24 April 2021 - 24 April 2021
10:00AM - 4:00PM
Online via Zoom
free
UK Lingua 2021. This year's theme is Learning Gain: How do we ensure that our students keep learning?
Learning gain has been defined as the ‘distance travelled’ or the learning acquired by students between two points of their education. (The Ofsted EIF for Schools refers to progression as ‘knowing more and remembering more).
This learning is not just knowledge of content - vocabulary retention, improvement in comprehension or oral/ aural / written skills in a particular language; it may include those soft or transferable skills such as problem solving, learning to learn, time management, communication skills, open-mindedness, critical thinking, and so on.
Unlike ‘value added’ as generally used in secondary education (an indicator of school performance, with a focus on the difference between predicted grades and actual test scores) the concept of learning gain has more in common with notions of transition and progression. It can be useful for measuring quality improvement, facilitating students’ learning, and fostering accountability, transparency and comparability between educational institutions.
As educators we may use strategies to ensure that learning takes place
There are various methods of measuring learning gains - standardised tests, grade comparison, surveys, student self-reporting, Personal Development Porfolios, Skills Awards, etc.
The focus of this year’s UK Lingua conference will be “Learning Gain”, understood in the widest sense of the term.
Our keynote speakers are Dr Ursula Lanvers and Joe Dale.
Since this year UK Lingua will take place online, the format will be different to optimise the time for discussion and networking. We will have two keynote speakers and the rest of the day will have parallel round tables and focus groups where issues to do with language learning and teaching will be discussed in small groups (further information to come). There will also be 'meet and chill' zoom rooms for people to network.
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Associate Professor in Language Education
Dr Lanvers is Associate Professor in Language Education at the University of York. She has worked at the Open University, Durham University and University of Exeter. She obtained her PhD on Infant bilingualism in 2000 at the University of Exeter. She has published extensively on language learner motivation, language education policy and the language learning landscape in the UK. She is interested in policy, linguistic, pedagogical and affective effects of global English on language learning.
