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Title: Day of the Dead Resources
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Here are some more resources for All Souls’ Day, All Saints’ Day, and Halloween in the Spanish-speaking world:
A collection of links to resources from Connect with Languages: http://www.connectwithlanguages.com/engagement-and-hands-on-activities/dia-de-los-muertos
More links to resources from SpanishPlans.org: http://spanishplans.org/2014/10/16/resources-day-of-the-dead-and-halloween/
Some ideas from the Island Teaching Adventures blog: http://islandteacherblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/celebrating-el-dia-de-los-muertos.html
Ten Halloween jokes in Spanish from Spanish Playground: http://spanishplayground.net/10-spanish-halloween-jokes/
Some “creepy” cultural resources from Zambombazo: http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/betsys-recap-creepy-conclusion/
Lots and lots of project ideas and patterns from Crafty Chica: http://www.craftychica.com/2014/08/75-dia-de-los-muertos-projects-patterns-inspirations/
Source: Various
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Title: Introduction to Using Literature in the English Language Classroom
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From http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk
The purpose of this article is to provide some guidance through the wealth of available materials and support, to provide a platform for sharing ideas and experiences and to explore some areas that are at the cutting edge of what is, for many teachers, the most powerful instrument in their school bag: literature as a tool for language learning.
Read on and find additional resources at http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/using-literature-introduction
Source: British Council
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Title: Center for Language Education and Research
Body:
From http://clear.msu.edu/clear/
The Center for Language Education and Research’s directors and staff are delighted to announce that CLEAR has been granted Title VI Language Resource Center (LRC) funding from the US Department of Education for a sixth funding cycle, which will run through September 2018. CLEAR is one of fifteen LRCs nationwide.
Focusing on strategic national language needs, CLEAR’s main activities in this proposal include:1) Materials Development, 2) Professional Development & Outreach, 3) Research, and 4) Collaboration. In addition, a large number of the projects will utilize the innovative technologies for which CLEAR has earned a national reputation. Learn more about CLEAR's upcoming projects at http://clear.msu.edu/clear/about/.
Read the latest issue of CLEAR’s newsletter here: http://clear.msu.edu/clear/resources/newsletter/past-issues/clear-awarded-funding-2014-18/
CLEAR launched a redesigned version of their website on October 1. Explore the resources available to you and learn more about CLEAR at http://clear.msu.edu/clear/
Learn more about all of the LRC’s at http://www.nflrc.org/
Source: CLEAR
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Title: Crossword Puzzle Creator Includes Information Gap Option
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There are many crossword puzzle generators on the Internet, but here’s one that creates two partially solved puzzles that pairs of students can solve by working together. The feature was added thanks to a special request by a language teacher.
http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/
Source: Armored Penguin
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Title: Today Is the National Day on Writing
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From http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting
Today is the National Council of Teachers of English’s National Day on Writing. Why not take some time today to have your students reflect on and write about why learning languages matter to them?
Find writing resources for today at http://www.ncte.org/dayonwriting
Source: NCTE
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Content Type: 3
Title: Benefits of Indigenous Language Learning
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Here are excerpts from a document that was recently put together in support of teaching indigenous languages and to advocate support for the two senate bills HR 4214, the Native Language Immersion Student Achievement Act and HR 726, the Native American Languages Reauthorization Act of 2014. We encourage you to go to the Northwest Indian Language Institute website to access the complete fact sheet at http://pages.uoregon.edu/nwili/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Benefits-of-Indigenous-Lg-Learning-Factsheet.pdf.
Cognitive benefits of second language learning: Research shows that second language instruction improves overall school performance, cognitive development, problem solving, and creativity.
- Bilingual children have increased metalinguistic awareness, or knowledge ‘about’ languages. These metalinguistic skills are an important piece of intellectual development, reading skills development, and overall academic success (Hakuta 1986). Metalinguistic abilities are seen in greater phonemic awareness in bilingual children (for example, they can answer questions like “Do cat and car have the same sound at the beginning?”), and in bilingual children’s ability to break words into syllables more successfully than monolingual children (Lindfors 1991).
- A study of a second language improves knowledge of the first language as well as math and logic skills, as shown by decades of studies. Children who study a second language score higher on verbal standardized tests conducted in English. (Adelman 1981, Alter 1970, Hofstadter & Smith 1961, Olsen & Brown 1992, Parker 1956, Sachs 1982.)
