Page 84 - Languages Victoria December 2019

Languages Victoria
TED Talks
What is a TED Talk?
A TED Talk is a showcase for speakers presenting great, well-formed ideas in under 18 minutes.
Why under 18 minutes?
This short talk model works, since it only demands the audience's attention for a short period of time, decreasing the chance of minds wandering or daydreaming about lunch. In fact, some of our greatest TED Talks have been as short as 5 minutes long!
What is a great, well-formed idea?
It can actually be one of two things:
• Something that’s new and surprising; an idea or invention that your
audience has never heard about.
• A great basic idea (that your audience has maybe already heard) with
a compelling new argument behind it that challenges beliefs and perspectives.
In other words, an idea isn’t just a story or a list of facts. A good idea takes certain evidence or observations and draws a larger conclusion.
Some suggested TED Talks of interest to Languages Teachers
How language shapes the way we think - Lera Boroditsky
Lera Boroditsky: How language shapes the way we think
Lera provides a very interesting perspective of how the language we speak influences the way we see the world. One of the languages she talks about is an Australian Indigenous language. This article explains a bit better her research at Stanford. https://stanfordmag.org/contents/you-say-up-i-say-yesterday
The benefits of a bilingual brain - Mia Nacamulli
Mia Nacamulli: The benefits of a bilingual brain
The following two talks offer innovative and creative ways of teaching a language (Arabic and Chinese, in these two presentations):
Ghada Wali: How I'm using LEGO to teach Arabic
ShaoLan: Learn to read Chinese ... with ease!
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