School of English - AUTh

Description

Course Description

This workshop will focus on how literature, the arts, and cultural practices can be used as pedagogical tools employed in the educational process, and more specifically in the teaching of English as a foreign language (EFL). Literature, culture, and language will be considered not as isolated fields, but as naturally intertwined and engaged in an ongoing dialogue. Informed by modern theories of language as hybrid and dynamic and involved in a process of constant (re)construction, as well as poststructuralist approaches to literature and the arts that question their hegemonic nature, we will experiment on experiential and learner-centered educational methods that consider the cultural and personal background of students as a pivotal factor in the teaching process. Each week students will be called to engage actively in a number of creative activities, games, and improvisations related with the use of poetry, drama, fiction, film, etc. in the EFL classroom. There will also be 2-3 visits to schools during which students will have the opportunity to practice with young learners, while in the last three weeks of classes students will devise their own lesson plans and implement them through microteaching to their co-students.

Course Objectives

• to transfer learning in and through literature and the arts to language learning
  
• to familiarize students with modern experiential pedagogies
  
• to provide students with a set of tools which they will use in their own teaching
• to help them design a lesson plan for an EFL class
  
• to inspire students to study literature and language as an opportunity to understand and encourage an even more open and multicultural society

Teaching