The Sentinel: Remote Learning

The benefits of learning another language are certainly worth it

Besides being fun, proficiency in another language can open doors to new experiences and opportunities that you may have never otherwise known.

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SNS - In today's interconnected world, the ability to speak multiple languages is an invaluable asset. The benefits of learning a new language extend far beyond the classroom or workplace, enriching various aspects of our lives. Whether you are planning to move abroad, expand your business internationally, or simply broaden your cultural horizons, language proficiency can open doors to new experiences and opportunities.

You definitely want to explore the many advantages of acquiring a new language and how it can enhance your personal and professional life.

Travel and speak like a local

Do you like to travel, explore new places, and meet new people? By speaking the local language, you can easily navigate transportation systems, understand directions, and ask for recommendations. Language skills also allow you to connect with locals, making finding authentic dining options, hidden gems, and underground fun places easier. Moreover, being able to communicate in the local language helps you adapt quickly to new environments and overcome potential barriers.

Benefits of learning a new language when relocating

Moving to another country overseas can be a very stressful part of your life. Adopting is often difficult, especially if you are moving with a family with little kids and teenagers. The good news is that children develop language skills more easily. However, you should actively include them in language-learning communities as well. By breaking down communication barriers, you can ease your transition, adapt more easily to your new surroundings, and connect with the people around you. This is a good reason to enroll in a language course.

Learning the language of the country your visiting or staying in makes it easier to navigate simple tasks like buying groceries or taking the bus to a national landmark.

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Easier adaptation in the new country

Learning the local language can make adapting to your new surroundings and lifestyle significantly easier. By mastering everyday communication, you can manage daily tasks such as shopping for groceries, finding services, and navigating public transportation with confidence. This proficiency reduces stress and uncertainty and helps you understand and embrace local customs and etiquette.

Enrich your business by learning a new language

Learning a new language is immensely beneficial when moving your business abroad, as it can help you attract top-tier employees and clients. Proficiency in the local language demonstrates your commitment to integrating into the new market and understanding its unique culture and practices. This can enhance your company's reputation and make your business more appealing to talented local professionals who value clear communication and cultural awareness. By speaking the language, you can effectively convey your vision and values, making attracting skilled employees who align with your goals easier. This ability to connect on a deeper level will give your bilingual business a sharp competitive edge.

Enroll in a language course

Taking language courses when you move abroad improves your language skills and opens new social opportunities. These classes bring together a diverse group of newcomers from various parts of the world, creating a supportive community where you can share experiences and learn from one another.

For example, while attending a language course in Barcelona, you might meet a French chef, an Australian writer, or a Brazilian artist—all seeking to improve their Spanish. Beyond the classroom, language course classmates often organize outings to practice their new skills in real-world settings. The friendships you form can become a valuable support network as you settle into your new environment.

Hire trusted overseas movers while you learn a new language

When preparing for an overseas move, it's wise to prioritize the benefits of learning a new language while leaving the relocation logistics to a trusted team of professional movers. Relocating abroad can be challenging and stressful, but by entrusting the complex tasks to a trusted team of overseas movers, you can concentrate on acquiring the language skills necessary for your new environment. Reputable moving companies take care of everything from packing and shipping to customs clearance and delivery, ensuring a smooth transition.

Moving to a new country can be challenging and stressful. Learning the language and local customs can make the transition much easier.

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For example, Transparent International offers overseas relocation services from the United States to nearly any country worldwide. Their team handles everything from packing and shipping to customs clearance and delivery, ensuring a smooth transition. Choosing the right movers for an international move provides peace of mind, allowing you to focus on settling into your new home and embracing the opportunities of living abroad.

A couple of other considerations on learning a new language

The benefits of learning a new language when moving abroad or in general are vast and impactful. It opens doors to engaging cultural experiences and eases the transition into a new lifestyle. For business professionals, mastering the local language can provide a competitive advantage, attracting top-tier talent and building strong client relationships. Ultimately, the effort invested in learning a new language pays off by enriching your overall experience and setting you up for success in both your personal and professional life.

Make online learning easier, three useful remote learning tools

StatePoint Media

Photo by Matthew Henry from Burst

The past year has demonstrated the importance of digital learning. And thanks to a variety of tools and resources that helped make remote instruction a little less stressful on everyone, teachers, students and parents quickly adapted to the changes brought on by the pandemic.

Music

Music has been a particularly difficult subject to provide instruction for at a distance. However, educational foundations have risen to the occasion by creating a trove of resources to aid learning. For example, the Save the Music Foundation provides free activities for families, tools for educators to create their own online tutorials and more.

Mathematics

Remote learning has only added new challenges to an already difficult subject. The good news is that online tools are helping fill the gaps created by the new normal. Check out the Casio Cares education site, which is chock full of free math resources for students, parents and educators. Tools include emulator calculator software, curriculum support materials, live webinars and remotely-delivered teacher training. Plus, Casio’s free all-in-one web-based mathematics software, ClassPad.net, which is geared for K-12 and beyond, delivers an accessible, interactive and personalized approach to mathematics. Its functions include graphing, geometry, calculation, statistics and more.

In addition to online activities and video tutorials, Casio also offers a weekly educational webinar series focused on mathematics on its YouTube channel, covering such subjects as elementary and middle school math, algebra I and II, geometry, pre-calculus, calculus and statistics. All webinars are recorded and can be accessed any time.

Creative Writing

English and creative writing teachers are turning to new platforms to help build their student’s writing skills in a variety of creative genres. One example is Storybird, which features hundreds of courses and challenges. If your child’s teachers haven’t caught onto the trend, no worries, parents can also sign up for an account for their children.

