextual and linguistic variability, acclimating them to the culture embedded in the target language, and conditioning them to undergo natural language processing.

I know this article falls short of providing actionable tips. No worries, I’ve started on the next article on tips. Do look out for it, as it should be published by next week. Beyond that, May will be a month of delivering my promises (more resources!) and I will stay committed to write a couple more posts, albeit shorter in form. Till then, Adios!

Making a difference with you,
Chin Yew KIEU
Founder, Language Educators Assemble