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Content Type: 1
Title: It’s National French Week!
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From http://www.frenchteachers.org
The American Association of Teachers of French is pleased to announce its organization of the fifteenth annual National French Week. This week-long celebration of all things French will take place in schools and communities and AATF chapters across the U.S. from November 5-11, 2014. AATF is asking its members and any other interested Francophones and Francophiles to take French out of the classroom and demonstrate all the reasons to learn French.
AATF has identified major themes for each day of National French Week:
Cuisine
Science, Technology, and Careers
The Arts and Arts and Crafts
Community Events
Sports, Games, and Traditions
Music and Dance
On this Web site you will find information and ideas reprinted from past issues of the AATF National Bulletin as well as items specifically created for this Web site: http://www.frenchteachers.org/nfw/
Source: AATF
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Title: Free Ebook: The 10 Best Free Spanish Websites for Kids
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Here is a free ebook by experienced Spanish teacher Miriam Ramos Warth: The10 Best Free Spanish Websites for Kids. You can access it at http://sracaldwell.wikis.birmingham.k12.mi.us/file/view/The-10-Best-Spanish-Websites-for-Kids-12.pdf
Source: Miriam Ramos Warth
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Title: Project Idea: Create an Adjective Person
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Teacher Emilie shares a quick project idea for working with adjectives and exposing students to some words for body parts on her Island Teaching Adventures blog: http://islandteacherblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/create-adjective-person.html
Source: Island Teaching Adventures
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Title: Report: Summarizing the Research on Dual Language Learners
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From http://www.edcentral.org/dllresearch/
Ed Central has a new report out by Conor P. Williams, a Senior Researcher in the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation, entitled “Summarizing the Research on Dual Language Learners.”
Read the report at http://www.edcentral.org/dllresearch/
Source: EdCentral
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Title: 10 Inexpensive Supplies to Teach Language
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Here is a recent blog post on Spanish Playground about inexpensive (or free) materials that you can use to generate lots of language with young children: http://spanishplayground.net/10-inexpensive-supplies-to-teach-language/
Source: Spanish Playground
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Title: National Foreign Language Resource Center Has Exciting Projects Planned
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Our sister LRC, the National Foreign Language Resource Center, has once again been selected to serve as one of a small number of national Language Resource Centers established to improve the teaching of foreign languages throughout the US, particularly less commonly taught languages.
The major projects for 2014-2018 include:
1. Project-based Language Learning (PBLL): The NFLRC will explore the application of Project-Based Learning to the context of language education, taking language learning beyond the walls of the classroom to connect with real-world people and problems through work on comprehensive, useful projects. Grant funding will enable the development of curriculum and materials and an electronic repository of model projects to guide practice and professional development.
2. Design-based Research (DBR): All NFLRC curriculum design and materials development initiatives will be planned, implemented, and revised according to the principles of DBR, which stresses cycles of systematic reevaluation and revision throughout the design process.
3. Intensive Summer Institutes focusing on various intersections between PBLL and world language education, such as language for specific purposes (2015), content-based instruction (2015), intercultural exchanges (2016), language assessment (2017) and professional development (2018).
4. Professional Development for Online Foreign Language Teachers, a collaborative effort with the North Carolina Virtual High School. Teachers of foreign languages in online settings will reflect on their own professional practice and receive training in established best practices.
5. Online Professional Development Module on Project-based Language Learning (PBLL): Any language teacher interested in exploring PBLL will be able to complete a facilitated or self-paced short course (10 hrs) created and administered by the NFLRC.
6. Dissemination: The NFLRC will publicize the products of its scholarship and disseminate the training tools it develops through conferences, publications, openly available Web-based resources and tools and the common LRC portal.
Learn more about NFLRC at http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/about/6
Source: NFLRC
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Content Type: 4
Title: Reading an Advertisement
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Learning to read across genres builds literacies in a variety of capacities. Key to building this capacity is the ability to filter relevant information.
Objective: To read and analyze an advertisement for relevant information.
Resources: Reading an Advertisement worksheet
Procedure:
- Pre-reading: Work with learners to highlight key elements of an advertisement using model ads in the target language. Are there different types of ads? If so, how do they vary based on their purpose?
