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Marc Helgesen (Miyagi Gakuin Women's University, Sendai Japan
The Science of Happiness
Hyatt Hotel
Manila
February 11-12
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Happiness 2.0 and ELT and the Science of Happiness
Happiness 2.0: New ideas from the Science of Well-being
Marc Helgesen, Miyagi Gakuin Women's University, Sendai Japan
Positive Psychology explores happiness, positive emotion and those things that allow us to flourish. In this session, we’ll look at some key ideas from positive psychology and ways to use them in the classroom via activities with clear language and communication goals. Specifically, we’ll look at some of the more recent developments in Positive Psychology and Brain Science. This includes Martin Seligman’s PERMA Model (Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, Accomplishment) and Barbara Fredrickson’s Positive Emotion “Tipping Point”. We’ll connect them to the English Learning Classroom.
ELT and the Science of Happiness: Positive psychology in the classroom
Positive, motivated students -- engaged in what they are studying and with each other -- learn more. How do we facilitate that positive attitude in the language classroom? This activity-based session looks at ways positive psychology (TIME magazine calls it “The Science of Happiness”) can be combined with clear language learning goals for active, invested learning. This is more than “positive self-talk”. It is sharing with our students the concrete behaviors that happy people engage in. We’ll look at the set-point of personal affect and the tipping point of positivity. A handout of 20 positive psychology ELT activities will be provided.
Language Learning and the senses
Marc Helgesen
Teaching English means more than knowing about ELT. It includes knowing how we teach, including our own teaching and learning styles, and knowing who we are – in relation to our students. That includes sensory awareness. Barring a disability, we all have five senses. Every bit of information we take in comes through sight, hearing, touch/movement, smell or taste. Why then are classes often limited to visual (Look at page 35.) and auditory input (Listen!)?
Everyone has one strongest “preferred” sense (also known as a “learning style” or a “learning channel”.) Most of us also have a weak one. We often teach in the sense we process most easily. What about learners weak in that sense? This activity-based session will explore sensory modalities (learning styles or learning channels), ways to identify our own and learners’ preferred sense, and how to teach across the senses. Participants will receive a handout showing how to modify listening, speaking and reading activities to include a wider range of sensory input. It really does make sense!
Rethinking traditional tasks: English in 3-D, a fresh look at dialogs, dictation and drills.
Dialogs, dictation and drills are all standard techniques -- so standard that they often become boring. Like any “traditional techniques,” they are sometimes criticized as ineffective and out-of-date. Certainly, just being traditional doesn’t make something good …or bad. However, although criticized, they continue to be used. Maybe instead of throwing them out, we can look at ways to improve them by adding features of progressive language teaching. In this workshop, we’ll attempt to identify the deeper essence of these activities. In groups, the participants will explore how they use the techniques, their reasons, and new possibilities – options – for each. We will explore options to reinvent the tasks for increased effectiveness, affect and learner interest by building in communicative elements.
Let’s get physical: Warm-ups that include language and movement.
Why use warm-up activities that use both physical movement and language? There are many reasons. Physical movement gets everyone involved. It makes use of multiple sensory modalities – and that means everyone is getting input in the sense the use most easily. They also build a cooperative, positive classroom culture. The activities can trigger the imagination, provide a break in the classroom routine…and they are fun. Learners do more when they are engaged with the activity. This activity-based session will introduce a series of warm-up activities that involve language and movement as well as a rationale for using them. These are activities the presenter uses with university students but are useful from high elementary school on up. And here’s the irony: even though they use more energy than many classroom tasks, they also generate energy, whether in your classes or at the end of a long day of conferencing. Enjoy. It’ll move you.
ER: Extensive Reading / Effective reading (shorter session – 45 minutes to an hour.
Reading is the magic skill. When taught effectively, it increases not only reading ability but, because of improvements in vocabulary and language fluency, listening and speaking ability goes up, too. So does motivation. Any reading program needs balance. In too many programs, there is an over emphasis on accuracy and testing, usually of lower-level comprehension skills such as literal understanding. There is too little focus on higher-level processing and on reading fluency. This hands-on session will explore extensive reading extensive reading, reasons to do it and ways of having students report on their reading that appeal to different learning styles/ intelligence.
Biodata
Marc Helgesen is author of more than 150 professional articles, books and textbooks including the English Firsthand series (Pearson Education/Longman Asia) and has lead teacher development workshops on 5 continents. He is professor at Miyagi Gakuin Women's University, Sendai and adjunct at Teachers College Columbia University, MA Program, Tokyo.
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