Chapter Online Event: Tim Murphey - An Ecological Jungle of Learning - October 17
Title: An Ecological Jungle of Learning: Partnering Students with Invitations to Teach, Reach, & Publish
Presenter: Tim Murphey, Visiting Professor
Research Institute for Learner Autonomy Education RILAE, Kanda University of International Studies
Abstract:
Inspiring students to do things that they have never done is not as difficult as it seems, if we approach them with our own confidence that they can amaze themselves and start with small steps. I will describe 7 activity types that scaffold them toward class publications that can potentially change their world. Starting with egalitarian classes in which their ideas are respected, students have shown themselves to want to and be able to write for their peers and others in remarkably interesting ways. The materials having been written by peers are even more interesting for students than normal texts and caste a certain charm into the reading students’ heads as they read saying, “This is good and I could maybe do it myself, the writer is just a student like me!”
Student Produced Texts (SPTs) allow for the creating of an ecological jungle of learning, not so clean, organized, and orderly as many teachers would wish but, definitely original, a place for new identities where actions can be taken by participants who realize they have the freedom to grow in their own way and create their own texts and worlds with the language they are learning, with their languaging (Swain et al, 2009), and their own novel assertions. SPTs can allow all students to participate in the making of everyone’s learning.
Suggested pre-reading: Murphey, T., (2021). Ask Your Students for a Change: Using Student Produced and Selected Materials (SPSMs) in Dialogic Pedagogy. The Language Teacher Vol 45, #5 Fall 2021 pp 9-16.
Please join us on Zoom. Please send an email with [JALT Ibaraki October meeting] in the subject line to jnumadate@gmail.com for the Zoom details.