- Reading: Have learners read an ad of their choice. As they read they should – (1) underline the three most important pieces of information, (2) cross out three elements that are not relevant, and (3) write down five words or phrases they do not know or cannot figure out.
- Post-reading: Ask learners to compare their reading findings with a classmate. What do their ads have in common? How are they different? Can they figure out the meaning of the unknown elements?
- Extension: Have learners create an ad of their own to share with the class.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 3
Title: Assessing Vocabulary Knowledge
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John Read is Associate Professor of Applied Language Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, specialising in second language vocabulary assessment and the testing of English for academic and professional purposes. He is the author of Assessing Vocabulary (Cambridge, 2000) and Assessing English Proficiency for University Study (Palgrave Macmillan, in press). He has written numerous vocabulary tests for various purposes and is perhaps best known for his work on depth of vocabulary knowledge, particularly the development of the word associates format.
The first question to ask about this topic is which vocabulary should be assessed. The obvious answer for classroom teachers is to focus on the words presented in the coursebook or specified in the curriculum. However, English teaching materials do not always give much explicit attention to vocabulary and it may be necessary to consult appropriate vocabulary lists. The best lists are based on a careful analysis of how frequently words occur and in what range of contexts. Modern computer corpus analysis has made an enormous contribution in helping us to identify the most useful words, both in the language as a whole and in particular varieties or genres of English.
The next question is which aspects of word knowledge should be assessed. The traditional approach is to focus on the form-meaning link: can the learners demonstrate that they know the meaning of a given L2 word and, conversely, can they produce the L2 word which corresponds to a given meaning (often expressed as the L1 equivalent)? However, we now recognise the vocabulary knowledge involves much more than that. Word meaning changes according to context, and high-frequency words are particularly likely to have a range of senses, both literal and figurative. Words also cluster into “word families”, and thus learners need to know that origin, original, originate and originally share a core sense, but they have different grammatical functions and shades of meaning.
Another significant aspect of vocabulary knowledge is the way that words go together in combinations. Although idioms, phrasal verbs and other fixed expressions are familiar as sources of difficulty for even advanced learners, corpus analysis helps to reveal how much of normal language use is made up of multi-word lexical units of various kinds. Collocations have received a great deal of attention: does the learner know that we say heavy rain rather than strong rain, and we take (not do or make) a vacation? Multi-word units also have pragmatic functions: do learners have the vocabulary resources to be able to make a polite request, apologise appropriately or express sympathy to a bereaved person?
This brings us to the question of how we assess these different aspects of word knowledge. A number of innovative formats have been devised for vocabulary research, but in operational tests the basic item types remain largely the same:
• multiple-choice items of various kinds
• matching of words and definitions
• filling gaps in words or sentences
• translation between L1 and L2
• self-assessment tasks, using checklists or rating scales: (How well) do you know this word?
These formats lend themselves well to computer-based testing, which is one reason for their enduring appeal. What is changing is the use of these test items to assess aspects of vocabulary beyond the form-meaning link for individual L2 words and consequently more focus on testing vocabulary in context.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: Book: Lexical Processing and Second Language Acquisition
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From http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415877558/
Lexical Processing and Second Language Acquisition
By Natasha Tokowicz
Published by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
Lexical Processing and Second Language Acquisition provides a comprehensive overview of research on second language lexical processing, integrating converging research and perspectives from Cognitive Science and Second Language Acquisition. The book begins by introducing the dominant issues addressed by research in the field in cognitive science and discussing the relevant models in the literature. It later moves toward exploring the different factors that impact second language lexical processing as well as cognitive neuroscientific approaches to the study of the issues discussed throughout the book. A concluding chapter offers a global summary of the key issues and research strands, in addition to directions for future research, with a list of recommended readings providing students and researchers with avenues for further study.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415877558/
Source: Routledge
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Title: Call for Award Nominations - Second Language Research
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From http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-4406.html
The Second Language Research Special Interest Group of the American Education Research Association seeks nominations for three awards:
- The Distinguished Dissertation Award
- The Mid-Career Award
- The Leadership through Research Award
Nominations for all three awards are due by November 15.
Learn more about each award at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-4406.html.
Source: LINGUIST List
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