Generation Z – Six main Characteristics

We are living in the world, that changes fast. And new generation “Z” is much more different from generation “Y” than generation “X” and generation of “Baby Boomers”. Maybe, it’s because of a world, changing much faster than ever before or because of changing relationships between parents and children, maybe because of technology. Anyway a new Generation Z has come. Meet them and get ready to them

Cynical.

While the Generation Z students are fairly happy and well-adjusted, they are not giddy like so many of Generation Y kids were in the 90s. They tend to be more realistic not idealistic, seemingly jaded from the tough economy, terrorism and complexities of life.

Private.

Perhaps it’s because they watched their older siblings get in trouble from posting controversial content on social media, but younger teens don’t want to be tracked. Apps like Snapchat and Whisper have seen explosive growth in the last few years. In contrast, Facebook has lost 25 percent of this demographic since 2011.

Entrepreneurial.

Like Millennials, these students plan to be pioneers, not merely settlers in a career. 72% of current high school students want to start a business. They feel like hackers, not slackers, they know life is hard and requires work.

Multi-tasking.

Generation Z kids are taking multi-tasking to a new level. They prefer to be on 5 screens at once, and you should be ready to get only a part of their attention, they won’t concentrate it all on you.

Hyper-aware.

Generation Z has communicated enough with marketing researchers and academics to reveal the experience of 4D Thinking. Their minds are streaming in a number of directions. They’ve become post-moderns who are hyper aware of their surroundings.

Technology-reliant.

While Generation “Y” were “addicted” to technology (E.G: in minds of our parents), teens of Gen “Z” put technology in the same category as air and water. They cannot imagine living without being connected all the time.

Thanks, Tim Elmore, whose article became a basis for this post.

601 – Please, express your opinion about Gen Z and what do You believe to be the main difference between “Z” and “Y” Generations.

Looking through the CORE DIMENSIONS of FLT expertise and Practice

There’re 9 dimensions of teacher knowledge and skill:

• Language proficiency factor.

As it’s noticed the most FL teachers are not native speakers, but it doesn’t really matter. The thing, making teacher a good one is his ability to provide good language models and maintaining target language in a classroom, giving good and correct explanations in the target language

• Speaking the role of a content knowledge,

all of us may notice, that it refers to what teachers need to know about what they teach.

However, here we should distinguish disciplinary knowledge (phonology, grammar, etc.) and pedagogical content knowledge (a basis for language teaching, such as classroom management, teaching “4 skills”)

• Teaching Skills

A teacher has to have a repertoire of techniques and routines that include a complete plan of a lesson.

• Learner-focused teaching

Teaching is a kind of performance. It must be oriented in a student. Effective teachers develop a sense of community among their students using group-based activities and student’s life experience.

• Pedagogical reasoning skills

It’s a specialized kind of thinking that teachers possess to make use of in planning and conducting their lessons.

• Theorizing of practice

A developing of personal beliefs and knowledge, putting them in order to get a better result.

• Developing principles and a teaching philosophy

According to Bailey, it’s a further stage in theorizing from practice, when teachers formulate principles that they refer to when planning and evaluating their teaching and to the personal philosophy which guides their decision making

• Membership of a community of practice

Maybe the most important thing. ‘Cause every teacher needs to have some collaboration with other teachers for sharing and developing his own principles and methods.

• Professionalism

Teaching is not just a thing that can be done by any person, who knows language. It’s a way of living and an agree to make career and develop yourself within your profession from day to day from task to task you give and complete.

Please, comment on the article and ask your questions.

INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNOLOGY COMPETENCE

Competence can be defined as a balance of “knowledge”, ”skills” and “abilities” needed to perform certain tasks in class. Nowadays, the ability to select and apply instructional technology tools is one of the most important parts of the teaching process. This ability, which is called IT competence facilitates solving teaching problems and compiling information more efficiently.

IT competence is based on the knowledge of appropriate application of instructional technology resources in the process of  EFL teaching.

