Webinar: Changing with the Times: The 21st Century Classroom

Ahead of his webinar on 30th January on the same topic, Gareth Davies asks: How can we as teachers adapt to the changing needs of learners in the 21st Century?

Next time you are on public transport have a look at the range of technology on show. People will be playing computer games, reading from e-books, checking the internet, messaging their friends, listening to music, watching video, or if we are lucky, actually doing some English homework. The world has changed; our students have become digital.

How does this digitalisation of life affect our students when they come into our classrooms? Have their expectations changed or their behaviour patterns? Should we be looking to adapt our methodology to meet the modern challenges of 21st Century teaching?

I am not suggesting that we should completely revolutionise our teaching, it is not realistic to go completely digital; there is not the equipment available for a start. But what I am suggesting is that we can observe our students’ behaviour patterns to see how we can tinker with our methodology to allow the students to get the most out of our teaching.

Let’s take Social Media / texting as an example. Teachers who claim their students don’t even read or write in their own language are wrong. Students might not read long novels or write descriptive prose but they communicate frequently through this medium, making reading and writing an essential part of our syllabus. But students are used to dealing with messages of around 140 characters, so we need to adapt what we do in class so the reading and writing texts don’t seem too daunting for them.

In my webinar I will be looking at this and other examples of students’ digital behaviour to see what we can learn as teachers and how we can harness their new learning styles to bring success to their English learning. Remember: changing with the times does not mean throwing the baby out with the bath water and completely changing our teaching, it just means learning from our students and responding to them to help prepare them for the 21st Century.

To find out more about adapting your teaching to suit 21st Century learners’ needs, register for Gareth’s webinar on 30th January.