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For 2017, we at InterCom will address key areas for language learning and teaching. Each month we will explore one of the principles below in detail. Aligned with a variety of perspectives, each is designed to highlight a “best practice” in the field of second language teaching and learning. We look forward to exploring each with you throughout the coming year!
- Function and meaning should be primary in language learning and teaching. Language learners should be given the skills needed to accomplish real world tasks in meaningful ways.
- Language is emergent, dynamic, and varied. This perspective should be integrated in curricular practice whenever possible.
- Pragmatics and intercultural elements of language should be integrated at the core of teaching and learning practices, even for novice learners.
- Input, interaction, and output are fundamental to language learning and each should be part of the process.
- Literacy includes a wide array reading and writing skills, all of which are equally important, spanning across modes of communication and communicative contexts.
- Assessment is fundamentally about learning and improvement. Reflection and feedback are at the core of the assessment process. Grades should only be reflective of that process.
- Research and practice should inform one another to improve research findings as well as classroom practice. Teaching is both an art and a science.
- Time on task is fundamental. For time on task to occur, learners need a learning space that is meaningful, relevant, and tied to their needs.
- Language is a skill to be learned, not a standard set of static content.
- Multimodal approaches to instruction should be used whenever possible to be as inclusive of diverse group of learners.
- Strategy instruction is critical to enhancing the learning process.
- Learner reflection enhances and transforms the language learning process.
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