- Second language learning increases mental flexibility for children. They are more creative and better at planning and solving complex problems (Paradis, Genesee & Crago 2011). Bilinguals, with two or more words for a single object, concept or idea, think more abstractly about words and language (Ianco-Worrall 1972). Bilingualism seems to strengthen the brain’s executive control system, and in doing so, protects it from some of the effects of aging (Bialystok et al. 2007).
Benefits of language and culture-rich curriculum for Native children:
Academic success: Based on years of research, the inclusion of Native language and culture in school curriculum is an important factor in Native American children’s academic achievement, retention rates, and school attendance (Demmert 2000; Lipka &McCarty 1994; McCarty & Lee 2014; Mmari, Blum & Teufel-Shone 2010; Skinner 1999; Yazzie 1999). Gay (2013) notes a culturally responsive approach to teaching connects students’ experiences in and out of the school, supports educational equity and excellence, and empowers students by giving them the skills to effectively negotiate and impact the world around them. This type of teaching approach and the inclusion of indigenous languages is not detrimental to academic achievement; rather, it promotes academic achievement and cultural knowledge, preparing youth to be leaders of their communities (McCarty & Lee 2014).
Hawaiian and Maori immersion schools are the longest running immersion programs and have high levels of student success and retention rates. In 22 Hawaiian public immersion schools, the 1,700 enrolled students outperform the average for children in non-immersion Hawai‘i public schools, with 100% of students graduating from high school and 80% attending college (Aha Punana Leo). The linguistic, cultural and academic success of students enrolled in schools taught through Hawaiian has led to continued growth in their enrollment rates (Wilson 2014). Only 5-15% of Maori students used to finish grade 13 (high school equivalent). Now, with immersion instruction, Maori language immersion school students’ rates are 75% (Pease-Pretty On Top 2002).
Health and well-being: Current studies indicate that Native language is integral to the sense of well-being of Native children, and in turn, to their academic performance, self-esteem, and ability to succeed in a complex world. When a school values and utilizes students' Native language in the curriculum, there is increased student self-esteem, less anxiety, and greater self-efficacy (Hakuta 2001). Inuit children in Inuktitut classes in Canada start school with positive self-esteem that increases during their first years of school (Wright, Taylor, Ruggeiro, MacArthur, & Elijassiapik, 1996). Connecting Indian youth with their language and culture increases their resiliency to addiction, prevents risky behaviors, and promotes positive health and well-being (Goodkind et al. 2011, Mmari, Blum & Teufel-Shone 2010).
What if a child has a learning disability?
The available research shows that growing up with two languages will not harm children with learning disabilities. A child with a language difficulty or learning disability can learn a second language, and becoming bilingual is not a hardship on a child with disabilities, including language-specific disabilities. Children in bilingual or immersion settings do not show extra delay or difficulties when compared to monolingual children with similar language difficulties. However, a child with a learning disability will still have that disability when learning more than one language; a bilingual child with specific language impairment (SLI) will still be slow acquiring both languages, but no more so than if she were monolingual.
Immersion is suitable for children having academic difficulties and/or learning disabilities (Edwards 1989). Genesee (1991) demonstrates that students whose intellectual abilities are below average have the same test results in immersion as students of comparable ability in the regular school system, and concludes that French immersion had no negative effects on L1 or mathematics for these students. Students with learning disabilities who are in an immersion program also show no negative effects (Bruck 1982).
You can access the full fact sheet with references here: http://pages.uoregon.edu/nwili/resources/indigenous-language-policy
prepared by: Joana Jansen, Northwest Indian Language Institute, University of Oregon; Lindsay Marean, Owens Valley Career Development Center; and Janne Underriner, Northwest Indian Language Institute, University of Oregon.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Content Type: 3
Title: Bilingual Behavior Is a Learning Resource for Heritage Language Learners
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Damián Vergara Wilson is the coordinator of the Sabine Ulibarrí Spanish as a Heritage Language Program at the University of New Mexico. His main areas of research and teaching are historical linguistics, sociolinguistics and sociology of language.
Heritage language speech communities are often stigmatized for their speech practices, but a critical examination through mini-ethnographies can encourage heritage language students to see their communities as a linguistic resource.
