How grammar is taught in England should change

The teaching of grammar – the ways that words are combined to make sentences – can be controversial. It often leads to debates about “correct English” and can result in people being judged if their use of language deviates from this “correct” form.

England’s current national curriculum, implemented in 2014, introduced a lot more grammar teaching to primary schools. However, new research led by Scott White and his colleagues with 1,700 primary school children and 70 teachers across 70 schools, has found that the approach to teaching grammar to help writing has not been effective to improve children’s narrative writing. The extensive grammar requirements in the national curriculum, including their link with a particular view of correct English – defined as “standard English”– represents an unacceptably ideological influence on the national curriculum.

Visit https://theconversation.com/how-grammar-is-taught-in-england-should-change-176739 to learn more.

International Students: 7 Reasons To Study In Canada In 2022

Since 2015 when Canada welcomed 219,040 study permit holders, the number of international students in the country has steadily grown and hit 401,000 in 2019 - the last full year before the COVID pandemic hit Canada.

During the first year of the pandemic, the number of international study permit holders in Canada fell by 36.1 per cent to 256,165 but has since strongly rebounded.

IRCC data for the first 11 months of the year reveal that 397,210 study permit holders had come to the country as of the end of November 2021. That puts Canada on track to have welcomed 433,320 international students to Canada’s colleges and universities by the end of last year.

Find out the 7 reasons to study in Canada that are driving the migration of international students to Canadian colleges and universities, even during a global pandemic.

1) Great Schools: Canada Has Some Of The World’s Top Universities: The latest QS World University Rankings 2022 has 26 Canadian universities on its list of 1,000 best places to study, with 10 ranked in the top 25 per cent.

2) Canada Has Some Of The World’s Most Vibrant Cities: In its Time Out Index, a poll of 27,000 city-dwellers from Melbourne to Madrid, Chicago to Copenhagen and Tel Aviv to Tokyo, the Time Out hospitality website ranked Montreal as the sixth most vibrant city in the entire world. The survey ranked Montreal so highly primarily because of its community spirit.

3) Ease Of Approval: Study Permits Fast-Tracked Through Student Direct Stream: Canada opening its doors even wider to international students by allowing applications to the Student Direct Stream (SDS) from many countries. The list of the countries expands ever year.

4) Welcoming Attitude: Canada Wants Students To Stay And Build Their Careers: Ottawa sees international students as highly-valued candidates for immigration. There’re a few economic immigration programs in place such as Post-Graduation Work Permit, Study and Stay Program and Atlantic Immigration Pilot to help these students remain in the country after they finish their studies.

5) International Student-Friendly COVID Policies: During the COVID pandemic, Ottawa bent over backwards to help international students hoping to get an education in Canada with a series of initiatives just for them. In addition to doubling the number of countries from which international students could apply for expedited processing of study permits through the Student Direct Stream, Canada also quickly put in a vaccine passport system so that fully-vaccinated international students would not have to quarantine upon arrival.

6) Permanent Residency: Canadian Education Counts For Points under Express Entry: When it comes to applying for immigration to Canada under the Express Entry system, the more education an applicant has, the better his or her prospects of being sent an Invitation to Apply (ITA). Under the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS), profiles in the Express Entry Pool are rated on a points system and the greater the education, the more points are awarded and the more likely an applicant is to be sent an ITA.

7) Jobs Are Booming In Canada: Labour Shortage Means Good Prospects: Canada is seeing massive job creation numbers and experiencing serious labour shortages in many fields, creating a lot of opportunities for students who graduate with job-ready skills.

Visit https://www.immigration.ca/international-students-7-reasons-to-study-in-canada-in-2022 to learn more.

Online education can be a great way for children to learn if we do it right

While the pandemic continues to pack powerful and painful punches, online learning has been and will be something we all have to learn, and work better on, to improve educational experiences for students, especially for those who can’t access physical classrooms.

Purposefully designed online education plays a crucial role in our modern education system and provides a vital alternative for many students and families, pandemic or not.

Why, then, are so many families struggling with it? In some recent headlines it has been called cruel, ridiculous and harmful to children. Some frustrated and angry parents are even boycotting online learning altogether.

The biggest problem is most classroom teachers who have been forced to deliver their programs online were trained to teach in classrooms, not on platforms such as Zoom. Another real problem with most online learning today is that the pandemic has created the conditions for it to be the only option at times. Juggling parenting, working and schooling at home is difficult, especially during a pandemic.

However, struggling with online learning is not an inevitable outcome. Let’s read about how Dr, Suzanne Chishole, Vice Principal at SIDES, a public online school in Victoria, Canada, thinks about how online education can be a great way for children to learn if we do it right.

Visit https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-online-education-can-be-a-great-way-for-children-to-learn-if-we-do-it/ to learn more.