Language education is always evolving based on new techniques, and research plays a vital role in that process. School always changes, though, at every level. It has to. Take language education — a subject near and dear to every translation services professional’s heart. It’s been steadily evolving for decades as educators try to figure out the best way to overcome the barriers some people experience when trying to learn a language. Most education gurus or officials recognize the immense value of a workforce and population that can speak a second language, and as such language education is always changing. Research One of the key concepts in language training in the modern day is the concept of research. This is an amazingly powerful but simple idea that seems like someone should have thought of it long ago. Research means just that: Studying what’s actually going on in classrooms and comparing techniques to results. In other words, experts actually observe or record...
Bloom’s Taxonomy In 1956, Benjamin Bloom with collaborators Max Englehart, Edward Furst, Walter Hill, and David Krathwohl published a framework for categorizing educational goals: Taxonomy of Educational Objectives . Familiarly known as Bloom’s Taxonomy , this framework has been applied by generations of K-12 teachers and college instructors in their teaching. Knowledge “involves the recall of specifics and universals, the recall of methods and processes, or the recall of a pattern, structure, or setting.” Comprehension “refers to a type of understanding or apprehension such that the individual knows what is being communicated and can make use of the material or idea being communicated without necessarily relating it to other material or seeing its fullest implications.” Application refers to the “use of abstractions in particular and concrete situations.” Analysis represents the “breakdown of a communication into its constituent e...