With the increasing number of tools like ChatGPT and translation apps made available to the general public, our students are now able to use English to share information with more ease than ever before. But while technology might help students communicate information, it might not be able to help students cultivate relationships, build group rapport and strengthen trust in English. This re-emphasizes the importance that the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages has given to the skills of mediating concepts and mediating communication, i.e. interactional communication focused on having effective conversations and making connections with others in real-life situations. In past webinars, we’ve discussed what mediation entails, and we’ve seen suggestions of how we can tag on mediation activities to our speaking, listening, writing, and reading lessons. We now need to consider how we can teach lessons with mediation skills not just as a sub-aim or an afterthought, but as our main lesson aim. In this webinar, Chia will demo a mediation lesson from Voices from National Geographic Learning, and show how teaching students to mediate concepts and mediate communication can be simple, systematic, and similar to some of the lessons we are used to doing in ELT.
