Thank you for stopping by the Inclusive Approaches blog. I’m Michelle Worgan and here I’ll be sharing my thoughts, experiences and ideas about teaching and learning approaches.
So why the new website and blog?
A few months ago I decided I wanted to take my career in a new direction. It wasn’t that I was unhappy with my work as a materials writer, far from it. I’ve worked on some wonderful projects over the last few years and I’m looking forward to my upcoming projects. But I also needed something new to get my teeth into. Something of my own, that I could really feel passionate about.
And what am I passionate about? Young learner teaching. Well, actually, young learner education. Because although I am an English Language (EFL) teacher, I’ve always been interested in education as a whole. Yes, I teach children a language. But I’ve always felt that my job was more than that. More than teaching vocabulary and structures. More than setting up a few fun games to practise new words. More than reading stories and singing songs. Of course, as an English teacher I do all those things, as I’m sure you do, too. But it doesn’t stop there.
I’ve tried different approaches with my learners over the years. Several years ago (possibly ten!) I created a soft CLIL course to use with my own learners. And it was then that I started to think more about what we do in our lessons. I realised that English, like any language, is a vehicle for communicating with others and for learning. And that the learning that happens in the ELT classroom doesn’t just have to be linguistic.
Learner-centred approaches
More recently, I’ve been exploring learner-centred approaches. And that’s what this blog will be about. Learner-centred approaches are more inclusive than traditional teacher-centred methodologies because they allow for flexibility. You can build this flexibility into many different aspects of a lesson, project or even a syllabus. They’re more inclusive because the learner has some control over what they learn and how they learn it. Learners have the option to choose what works best for them.
So here on this blog, you might read about inquiry, project and play-based learning, among other approaches. I’ll share ideas about project topics, classroom management, assessment, and more. And I’ll also share with you interesting articles and blog posts to read, any resources I find, and videos to watch.
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I hope to see you back here soon!
There is so little material for teaching young children, especially here in France. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience. Merci beaucoup Michelle