Between Stimulation and Overwhelming: Reflections on the Usage of Videos for Teacher Training in Tanzania

The article reflects on a pilot teacher training programme in Tanzania, where videos are used for implementing new teaching methods, but also for initiating a discourse about corporal punishment. The culture of instruction in Tanzania is strictly based on a teacher-centred approach which leaves all activity to the teacher and turns students into passive listeners. In most cases, teachers deal with up to 80 students in one classroom. Therefore, discipline is an important matter of instruction and many teachers still use corporal punishment that is widely accepted in Tanzania. The launched training programme has the aim of implementing learner-centred teaching methods without using corporal punishment and offers Tanzanian teachers the possibility to participate in a workshop that connects these methods with subject-related topics. In the English teaching workshop, the facilitator used filmed English lessons from a German school to discuss with the participants both the application of learner-centred methods and the absence of corporal punishment. The use of these German videos shows advantages but also limitations that are strongly related to the European versus African setting. The article discusses these dimensions on the basis of data that are generated by ethnographical observation and audiotranscripts of the piloted workshop.

PISA Tests and their Impact on Georgian Education System

The article discusses the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) tests and their impact on the Georgian Education System. It analyzes the deplorable results of Georgian 15-yearolds in PISA 2009 and investigates the reasons based on different reports. The article also discusses the reasons for the temporary suspension of the project on the Georgian side. Since certain participatory countries are dissatisfied with the attitudes of this program, the article also refers to the criticism of PISA. The conclusion is that PISA and other international tests contain considerably important information. If these data with a diagnostic feature are used for working out the education policy in an appropriate way, they can become the key instrument for obtaining favourable results in reforming the Education System. Therefore, PISA appears to be essential for Georgia too, as such assessment gives an opportunity to concentrate on the national core curriculum and content analysis. In order to estimate all the strengths and weaknesses of the Education System, it is quite reasonable to conduct such surveys in every country. The article concludes with recommendations for PISA 2015 as to how to use the reports for further progress.

The interaction factor as a challenge for foreign language learning in the technology based education: a pedagogical reflection

The author carries out a pedagogical reflection on how the technology driven distance learning repeatedly neglects the scientific achievements of Second Language Acquisition and Language Pedagogy. Seeing communicative competence as a major goal of a language classroom, she presents the main challenges that the communicative approach poses to distance learning. To this end, a general distance learning theory by Moore is adapted to the needs of language education, through a distinction between three aspects of learner interaction – with the teacher, with other learners and with content. In this three-dimensional paradigm the learner is seen as the main actor of the process, the teacher as a facilitator, the text as a main source of communicative data and the learner autonomy as the fundament of the process.