For us it is very important to know your opinion on this matter. Could you share your ideas with us answering the following question:

1. Are you IT competent? What are the most salient components of IT competence?

2. Can you name the most important reasons of using technologies in class?

3. What sources do you use to make your lesson more efficient and more interesting?

4. Can you describe the future development of using technologies in class? What should we expect in ten years time?

Please share your thoughts in comments!!=)) ↓↓↓

Using Authentic Materials in Teaching Languages

For the purposes of the present study, authentic materials are deemed to be the best choice to introduce the target language to a group of  learners. In addition, they are a good choice for all  learners as they provide input from the target culture. This input is unique because it is quite possibly the same input that a learner of the target language could be receiving in their language class in another country.

The terms authenticity and authentic are often used to describe language samples – both oral and written – that reflect the naturalness of form, and appropriateness of cultural and situational context (Rogers & Medley, 1988). Throughout the history of English language teaching  (ELT), authenticity is taken as being synonymous with genuineness, realness, truthfulness, validity, reliability, undisputed  credibility, and legitimacy of materials or practices (Tatsuki, 2006).

Taylor (1994) describes types of authenticity as distinguished by Breen (1985) which fall into the categories of authenticity of task, authenticity of language, and authenticity of situation. For the purposes of the present study, the data consists of circumstances where authenticity of the language is used. Authenticity of the language is presented by authentic texts, authentic tasks and authentic songs.

A good way to approach authentic materials in the foreign language classroom is to define them as items made for the native speaker, in the target language, for the native speakers use in their target culture. From this definition of authenticity a definition of authentic input can be put forth as: the use of authentic materials from the target culture which are presented in the target language, such as songs, stories, games and play, which are derived from the target culture.

Authentic materials are becoming valued as positive tools to use in the second language classroom because of the encouraging opportunities for learning that it provides.

What other pecularities of using the authentic materials can you mention? Is it important to use them during our classes? Do we have to use only authentic texts and task? Please share your thoughts and idead in comments!!=)) ↓↓↓

The Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Ukraine in Kirovohrad

Today the students of Kirovohrad State Pedagogical University have had an extremely interesting meeting with Simon Smith, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Great Britain to Ukraine.

Mr. Smith visited Kirovohrad to check and consult the British military instrustors who collabotrate with Ukrainian Military Forces.

“Our campaign is focused on teaching Ukrainian soldiers how to conduct first medical aid on the battlefield. With the head of administration we’ve discussed the possible administrative reforsm in Ukraine and specifically in Kirovohrad region”, – said Simon Smith.

Besides, Mr. Ambassador shared his experience of learning foreign languages telling funny stories that had happened to him during his journeys to Japan, Austria and Ukraine. Mr. Smith also explained why the United Kingdom tends to get out of the European Union and commented on the debates on this issue inside the country. Mr. Ambassador said: “My primary job is to explain all the pecularities of British-Ukrainian relationship and to show that we are really friendly towards Ukraine”.

What else could you tell about today’s sitting? Have you liked it? A lot of questions were asked at the meeting. Please, share the most interensing ideas that you’ve heard during our talk today.
All are welcomed to the comments!!=))) ↓↓↓

5 Must-Haves for a Successfull English Lesson

All teachers of English should know that an effective, useful and at the same time interesting class cannot be possible without certain  points.

Here are 5 tip for the teachers of English how to organize the work in the class :

1. Start with a warmer

Your students may come in to your classroom at the beginning of the lesson with their previous subject still on their mind. Therefore, we need something to get them thinking in English, t0 make our lesson more effective. It may be a review of the previous lesson, a topic connected to today’s lesson, or simply something fun to put your students in a positive mood.

2. Each activity needs a lead-in stage

Lead-in stages are important not only at the start of the lesson, but they are actually needed for each task. Again, this is to create interest in the task and to ‘warm students up’ to it. Lead-ins may simply be asking questions about the task I context / characters / grammar point etc. but the aim is to prepare students for what they are about to do.

3. Use Instructions Checking Questions (ICQs)

Teaching English is different from teaching other subjects due to its communicative nature. Our students need communicative tasks in class, but this very idea of in-class communication may be unusual for some students. Therefore, when we set up tasks, we need to give very clear instructions. Instructions should be brief, always provided with an example or demonstration, and most importantly, we need to check that students understand what to do.