Even after classrooms reopen nationwide, one thing is certain, with so many amazing resources available to help educators teach and students learn, digital learning tools are here to stay.

We will learn together: Real Talk with SJO teacher Robert Glazier

Like thousands of teachers throughout Illinois, veteran St. Joseph-Ogden science teacher Robert Glazier is enriching young minds in an environment they never imagined.

Glazier, who retired two years ago after a 30 year teaching career at SJO, is teaching two physics classes from his home via video conferencing software. When he began teaching 35 years ago the internet, formally referred to as the world wide web, did not exist. Now he using it as he primarily tool to communicate with students in a virtual classroom.

The Sentinel caught with one of the student body's favorite teachers and observing strict social distancing fired off five questions with the help of Twitter to get a snapshot on how home teaching was going for long time assistant Spartan football coach.

Sentinel: Is this the first time you have taught classes via the internet?

Glazier: Yes.

Sentinel: Is it easier or harder to teach high school physics via video/web communications software?

Glazier: Much harder. Physics is a lab class and requires demonstrations, labs and etc. Plus, I enjoy the interaction with students as I lecture. That doesn’t happen as well on line.

Sentinel: I totally forgot about physic lab experiments. How have you been handling those in the new e-classroom environment?

Glazier: Honestly, I haven’t. This is all very new to me. I told the kids when this started, we will learn together this way. We will get through it though.

Sentinel: In numerous Spartan Spotlights students have mentioned your name as one of their favorite high school teachers. It seems you genuinely care about your students and seeing them succeed. What do you enjoy about teaching?

Glazier: The interaction with them is always fun. They have fresh ideas. New ways of looking at things. I just enjoy being around them.

Sentinel: Hypothetically, if students have to return to the e-learning environment for classes this fall, and now that you have more experience under your belt, what would you change to enhance their education?

Glazier: Find more YouTube videos to help with the lectures and lack of labs.

SJO rolling with pandemic punches, 2020 graduation still possible

"The science says students can't go back to their normal routine," said Governor J.B. Pritzker on Friday before making the announcement that Illinois schools would remain closed for the remainder of the academic 2019-2020 year. Two minutes into his daily briefing, he dropped the hammer that students, especially seniors hoped would not fall. "We know there are many school districts with unique challenges and we will work with them on issues as the need arise."

With remote learning already in progress for several weeks, St. Joseph CCSD #169 superintendent Brian Brooks said the district really didn't have any major hurdles that needed to be cleared to finish out the school year.

"The challenges are now geared towards how we wrap up the school year with students and staff without having them physically in the building," he said. "Remote learning has been far from perfect, and I’m sure very frustrating at times for both students and staff."

Brooks said he is very impressed with how students and staff throughout the district has responded to the new and hopefully temporary normal. Hopefully, by the time the Class of 2021 is ready to take their first step into the hallways at St. Joseph-Ogden High School in August, the infectious danger will be minimal.

Students and teachers are looking forward to returning to the brick mortar setting. However, the return to normal could be short-lived with prominent epidemiologists and immunologists warning a second wave or resurgence is possible.

In the absence of a vaccine and immunity through exposure, countries around the world may need to continue social distancing into 2022 to prevent critical care units according to a projections in a Harvard study published in Science.

"One of the biggest challenges for our teachers is reaching every student, and then being able to motivate every student to keep pushing and moving forward academically," Brooks explained. "I, like probably everyone else, sincerely hope we don’t return to remote learning, stay at home order, or shelter in place situation again this fall, but if we were to ever have to do this in the future, yes I do think students and staff will be more prepared."

In the mean time, Brooks and his team are looking at ways the district safely provide a commencement ceremony for the Class of 2020.

There are several ideas in consideration. One is to replicate various portions of the ceremony, video those things happening while observing social distancing protocols, and then put it all together into a single production to give graduates a sense of a "true graduation ceremony."

"We want our graduates to be able to walk across the stage with their cap and gown on, and their parents/guardians be able to take a picture of that," he said. "If it means doing it one graduate at a time so that we stay within the guidelines and keep everyone safe. We hope to have details finalized and information to be pushed out over the next week or two."

Brooks said it is "absolutely heartbreaking for both the Class of 2020 and their families." The district is going to do everything it can so that SJO seniors can have the best possible experience considering the extraordinary circumstances.

That includes possibly holding graduation later in the summer.

"We are certainly not opposed to doing a traditional ceremony in the summer, and would relish that opportunity for our graduates, but we want to prepare as if that isn’t going to be allowed so that we can hopefully offer our graduates something that will be memorable for them."

Gov. Pritzker acknowledged that seniors this year will leave school in a way that they never expected, a sentiment that extends school staff and the parents of the Class 2020.

"I know you are feeling sad about missing the rituals of senior prom, senior pranks, senior nights and of course graduation," attempting connect with the emotions thousands of senior around the state listening to his address. "Hear it from me as your Governor: There is room for you to feel all those things big and small. You will get through this, too."

The Governor said this year's seniors will talk about this moment in history, remembering it for the rest of their lives. He spoke assuredly that this class of Illinois high school students would go on to do amazing things despite missing customs enjoyed by generations before them.

With group protests over the governor's shelter-in-place order starting mirror those in other states along with and a slight increase in citizens around the country disregarding social distancing protocols over the past week, the curve public health agencies are trying to flatten could rise. Sadly, that would put any plans of a live ceremony by the district in jeopardy.

Brooks admitted that "a mass gathering of 2,000 people any time this summer is probably becoming less realistic as each day goes by."

"There is nothing we can say or do that will replace what (our seniors) have lost," he said.