Course : Translanguaging in the Greek EFL classroom

Study Guide

Translanguaging in the  Greek EFL Classroom

Course responsible instructor

Militsi Anna

Mode of work: There will be no synchronous meetings. Instead, you are expected to follow the reading and assignment schedule and interact with each other using the platform’s forum, chat or asynchronous messages.

Platform: Free Open Class (freeopenclass.org). Free Open Class is a platform used for the purposes of asynchronous courses to share reading and enable easy communication between the trainees and the instructor. You will also use the Free Open Class platform for checking updates on the syllabus, for accessing reading material, lecture recordings and for uploading your responses to the tasks and final assignment.

Required Reading: Please see the respective sessions. The additional reading is for further referencing.

Course Description: The course aims at familiarizing the participants with the current developments in the field of didactics and specifically to the incorporation of translanguaging practices in their EFL classroom. The course defines translanguaging and discusses how it can be implemented in the classroom

Course Objectives:

Upon completion of the course, the participants should be able to :

• reflect upon and discuss what constitutes translanguaging and what the benefits of its incorporation in the Greek EFL classroom are
• design translanguaging activities to be implemented in their classrooms
• critically present and evaluate their lesson plan, as well as, their peers’

Course Requirements:

Preparation: The course will be based on pre-recorded lectures , PowerPoint presentations, videos and Pdf articles, which you will have access throughout the duration of the course. You will be expected to have listened to the recording and read the course material in order to facilitate a vibrant discussion in the forum and help support you in your questions.

Assignments:

• Active participation in the discussion stream in the forum
• Completion of the weekly written tasks
• The draft of a lesson plan

Dear fellow colleagues,

 For starters, I would like to express my gratitude for your taking the time to participate in this pilot version of the e-course "Translanguaging in the Greek EFL classroom". 

This e-course has been designed for the purposes of my Master's thesis  "Incorporating translanguaging practices in the Greek EFL context: Designing, developing and implementing an e-course for pre- and in-service English language teachers"  (M.Ed. in TEFL/TEIL, at Hellenic Open University for the academic year 2019-2020).

As you will see, there are no synchronous meetings; to compensate for the lack of vis-a-vi interaction,  I urge you to use the chat, wiki and blog modules to get to know each other and communicate your questions, ideas, concerns and suggestions. Additionally, since this e-course addresses both pre- and in-service teachers, it is only safe to assume that some of the participants might be more experienced than others. My own very brief experience as an EFL teacher has taught me that our fellow colleagues-teachers can constitute a great source of encouragement, inspiration and wisdom. So, do not hesitate to pose questions and express your thoughts, doubts and seek for advice if you need to.

I sincerely hope that you find this e-course to be helpful and/or insightful. After its completion, I would appreciate it if you could answer a questionaire and/or make yourselves available for a brief interview and share with me your overall impression of this learning experience. More specifically, I am looking to improve this e-course, and therefore, any comments  you may have ,positive or negative, are equally more than welcome. 

Take your time to navigate through the platform and familiarize yourself with it. Every document and link you'll need to have access to is for ease of reference gathered at the "learning path" section on the left side of your screen. This is a 4-week, task-based course that asks for your active participlation in the forum discussions and requires only one final assignment that is to be submitted at the end of the 4rth week. The present e-course was informed by Dr. Stathopoulou's e-course Translanguaging Practices in the Foreign Language Course: Teaching & Assessing Written Mediation, which was offered within the framework of the Pre-service Teacher Training programme at the Faculty of English and formed part of an elective course entitled TEFL Practicum. 

Should there be any questions regarding the e-course's structure, contents etc. you can either post your question in the chatroom or the forum. If you are facing time constraints and cannot complete the tasks or assignment, contact me and we will figure something out.

Kind regards,

Militsi Anna

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1stQOBgz5a7HzjR17dblPt2BtJ9sHUKBYwa-bj0Rqw1s/edit

If you could please answer this questionnaire prior to taking the course, I would be most obliged!

Dear participants, for the e-course’s first session you are expected to have completed the required reading and to have watched the lecture  in order to a) familiarize yourselves with the subject area of translanguaging and to b) facilitate the completion of the accompanying tasks. If you are facing time constraints please make sure to browse through the readings and try to identify possible answers to the module’s questions. 

This week's topic are:

1) How is translanguaging defined?

2) What comprises translanguaging practices?

3) What are the benefits of incorporating translanguaging practices in the classroom?

4) The role of translanguaging as a social just pedagogical practice.

This week will be focused on the various applications of translanguaging in the EFL classrooms. More specifically, we will explore  strategies and ideas that can be implemented for the development of the four skills (reading, speaking, listening, writing) and ways to prepare your classrooms to facilitate translanguaging activities and create space for translanguaging.

This week's topics:

1) How to use translanguaging in Greek classrooms to facilitate the four skills (writing, speaking, listening, reading).

2) Overview of useful activities.

3) How to create a translanguaging learning space in the EFL classroom.

This week will be devoted to mediation as a translanguaging practice. We will explore the notions of interlinguistic and intralinguistic mediation among others. We will touch upon the origins of the term and seek out ways through which such a practice can be incorporated in the EFL classroom.

This week's topics:

1) What is mediation and how is it distinguished from translation?

2) How does the CEFR define mediation?

3) What is the difference between interlinguistic and intralinguistic mediation?

4) Mediation as a translanguaging practice: How can it be applied in the Greek EFL classroom?

5) Designing mediation tasks: characteristics and requirements

The last week of the course will focus on the design and implementation of translanguaging practices in the EFL classroom. We will read and watch activities for creating a translanguaging learning space and explore the possible challenges and constraints presented in such an endeavor. The outcome of this week’s readings and lectures will be the design of your own lesson plan based on the translanguaging practices we examined during the previous weeks of the course.

This week's topics :

1) Designing and implementing a lesson plan which incorporates the translanguaging pedagogy

2) What is the teacher’s role in a translanguaging classroom?

3) Possible challenges and constraints.