Watch before you read...
Although evidence-based learning strategies sounds like a dry and distant topic, we think you’ll be surprised by the exciting collection we have gathered here. Start with the Todd Zakrajsek video and see if you can get through it without laughing. Almost impossible! In fact, you might end up laughing so hard that you’ll have to go to Julia Daley’s delightful summary to pick up the main points.
When we get to the Think Tank, Andre Hedlund and Houston Hall take three evidence-based learning principles and give us practical applications for the classroom. Jason Lowes, a leading learning expert in Asia, then integrates these three principles with others into a larger context. These strategies were developed through research in education and cognitive science, critical to our field, yet still unknown to most language teachers (though we intend to change that). Finally, veteran contributor Harumi Kimura closes the Think Tank by telling us about her research on language learning study habits as exemplified in two case studies and her own experience.
Of course, we do not want to leave evidence-based teaching practices out, so, in the PLUS section Matt Ehlers takes us to Barak Rosenshine’s work. Roger Blievernicht then tells us a story from his early days in Japan when he helped students change the way they study.