1. Back to Basics Bled Slovenia 21-25 October 2012

2. Welcome This seminar marks 18 years of annual professional seminars designed to standardize military language education and training in support of NATO exercises, operations and staffing. Theme: Back to Basics

3. Dr H.H. Stern OISE BILC 1976 12 July, Québec “What is new in Language Training?” Strategies of exceptional language learners 1.Adaptive 2.Active 3.Formal 4.Functional/Communicative 5.Internalized 6.Affective

4. Learning Strategies Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; Teach a man to fish and he’ll feed himself for a lifetime Corollaries Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish and you will not have to listen to his incessant whining about how hungry he is. Teach a man to fish and he will spend every available moment sitting in a boat drinking beer. Teach a man to fish and you no longer own him.

5. Sometimes the easiest strategy isn’t the best:

6. Learning Strategies Rebecca Oxford Andrew D. Cohen Anna Uhl Chabot Learning Styles (eg, Baran) Questionnaires (eg, SILL) ESL Learning Strategies Learning taxonomies (eg, Bloom)

7. Skill Sets ListeningListening SpeakingSpeaking ReadingReading WritingWriting Levels 1-3

8. Listen

9. Listening Predict Guess Relate Focus Ask Respond Review

10. Speaking Seek opportunities Memorize songs and stories to recite Imitate videos with gestures Exaggerate sounds, words and phrases privately Ask for help Do not take yourself too seriously

11. Minimal responses “Scripts” (social phrases) Dialogues and discussion about language Purpose and audience Narratives Reports Speaking

12. Reading Skim Read closely Make notes –Vocabulary, phrases Pace yourself Ask questions Summarize

13. Writing Describe –Point of view –Audience –Selection of detail Narrate –Sequence –Reporting speech/action/attitude Imitate Inform Analyze Summarize and précis

14. Commons

15. Learning materials Authentic (within reason!) Graduated –Measurement tools Current Relevant Personalized Varied Relevance Motivation Retention

16. Set Goals How do I get to the Opera from here?

17. Teacher Training Do you provide PD in “language learning strategies” to you teaching staff? Do your teachers engage students in identifying their own language learning strategies? Do you aid students in developing and exploiting their metacognitive skills?

18. Basics Goal: provide stimulating opportunities for selected military members to develop general and specific linguistic proficiency and to maintain that proficiency Means: professional guidance and assessment You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you. »W. Somerset Maugham(1874 - 1965), The Razor's Edge, 1943 Outcome: interoperability within NATO (and.... )

19. Food for thought It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. –Mark Twain (1835 - 1910) To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation. –François de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680) The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think. – Edwin Schlossberg (1945 - ) Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. –Sir Richard Steele (1672-1729) To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. Edmund Burke (1729 – 1797)

20. Caveat There is no magic bullet/pill/method Critics of LLS emphasize motivation, application, and autonomy as keys to effective learning A quiver with one arrow, however, is soon empty

21. Reality check