14 Jun 1.1 Definition of cybercafe

Posted at 19:42h in How to by

It is well known that to successfully implement new curricula, teachers need professional learning opportunities and ongoing support to make the needed changes to their pedagogical practices. Professional development is often offsite, after school, and on weekends. Geographic and temporal limitations often prevent suburban and rural teachers from being able to attend meaningful and transformative, face-to-face professional development opportunities. CyberCafé aims to support the professional development of language teachers and trainers working with migrants. 

Generally the term “Cyber Cafe” is not widely used to describe websites for learning languages and therefore we propose the following definition: 

A “Cyber Language Café” is a website where language teachers

  • are able to communicate with other teachers either through a tandem exchange, or in a virtual room, with the aid of audio-visual tools (text chat, video chat, teleconference);
  • can retrieve resources for language learning;
  • can find each other and meet up online, meet new colleagues on the basis of their common language(s) which they are teaching or their native language;
  • can be supportive / responsive to their questions and problems concerning their language teaching, with the help of fellow teachers, tutors and/or online tools (e.g. dictionary, online grammar,…);
  • meet during fixed hours but also anytime and discuss different topics of common interest in the target language, with the help of a teacher trainer or a facilitator who could be also a teacher.