Young Learners & Creativity

wakeupthebestinyou.wordpress.com -

According to Mckay (2012), "Children bring to their language learning their own personalities, likes and dislikes and interests, their own individual cognitive styles and capabilities and their own strengths and weaknesses. These characteristics of children set them apart from older learners" in that set of mind, I believe we, as teachers, could use such specific characteristics to improve language learning as well as the cognitive area, that can at the same time enhance other areas of children's lives.  I have stumble upon a very, very interesting reading that would be worth reading, please do so and I can't wait for  your comments, (it's in Spanish) click on the link!

http://www.lavanguardia.com/lacontra/20101103/54063818455/la-creatividad-se-aprende-igual-que-se-aprende-a-leer.html

alawan.org -

 

Alternative Assessment Methods

thede-tech-tive4teachers.blogspot.com

Since understanding what alternative assessment is, and the wonderful benefits it has on students learning and on us, as teachers, I have felt very curious about it and did a little search on the web for more methods and activities that go beyond portfolios, journals, interviews and questionnaires; I came across with a wonderful piece of writing from the CAL (Center for Applied Linguistics), the author gives many innovative, fun, and practical ideas to use with our students, which I would like to share with you, since they are really easy, usable and contain real language!
here is a link to their website, please read it, and bare in mind that through alternative assessment, "students are evaluated on what they integrate and produce rather than on what they are able to recall and reproduce" (Huerta- Macias, 1995, p. 9).

Please let me know what you think!

 http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/tannen01.html