IATEFL Webinars 'Designing language classes and tasks with learner engagement in mind' | Sarah Mercer

Published on Mar 12, 2019

  • Event Date

    04/05/2019

  • Event Time

    15:00-16:00

"To be learning, learners need to be engaged. Learning needs action and attention. In today’s fast-paced world, everyone finds their attention being pulled in all directions and the struggle to concentrate and keep focus becomes ever more difficult. While there are no easy, quick solutions to the battle for learners’ attention, there are some strategies informed by psychology which help us understand how to design tasks and classes that are more likely to get learners engaged and actively learning. In this webinar, I will explain why engagement is so important for contemporary language educators to understand. The main focus will be on exploring a number of principles and concrete actions that can inform task design to capture and maintain learners’ attention. Without learner engagement, no matter how great your task, learning will not take place. Engagement is the key to successful learning."
 Bio: Sarah Mercer is Professor of Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Graz, Austria, where she is Head of ELT methodology. Her research interests include all aspects of the psychology surrounding the foreign language learning experience. She is the author, co-author and co-editor of several books in this area including, ‘Towards an Understanding of Language Learner Self-Concept’, ‘Psychology for Language Learning’, ‘Multiple Perspectives on the Self’ in SLA’, ‘New Directions in Language Learning Psychology’, ‘Positive Psychology in SLA’, ‘Exploring Psychology for Language Teachers’ (Winner of the IH Ben Warren Prize), and ‘Language Teacher Psychology’. Further information here! Registration here!  

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