Many heritage languages are situated in contexts of bilingualism and language contact as a result of immigration or colonization. Members of such a speech community will display a range of proficiency levels in the heritage language and the dominant language. Frequent alternation between the heritage language and the dominant language (e.g. Span/Eng: fuimos a la big city for dinner ‘we went to the…’) and using borrowed words in discourse (e.g. Where’s his troca ‘truck’) characterize bilingual behavior in contact situations. Many view bilingual behavior as evidence that speakers are linguistically deficient in both languages. Heritage language learners internalize stigmatization and come to view their communities of practice negatively.
Practitioners of heritage language teaching can advocate for heritage language communities by promoting the widespread finding that bilingual behavior is a sign of a competent bilingualism. Engaging in bilingual practices is not a detriment and does not erode or deform either contact language. Instead, it is a continuum in which individuals may function monolingually, or seamlessly weave two languages into one conversation. Promoting bilingual linguistic practices as a skill helps the students to view their own communities more positively and encourages linguistic engagement.
As educators, we can encourage this process through designing community-based activities. For example, a large Spanish as a Heritage Language program in the American Southwest uses a ‘Spanglish Scavenger Hunt’.
Step one: Students brainstorm in groups about who uses Spanglish, where it is used, and what characterizes it.
Step two: Each group must visit the places mentioned and speak to the individuals implicated about their language practices. These informants will divulge valuable perceptions about bilingual practices and often give the students rich examples that characterize community speech norms.
Step three: Because the outcome of these interviews will vary, students will have a great deal of sociolinguistic material to discuss critically as each group presents its findings.
A desirable outcome is that students shift the way they view their communities’ speech norms to be more sympathetic toward circumstances of contact. By doing so, they may engage in these bilingual practices as an important component of developing their heritage language skills. After all, bilingual conversations offer rich input by providing contextual cues in both of the student’s languages.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Content Type: 5
Title: CASLS Visits STARTALK Conference
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This week Li-Hsien Yang, Program Director for the STARTALK College Readiness Academy and Julie Sykes, CASLS' Director, attended the STARTALK Fall Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. At the conference, participants engaged in workshops, keynotes, and activities relevant to teaching and learning critical, less-commonly taught languages. Yang and Sykes presented tips for using STARTALK Linguafolio Online in summer STARTALK programs. Yang notes, "The best part of the STARTALK conference is connecting with the people you work with throughout the year." For more information about STARTALK program visit https://startalk.umd.edu.
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Title: Book: Intercultural Contact, Language Learning and Migration
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From http://bloomsbury.com/uk/intercultural-contact-language-learning-and-migration-9781441189929/
Intercultural Contact, Language Learning and Migration
Edited by Barbara Geraghty and Jean Conacher
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
At the heart of this volume lies an exploration of what actually happens to languages and their users when cultures come into contact. What actions do supra-national institutions, nation states, communities and individuals take in response to questions raised by the increasingly diverse forms of migration experienced in a globalized world?
The volume reveals the profound impact that decisions made at national and international level can have on the lives of the individual migrant, language student, or speech community. Equally, it evaluates the broader ramifications of actions taken by migrant communities and individual language learners around issues of language learning, language maintenance and intercultural contact. Reflecting Jan Blommaert's assertion that in a world shaped by globalization, what is needed is 'a theory of language in society... of changing language in a changing society', this volume argues that researchers must increasingly seek diverse methodological approaches if they are to do justice to the diversity of experience and response they encounter.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://bloomsbury.com/uk/intercultural-contact-language-learning-and-migration-9781441189929/
Source: Bloomsbury Publishing
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Title: Book: Motivational Dynamics in Language Learning
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From http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781783092550
Motivational Dynamics in Language Learning
Edited by Zoltán Dörnyei, Peter D. MacIntyre, and Alastair Henry\
Published by Multilingual Matters
This landmark volume offers a collection of conceptual papers and empirical research studies that investigate the dynamics of language learning motivation from a complex dynamic systems perspective. The contributors include some of the most well-established scholars from three continents, all addressing the question of how we can understand motivation if we perceive it as continuously changing and evolving rather than as a fixed learner trait. The data-based studies also provide useful research models and templates for graduate students and scholars in the fields of applied linguistics and SLA who are interested in engaging with the intriguing area of examining language learning in a dynamic vein.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781783092550
Source: Multilingual Matters
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