Unveiling quality language education insights: LEA Newsletter Feb 2023 Edition

Greetings on the LEA Newsletter for Feb 2023!

I am thrilled to announce that the resources page on the website is up and running. I have starting curating a glossary of specialised terms that are relevant to language education and compiled a list of 30 inspirational books for language educators to kickstart your lesson ideation and planning and supercharge your professional learning.

In addition, there is an array of resources which I seek to consolidate in the pipeline. Where possible, I am also looking to curate some resources based on the different approaches I have shared in my articles. It might take some time to introduce them, but stay tuned for more awesomeness.

This month, I also have a great line-up of articles for you. I have always wanted to examine my hypotheses about the different routes to reading, and my article on the Science of Reading gives a comprehensive introduction to 9 key insights which I found most important. Something surprising for me was that reading scientists have generally converged on the understanding that readers of any language will use the same two routes to reach reading comprehension, albeit with slight variation. I encourage you to read this article, especially if you are a fervent reader yourself and prioritise reading as part of language education.

I am a fan of quite a number of podcasts and can identify how different podcasts can become effective instructional materials in language classrooms. This is why I also wrote an article to explore that further with the motivation to discover how other language educators around the world are using podcasts. Although research on this topic is not extensive, I have identified around 5 major ways which language educators are using podcasts to enhance listening and reading in their language classrooms. Do check them out – it might trigger amazing ideas for your next unit of lessons.

My last featured article this month is a bit more specific: I published a comprehensive guide to the features of Chinese Language (Mandarin), which I hope you will find valuable. You may be teaching or learning Mandarin – this article can be more than a refresher to highlight key intricacies of the language. You may be teaching students with Mandarin (or some other Chinese Language) as a native/proficient language – and sometimes wonder about their assumptions of other languages. I hope this article can shed light on some of your questions through identification of the features in Mandarin.

Thank you for your continued support and readership. If you have any feedback or suggestions for future articles, please do not hesitate to reach out to me. Also, if you have inspiring stories or personal research to share, you are most welcome to contribute and publish on our website.

Please help me share this newsletter with fellow language educators so that we can grow together professionally. Till our next newsletter!

Making a difference with you,

Chin Yew KIEU

Founder, Language Educators Assemble