Innovation in Language Learning

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, it might be a truism to state that education and, consequently, the teaching-learning process have undergone a major shift and both teachers and students experienced either beneficial or negative learning situations which gave them insight into a brave new world of technology highlighting both its potentials as well as its hazards. Nonetheless, regardless of the struggles, these uncanny and challenging times forced teachers to make the most of the new online context to keep students engaged in learning, using the available technologies, and easily accessed by students. As such, as English language lecturers in higher education, we also had to adapt and come up with more innovative strategies so that students could practise not only linguistic skills, but also others, such as critical thinking and creativity [1] [2]. Based on our teaching experience during the last year and a half, in this paper we aim to present some activities, developed under a project-based approach [3], that the students were challenged to carry out, namely a coronavirus journal or vlog, a video CV and a multimodal essay. By showing some of the students’ works and how they reacted to the proposed tasks, we will prove the innovation and efficacy of such strategies in the language learning and teaching process.

Keywords: language learning, innovation, creativity, project-based learning, language teaching strategies.

References:

1. Lamry, J. (2019). The 21st Century Skills: How soft skills can make the difference in the digital era. The Next Society Editions.
2. Bellanca, J. & Brandt, R. (Eds.) (2010). 21st Century Skills. Rethinking how students learn. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
3. Cooper, R. & Murphy, Erin (2021). Project Based Learning. Highland Heights, OH: Times 10 Publications.