Instructions Checking Questions are questions which test whether students have understood the task, and some examples are: Are you going to write or speak?’,’ Where do you write the answers?.’ How many questions are you going to ask your partner? We know how much our students have understood based on the way they answer our ICQs.

4. Lanauage Presentation: PPP

The three main stages of a language lesson: Presentation, practice and production. The main point which is often overlooked / forgotten about in the presentation stage, however, is pronunciation. As with vocabulary, it is important to make students aware of pronunciation issues with things like contractions (I’ll I won’t / I’ve been etc), confusing pronunciations like can/ can’t etc.

5. Elicit as much as possible

There is a very well-known quote from Benjamin Franklin, and it says: “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn.” By eliciting language from students, we are involving them in the learning process. By being involved, there is a bigger chance that they will learn more effectively than if the teacher simply stood at the front of the room and told them everything, lecture-style.

IMHO these are very important pieces of advice for the teachers of English. Maybe you will add something more? Please, share your thougts with us in comments. ↓↓↓

THE SELFIE REVOLUTION

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The tasks are here!))

The Socratic Method

Primary goals of the method

• The question “Why?”
• Critical Thinking

Steps of the Socratic method:

• Create open ended question
• Begin the discussion
• Focus conversation on topic
• Allow the equal time from all members
• Students need to elaborate and clarify

Leader’s responsibility is :

• To clarify
• Synthesize
• Restate opinions

Participants must think and speak persuasively with support

Instructional Scaffolding

Scaffolding is an often-used construct to describe the ongoing support provided to a learner by an expert.

Instructional scaffolding is a learning process designed to promote a deeper level of learning. Scaffolding is the support given during the learning process which is tailored to the needs of the student with the intention of helping the student achieve his/her learning goals (Sawyer, 2006).

Instructional scaffolding is the provision of sufficient support to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students. These supports may include the following:

• resources
• a compelling task
• templates and guides
• guidance on the development of cognitive and social skills

Use of instructional scaffolding in various contexts:

• modeling a task
• giving advice
• providing coaching

These supports are gradually removed as students develop autonomous learning strategies, thus promoting their own cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge. Teachers help the students master a task or a concept by providing support. The support can take many forms such as outlines, recommended documents, storyboards, or key questions.

EXTREME EMPLOYEES

I. RANK IT!
Which is most important in your life? Rank the items in order.

1. Family
2. Work/ Career
3. Friends/ Colleagues
4. Leisure time
5. Personal growth and development

II. READING

     Although some countries like France and Australia have begun to experiment with additional vacation time to balance work and personal happiness, the worldwide trend has progressed in the opposite direction. For example, Japan has long been known for its excruciating workweeks. Employees in other countries are falling victim to longer and longer hours at the office in recent years, too. The result is a new type of employee, called the “extreme employee.”

From a pool of more than two million surveys of high-salaried employees in the US, it’s clear that you need to work more if you want to advance up the corporate ladder. The extreme employee demonstrates more than simple dedication to the company, though. He believes in the proposition that there’s always more he could–and should!–do. If you count the time it takes to commute to the office, then 70-hour workweeks are common. He makes himself available to clients and office emergencies 24/7 as well. He also takes far fewer vacation days than he’s allotted, roughly ten days or less per year.

Worse, however, and perhaps more exasperating, is the fact that most extreme employees admit dissatisfaction. More than half believe they would be physically healthier with less work. A lack of free time also harms the relationship with their children. Slightly less than half complained that the long hours had a detrimental effect on spousal relations.

Experts advocate discovering ways to get the seventy-hour workweek down to a more modest forty-five hours. Although corporations haven’t yet accomplished this feat for high-impact jobs, some major corporations are trying. American Express, Johnson & Johnson, and more than thirty others are working towards ways to reduce the pressure on managers to perform and produce.

III. GUIDE QUESTIONS

1. What do you think about extreme employees?
2. How does your job affect your relationship with the people around you? Please explain
3. If parents work more and more, how will this affect future generations of children?

Adapted from http://www.headsupenglish.com/