Words in the News

So to prepare for our next lecture Petra asked us to find an example of an online learning environment showcasing one of the pedagogies I discussed in a recent post. Whenever I think of online learning environments I think of the BBC's online learning center. Their resource section for teaching English has helped me teach English to loads of other people. But now I decided to look at it through some more educational glasses. What kind of pedagogy are they using exactly? 


To take a more clear example I decided to look at one of my favourite sections, the words in the news section. This page takes one of the most prominent news items of the day and does it's best explaining the words by providing both an explanation and pronunciation. 


I would personally classify this as a form of experiential learning. Instead of just simply learning the words out of context one can actually follow a topic they find interesting and experience the English language whilst doing so. If they than cannot understand this information than they can seek help by looking at what it means and how they can pronounce it. 


I think this is a nice example of how we can use on-line learning environments to support learning. Instead of learning these words from list and out of context one can actually experience the way these words are used. This can create learning that is far more likely to stick.