Creative Teaching, Sustainable Learning: A holistic approach to foreign language teaching and learning - Paperback

by Ulrike Sievers (Author)

There are many books on foreign language teaching - this book is different because it focuses on the learner and the learning process. It starts from the social nature of interactive learning and locates learning in a community of learners, one of whom is the teacher. The conditions for lasting learning in the foreign language are the basis for the teaching methods. These aim to provide a rich and shared learning context, offer individualised support and scaffolding for learning and make the language the medium for learning what learners are interested in as developing persons. It makes teachers into reflective researchers of their practice, thus ensuring that teaching is an art, a craft and a science. The best learning occurs when teachers can read the effects of their teaching on the learning behaviour of the pupils and are able to adapt their approach to be inclusive of all learning types. The approach carefully developed in this book, takes foreign language teaching and learning to a new level. Without losing touch with its origins in Waldorf pedagogy, it also draws on contemporary learning theory. Above all it is an authentic account of the learning journey of a committed and caring teacher.

Author Biography

Ulrike Sievers was born in the North of Germany in 1959, into a family whose business was a tree nursery, thus combining her future interests in biology and pedagogy. She changed from studying medicine to training to be a teacher of biology and English. She raised three children and moved back into education. She taught her subjects at the Freie Waldorfschule Elmshorn for 20 years and is now a teacher and school leader at the Christian Morgenstern Schule, an inner-city school in Hamburg. She also works in teacher education at the Waldorf seminar in Hamburg. She enjoys creative writing, reading, travelling and being outside in the sun, wind and rain. She lives in Northern Germany.