Introducing four key terms

Look at the four words below: what do you think they mean?

• lecture
• seminar
• tutorial
• independent learning

Now look at the pictures below and try to match each picture to one of the four words above.

A series of images showing students learning (Click to expand)

Did you find that easy?

The truth is that most of the pictures could fit any of the four words above. It is very difficult to define all of these words because what they mean will depend on your own experience and the context.

Throughout this week you will gain a fuller understanding of these words by recording information from the dictionary in a vocabulary log and looking at what these terms mean in real life.

In this first task, you will learn collaboratively and use your peers as a research tool by comparing definitions of the terms above to discover any differences.

Your task

Choose a learner or monolingual dictionary from the links under ‘see also’ or use one of your choice.

Find a definition for all four types of learning above and post them in the comments.

Read through the comments and decide if all the definitions are similar or different.