Tag: <span>Benefits</span>

20 May

Origami Storytelling in Elementary School Education – Language and Problem Solving Benefits Reviewed

Storytelling in elementary schools improves children’s language skills by providing students with a valuable opportunity to practice auditory comprehension, a vital component of early childhood education. The ability to understand spoken language involves so much more than simply hearing words and figuring out what the speaker intends the words to mean. Nonverbal cues of vocal pitch, tempo, and tonality are essential in effective communication. In face-to-face interactions, the additional nonverbal elements of body language, gestures, and facial expressions form up to 80% of expressive language. But how, in our multitasking, screen-dominant learning environments, can teachers capture and hold the attention of their distraction-prone students?

Why not try using the Japanese paper folding art of origami to help focus students’ attention during language arts activities? When an unexpected curiosity like origami is added to a storytelling presentation, the educational benefits for elementary school students are increased. Origami models and other interesting objects add visual stimulation and grab attention, so that young learners are focused and motivated to pay closer attention. Another advantage to adding origami to stories is that origami is created one step at a time. As a story progresses scene by scene, an origami model can also be constructed, fold by fold. When the story ends, the origami model is also created. This specialized storytelling technique is called Storigami. Storytelling + Origami = Storigami.

Watching and listening to stories illustrated by the progressive folds of origami models enables students to imagine the visual details of the scenes and characters described by the words, but also gives students experience with analyzing the symbolic representations of the paper shapes and folds that are paired with story characters or actions. The ability to understand how the shapes relate to the story and then imagine possible outcomes are key elements of successful problem solving, one of the most important goals of elementary education.

How can teachers and other educators learn how to use Storigami to build problem solving and language arts skills in their elementary school classrooms? Fortunately a Mid-Western educational publisher, Storytime Ink International, has published several collections of origami stories, such as Nature Fold-Along Stories: Quick and Easy Origami Tales About Plants and Animals. This book and other fold-along storybooks describe how to use the technique, step by step. The Storigami books are available in most public libraries and from several online sources, including http://Amazon.com/ and http://Storytimeink.com/



Source by Christine Petrell Kallevig

27 Nov

Benefits to Expect From Study in India & Study Abroad

India has been making rapid strides in the education sector since independence. It is well-known all over the world for nourishing the best possible talent in the field of medicines, physics, chemistry, engineering, economics, astronomy and many more. Boasting the largest education system in the world, India is abode to more than 400 universities, 16,000 colleges and 13 institutes of national significance. There are also lots of other vocational institutes that impart a variety of job-oriented courses. Some of the universities in India are now on a par with best universities from the UK, USA, Australia or Canada.

India is turning out to be an attractive destination for students from all over the world due to its fast growing economy, infrastructure and industrial scenario. Various Indian universities and colleges have witnessed an upsurge in the number of domestic as well as foreign students for their myriad of courses. Before embarking on your journey to study in India, overseas students should collect valuable information on their desired courses, universities or colleges offering them, and the application procedure from the Internet or other reliable sources. In addition, it is advisable to gather information on the cost of living, climatic conditions, accommodation facilities and food habits of the city in which you’re going to build your career.

Apart from numerous educational institutes and huge number of courses, the study in India offers many other advantages to students inside and outside the country. Firstly, the cost of education in India is much lower in comparison to other prominent countries in the world. As it is a vast country, the quality of education is not same everywhere. But, there is still adequate number institutes and universities in India that impart world-class education and improve the country’s image on the global front. These include Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), National Law Schools, Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Annamalai University, Anna University and many more. There are also many private deemed universities established in different regions of the country. Amity University, VIT University, Symbiosis International and Sikkim Manipal University are some of them.

The options to study in India get wider with the presence of some open universities that offer all genres of courses by means of open, correspondence and distance learning mode. Though the country has so much to offer on the education front, many students are still willing to study abroad as it is said to be a lifetime experience with golden opportunities to learn foreign languages, traditions, cultures and lifestyle. As globalization is the buzzword now, studying in a foreign country can give your career a distinct edge. Countries like the USA, UK, Australia, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong and South Africa have opened the doors to millions of foreign students by liberalizing the visa requirements and previously stringent immigration rules. Indian students form the bulk of these students as you can imagine from the number of applications lying in various foreign embassies of the country.

Whether you want to study in India or study abroad, the opportunities are aplenty with high quality education, state-of-the-art infrastructure, experienced faculties and above all, intermingling of different cultures. So, you can truly build yourself as a global citizen.



Source by Pankaj Kumar Singh

12 Jan

The Many Benefits of Learning Mandarin for Kids

Parents invest in sending their kids to attend Mandarin class because many believe that it is an important language of trade that will benefit their children’s career opportunities in the future. Economist Albert Saiz finds that native English speaker graduates who speak a second language, on average, earn 2 per cent more than those who don’t. Different foreign languages attract different language bonus – the more in demand a foreign language is, the higher the language bonus.

Knowing the language of our major trade partners is an asset. Graduates with foreign language skills will greatly improve their career opportunities at home and overseas. They would also improve their academic opportunities by having a chance to study at overseas educational institutions, an excellent experience to broaden their horizon and enrich their resume. Graduates with international experience are valued by employers. It’s not just people who work in international trade or diplomatic services who would reap benefits from having foreign language skills. Jim Rogers, a successful businessman, urges people to learn at least one Asian language because it will give them a competitive advantage. He himself sent his children to learn Mandarin at an early age to future-proof them.

The benefits of learning Mandarin for kids do not just lie in future opportunities. Studies support that children who are bilinguals or multilinguals are academically ahead of their peers. Learning a second language helps improve children’s academic performance, especially in English and Mathematics. According to a research, languages such as Chinese expresses mathematical concepts more clearly and thus making it easier for small children to learn maths. Children who learn Mandarin are also reported to perform better in identifying musical pitch and hence may perform better than their peers in building musical skills. This is not a surprise since Chinese is a tonal language. Learning the language will naturally train children to be able to identify the different tones. In essence, all the skills children are gaining through the process of learning a foreign language can transfer meaningfully to other areas in life.

Children who learn a foreign language are also shown to have better problem solving skills, creativity, and multitasking skills. This is not a surprise since children are required to think in a different way while learning to speak a foreign language. This mental training delivers multiple cognitive advantages to young learners, in addition to having advanced cross-cultural skills and linguistic skills.



Source by Amy James