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Content Type: 1
Title: Proposal to Restore Bilingual Education in California Advances
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From http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2014/05/proposal_to_restore_bilingual_.html
Proposal to Restore Bilingual Education in California Advances
By Lesli A. Maxwell
May 28, 2014
A bill that would give California voters a chance to repeal the state's restrictions on bilingual education was approved Tuesday by the state Senate and moves next to the state Assembly.
The legislation, authored by Democratic state Sen. Ricardo Lara, would place a measure on the 2016 ballot asking voters to overturn Proposition 227, the 1998 ballot measure that severely restricted the availability of bilingual education for the state's English-language learners.
Though Prop. 227 didn't ban bilingual education, it had the near effect of doing so, as most school districts in the state either eliminated or scaled back that model in favor of an English-immersion approach to teaching ELLs.
Lara's bill is one among several signals in the last couple of years that the polarized debate around language instruction in California has changed dramatically in the years since Prop. 227 was passed. Dual-language programs in the state are expanding, and three years ago, California became the first state to create a seal of biliteracy—a special distinction for high school students who can demonstrate fluency in two or more languages.
Read the full article and its associated links to more information at http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/learning-the-language/2014/05/proposal_to_restore_bilingual_.html
Source: Education Week
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Content Type: 1
Title: International Dialects of English Archive
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Are you exploring different dialects of English with your students? Are you looking for audio samples of speakers of different dialects? The International Dialects of English Archive is a repository of audio clips of native English speakers from all over the world. Each audio clip is well-documented with demographic information about the speakers.
Access IDEA at http://www.dialectsarchive.com
Source: IDEA
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Content Type: 1
Title: Three Ways To Use iPads in the Languages Classroom
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Three ways to use iPads in the languages classroom
by Will Strange
May 19, 2014
The thought of using iPads in the classroom might leave some teachers squirming: another change to contend with; another expensive gimmick that will end in tears. But the iPad has the unique ability to provide almost complete freedom of outcome without impinging on a teacher's personal style. In my classroom, iPads act as a:
• computer
• exercise book
• homework-filing system and planner
• mini-whiteboard
• camera
• mp3 and mp4 player
• multimedia recorder
• portable and updatable register
The iPad's various applications can liberate teachers from needing to book computer rooms, recording devices, flip-cameras etc and enable fluid communication between teacher and student – at home and in school.
Read the full article at http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/may/19/three-ways-use-ipad-languages-classroom-tech-teaching?CMP=twt_gu
Source: The Guardian
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Content Type: 1
Title: Blog Post: Heavy Lifting: Shifting Learning onto the Learner
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Teacher and blogger Amy Lenord writes, “my dear friend and colleague, Jane Shea, has been teaching me / us about "the heavy lifting" in the learning environment and who should be doing it. Heavy Lifting is the participation, thinking and work that needs to be done for learning to occur. Jane is a master at keeping this in mind and designing learning experiences in which her learners are the ones doing the heavy lifting no matter whether they are high school students or teachers under her training. As you can imagine, I am taking lots of notes from Madame Shea! So, this post is all about what I am learning about how to keep the heavy lifting in the hands of the learner.”
