As you probably know, last year was a diagnostic year for writing; this year we
remedy problems we noticed in the area of writing and we zero in on young
learners and reading. Questionnaires were submitted to teachers and learners and
an action research on young learners is under way. The objectives of this
seminar are to:
- Analyse present practices in Young Learner(YL) classes.
- Reflect upon and update the teaching and testing of young learners.
- Analyse and update the teaching and testing of reading at secondary level.
- Discuss issues related to regional difficulties and problems encountered by
practitioners in the areas of YL and reading skills.
- Produce a national report on YL and reading to be submitted to an outside
expert.
- Get feedback and input from an outside specialist on the latest developments
in testing YL and reading skills.
- Produce two training modules: one on YL, another on reading.
Reviewing and discussing CLT
After introducing the guest speaker Melinda Erickson, lecturer at the University
of California and R.E.L.O Rebecca Smoak, the guest speaker opened the session:
"Good morning. Thank you sincerely for this opportunity to be with you this
morning. Inspector General Jawida Ben Afia and Regional English Language Officer
Rebecca Smoak have made this arrangement possible. And, although I have taught
for 25 years and conducted workshops in the U.S., Guatemala, and China, this is
my first opportunity to be in Africa. After only three days here, I can easily
understand why people have said that Tunisia is a wonderful place to start." ...
By and large, there are two approaches to scoring students' written work: the
global or holistic approach (henceforth HA) and the analytical approach (AA)...The
question that remains unanswered is: which approach fits in with the Tunisian
context and can be adopted/adapted
Yes, the complexity of reading is such that many attempts to define and to
analyze such a process tend to be superficial and unsatisfactory. The difficulty
of formulating a definition is there. The areas of perception, psychology of
learning, linguistics, social psychology and language learning are a few of
thefields contributing to an understanding of the Reading Process.
