What's new in English language teaching?

This is an article about new trends in English language teaching (ELT) resources, but none of the trends that follow are, strictly speaking, new.

Take, for example, the idea of spaced repetition, which is a buzzword at the moment. Back in 1885 (I told you it wasn’t a new idea), Hermann Ebbinghaus carried out an experiment designed to measure how quickly we forget. He discovered that, unless new information is reinforced, we quickly forget what we have learned. In the 1930s, other researchers followed this up by looking at how often we need to reinforce new information, and found that spacing out repetition – revising the information every two days, then every four, then every eight, and so on – was most effective.

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Another way in which digitalisation is affecting ELT resources is in the way it's connecting learners with the outside world. Students nowadays have access to an incredible amount of English-language material online. But while this is clearly beneficial, it can also be a bit overwhelming. Students don’t always know where to go for the most appropriate material. For teachers, the amount of time needed to find, select and prepare materials can be off-putting.

Disponível em: <https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/whats-new-english-languageteaching>. Acesso em: 19 fev. 2017.

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