LEA Newsletter May 2024

Greetings on the LEA Newsletter May 2024!

Dear LEA followers,

And here we’re on the last day of May. This has been quite a productive month, on LEA as well as on my professional front. I had the privilege of interacting with parents of different backgrounds to learn about their thoughts in guiding their children in learning languages in the context of Singapore. On hindsight, I realised that I might not have targeted parents too frequently in content creation for LEA, even though I did highlight that they are also part of the community. Not to say that current published content is irrelevant, but I’ll pledge to dedicate my time to producing a couple of articles directed at parents in Jun.

Coincidentally, I did promise on following up on the previous article on Naturalistic Language Input, a critical area in language learning on which parents play a significant role. In my follow-up piece, I presented 15 actionable strategies for language teachers to feature Naturalistic Language Input as part of a holistic language teaching approach. Under each strategy, I’ve also shared some tips on how to implement the strategy. While these are contextualised for teachers, parents can also take inspiration from some of the strategies.

This month, I’ve made some great enhancements to the resource pages. I newly launched the INFOGRAPHICS page last month which hosted only four images. I’ve stepped up creation this month and it’s now updated with another eight. More to come in Jun!

Additionally, I’ve also revamped both the GLOSSARY and READINGS pages. I do need to confess that these are two pages that I only update once in a while. The READINGS page is definitely more complete now with a wide representation of the books that I have referred to in building the content for this website. Moving on, I’d also include more others that I’ve read and are relevant and useful for language educators, even though I’ve yet to used them as direct references.

May also saw the launch of a new resource page: PROFESSIONAL EVENTS that facilitate our search for professional events (e.g. conferences, workshops, seminars) where we can participate. I’m seeking to update this more frequently, but you can already take a look at the list of events that run all the way till Nov 2024. Do also let me know if you’re hosting an event and would like fellow colleagues to attend them.

Last but not least, this month I also started a new approach to writing articles so that I can be nimbler in supporting our professional learning needs. I started a Spotlight Series where I aim to present recent research articles on topics in which we might be interested, but I’ve yet to have the bandwidth to do a more thorough exploration. It’s my attempt to work on short-form articles before transforming them into something more comprehensive on the same topic. For this month, the first spotlight is an article on DYSLEXIA IN CHINESE. If Dyslexia, Reading, and Chinese language(s) are some topics you’d follow, do enrich yourself with this spotlight article.

Over the upcoming fortnight, I’ll be traveling again, engaging in a mix of work-related tasks and leisure pursuits. I might focus more efforts on updating the glossary and updating some older articles. And yes, parents among us, you can look forward to some content next month on this. Till then!

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