Read on to learn how to get your students to take on more responsibility for their own learning: http://www.amylenord.net/blog/the-heavy-lifting
Source: The Language Coach
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Content Type: 1
Title: More World Cup Resources
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The 2014 FIFA World Cup starts next week! Here are some more resources that you may be able to use in your classroom to talk about the World Cup:
ESPN hired Brazilian artist Cristiano Siqueira to make unique World Cup posters for all 32 teams in the tournament, and you can see them here: http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-brazil-world-cup-posters-2014-5
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is hosting an exhibit, “The Beautiful Game,” dedicated to soccer and running through July 20. See what’s happening at http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/futbol-beautiful-game
German students can read about past German soccer teams here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/germanyinusa/the-definitive-ranking-of-all-german-national-socc-fr91. They can read about this year’s team here: http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/__pr/P__Wash/2014/05/29-Training.html. And finally, DC-area students can attend the World Cup Festival in Dupont Circle Park, Washington, DC, on Thursday, June 26, for the USA vs. Germany match: http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/en/__pr/P__Wash/2014/05/29-WorldCupFestival-pr.html
Zambombazo has been tracking World Cup resources and artwork; some is of interest only to learners of Spanish, some to anyone who is curious about Brazil, and some to anyone who is a fan of soccer: http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/betsys-recap-disney-gol-team-nicknames-may-map/, http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/la-copa-mundial-de-musica-32-selecciones-32-canciones/, http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/betsys-recap-world-cup-music-art-animation-crafts/
Source: Various
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Content Type: 1
Title: Kahoot!: Game-Based Classroom Response System
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Kahoot! is a game-based classroom response system that students can use on any web browsers. You can read Richard Byrne’s review of it as a general educational resource at http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2013/11/kahoot-create-quizzes-and-surveys-your.html#.U4kDGy8XVqk
Here is a recent blog post by Spanish teacher Amy Buttner about how she uses Kahoot! in her teaching: http://2spanishteachers.weebly.com/blog/kahoot-to-introduce-new-vocab-comprehensibly
Kahoot! is available at https://getkahoot.com
Source: Various
Inputdate: 2014-05-30 21:32:16
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Content Type: 1
Title: #LangChat Twitter Discussion: How To Scaffold Authentic Resources
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From http://langchat.pbworks.com/w/page/39343677/FrontPage
Every week your language colleagues get together to discuss topics of interest via Twitter using the #LangChat hashtag. The May 22 topic was “How to Scaffold Authentic Resources: We Ask. You Tell.” The results of the chat are summarized at http://blog.calicospanish.com/2014/05/26/scaffold-authentic-resources-ask-tell.html
Source: Calico Spanish
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Title: “Song of the Week” Activities
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How does Japanese teacher and blogger Colleen Lee-Hayes use songs in her classroom? Find out in her recent blog post, which includes many ideas from the #langchat Twitter group: leesensei.edublogs.org/2014/05/16/going-for-a-song-the-song-of-the-week-activity/#.U35WXi-Sbrl
Source: Language Sensei
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Content Type: 2
Title: How To Find InterCom Articles
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InterCom subscribers frequently ask how they can access articles that have been published in past issues. Fortunately, all InterCom articles are archived and searchable. Go to the main CASLS InterCom page at http://caslsintercom.uoregon.edu and click on the Search Content tab at the top. You can use this search page to search using a variety of criteria.
If you are looking specifically for a CASLS Topic of the Week, Spotlight, or Activity of the Week, you can enter %topic%, %activity%, or %spotlight% in the Content Author field to generate a list of all original CASLS content of that type.
Happy searching!
Source: CASLS Announcement
Inputdate: 2014-06-01 08:24:31
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Content Type: 3
Title: The Application of Strategies to Interlanguage Pragmatic Development
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By Julie Sykes, CASLS Director
Although still lacking empirical validation, one area of language learning that stands to benefit from explicit strategic instruction is that of interlanguage pragmatic development (you can read more about pragmatics in this InterCom article from February). Through strategic approaches to communication, learners can equip themselves with strategies to address a wide variety of pragmatic behaviors and, as a result, numerous contexts with expert speakers. Cohen (2005) presents an initial taxonomy of strategies that are especially relevant for the development of second language pragmatics. He classifies the strategies in three areas – learning strategies, use strategies, and metapragmatic considerations.
Learning strategies highlight ways in which learners acquire pragmatic knowledge. This includes, for example, the observation of expert speakers, cross-cultural/cross-contextual analysis and observation, access to explicit instructional materials and research, and analysis of variation across different social dimensions (e.g., power or distance).
Use strategies are suggested as aids to enhance learners' use of their pragmatic knowledge during spoken and written interaction. Sample strategies in Cohen's taxonomy include: practice and preparation for upcoming situations, memory retrieval devices for accessing relevant formulae, the use of communication strategies to mitigate pragmatic performance (e.g., alerting the interlocutor an apology is coming), and explicit subjective choice about when, and when not, to apply pragmatic moves.
Metapragmatic considerations are explicit choices made by learners based on knowledge and experience. This includes choices about target language functions, timing, organization of discourse, gesture, and the choice of comprehension vs. production.
Used simultaneously, these types of strategies can aid learners as they acquire knowledge about appropriate use and interpretation of language functions. The application of strategies for interlanguage pragmatics is relatively new, yet provides one approach to the teaching and learning of pragmatic behaviors.
References
Cohen, A. (2005). Strategies for learning and performing L2 speech acts. Intercultural Pragmatics, 2(3), 275-301.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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