Playfulness in Language Learning and Teaching - Online Workshop

The Online Confucius Institute at The Open University will host an exciting online workshop ‘Playfulness in Language Learning and Teaching’ on Friday March 1^st (between 1pm and 2:30pm).

This workshop is aimed at Mandarin Chinese language teachers who would like to implement playfulness and games in their teaching, but it is also suitable for teachers of other languages.  The workshop will be highly interactive, with the first half focusing on pedagogy and benefits of playfulness in language teaching, and the second half turning into practical application. You will also have the opportunity to design your own game plan. The outline of the workshop is as follows: 

• the pedagogical value of playfulness in foreign language teaching; 
• how to make use of the existing games for language teaching (with examples);  
• practical application: development of own game ideas/adaptation of own materials; 
• discussion of practicalities (time frame, organisation) in small group classes in the context of teaching Mandarin Chinese. 
• creating your draft plan for a game and presenting it to the group. 

About the workshop facilitator:

The workshop will be led by Ximena Arias-Manzano who is an experienced Associate Lecturer in Spanish in the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics at the Open University. Ximena has also learnt Mandarin Chinese with the Open University and has been involved in the development of the Chinese language materials.

Ximena is also Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a teacher-trainer in the use of virtual language environments. She enjoys teaching through play and has designed several games to use in the classroom with the view of catering for all learning styles.  She is particularly interested in the process of teaching languages to adults with learning difficulties and how to cater for their needs in the best possible way.

*Limited spaces available*

There are limited spaces available on the workshop. If you are interested in attending, please send an expression of interest to our OCI Chinese Director, Ligao Wu by 12th February 2024.
Email: ligao.wu@open.ac.uk 

Update 05/03/24:

The recording from the workshop is now available below.