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Content Type: 1
Title: Pinguistics: Using Pinterest to Learn a Language
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Here is an entertaining blog entry by Meaghan for Transparent Language that discusses 6 ways to use Pinterest to add to your language learning routine: http://blogs.transparent.com/language-news/2014/11/26/pinguistics-using-pinterest-to-learn-a-language/
Source: Transparent Language
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Title: Enhancing Independent Learning with Telecollaboration
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Adrienne Gonzales is the Foreign Language Technology and Pedagogy Specialist for the Center for World Languages and Cultures at the University of Denver. Her academic interests include second language acquisition, computer assisted language learning, and interlanguage pragmatic development.
Pursuing the studying of Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs), deepening the study of a language and culture through incorporation across the curriculum, or simply strengthening students’ connection with a classroom-taught foreign language: these are all scenarios that call for innovation and individualization. Many institutions and teachers are turning to independent learning models as a solution to provide students with the opportunity to enrich and personalize their study of languages and cultures. Telecollaboration can help make this not only possible, but successful.
Telecollaboration has long been considered a valuable tool for education, and for over two decades, researchers and teachers have explored its benefits for language learning contexts. Studies have shown that when planned and executed properly, telecollaborative activities can increase student motivation, promote greater target language (TL) output, and provide the opportunity for international encounters. The result for language learners is greater communicative, intercultural, and pragmatic competence and increased cultural awareness (e.g., Belz, 2003; Gonzalez-Lloret, 2011; Kelm, 1996; O’Dowd, 2003; Warschauer, 1999, among many others). Now more than ever, the ability for learners to connect with the TL and culture is critical for comprehensive second language preparation, and the evolution of online culture has created a new generation of telecollaborative exchanges that leverage Web 2.0 tools and in turn require attention to online literacies, in addition to TL competence (Guth & Helm, 2010).
Telecollaboration is an invaluable resource for independent learning models, since it can provide students with personalized access to and involvement with the TL. How can telecollaboration facilitate and enhance independent learning?
For Directed Independent Language Study and Self-Instructed Language Programs
Learners communicate with language partners and tutors (who may not be locally available) and collaborate with peers from other institutions to share resources and create a community of learners, particularly for LCTLs.
For Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum Programs
Learners enrich and deepen their knowledge of the TL through study of their major concentration in the TL, connecting with other students and faculty of their content area to discuss material and conduct research.
For Differentiation
Strict sequences and schedules dictate and can limit learning in traditional classroom settings. Telecollaborative activities provide learners with agency (and in turn motivation) to individualize their study of the TL by emphasizing a particular skill or exploring a certain topic or regional dialect.
In any context, successful language learning is a social endeavor, and independent learning models can be made very effective with the help of telecollaboration.
References
Belz, J. A. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68-99.
González-Lloret, M. (2011). Conversation Analysis of Computer-Mediated Communication. CALICO Journal, 28(2), pp. 308-325.
Guth, S. & Helm, F. (Eds.) (2010). Telecollaboration 2.0: Language, literacies and intercultural learning in the 21st Century. Bern: Peter Lang.
Kelm, O. (1996). The application of computer networking in foreign language education: Focusing on principles of second language acquisition. In M. Warschauer (Ed.), Telecollaboration in foreign language learning (pp. 19-28). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
O'Dowd, R. (2003). Understanding the "other side": Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 118-144.
O’Dowd, R. (2013). Telecollaboration and CALL. In Thomas, M., Reinders, H., & Warschauer, M. (Eds.), Contemporary computer-assisted language learning (pp. 123-139). London/New York: Bloomsbury.
Warschauer, M. (1999). Electronic Literacies: Language, Culture, and Power in Online Education. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: An Opportunity for Differentiation: Tiered Telecollaboration Project
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by Adrienne Gonzales
Language: Any
Level: Variable
Objectives
- Communicate with a native speaker (synchronous and/or asynchronous)
- Ask questions to guide a conversation pertaining to a pre-determined topic of interest
- Produce an artifact illustrating information gained in telecollaborative interactions
Instructor preparation
- Instructors select a website or program to use for the telecollaborative exchange. Tools are constantly changing and new programs come and go. Things to keep in mind are cost, ability for different modes of communication, features, etc. Some programs to explore include:
- Language Twin: https://languagetwin.com/#aboutUsPage
- My Lanugage Exchange: http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/
- The Mixxer: http://www.language-exchanges.org/
- italki: http://www.italki.com/?src=italki-top
- HelloTalk: http://www.hellotalk.com/
- Instructors create a worksheet in the target language to help students document their telecollaborative exchange(s). This worksheet might ask:
- Name of conversation partner (and other biographical information)
- Mode(s) of communication
- Duration of communication (for synchronous) number of exchanges (for asynchronous)
- Instructors create guidelines rubrics for the students’ artifacts. Some ideas include creating a travel brochure, using digital storytelling tools to create a short documentary, etc.
Procedure
- In class: In the target language, students independently write answers to the following questions, then discuss their answers in pairs:
- What country or region where the target language is spoken interests you?
- What aspect of the target language culture would you like to learn more about (food, holidays, daily life, politics, etc.)?
- What type of person could provide you with more information about this topic (gender, age, occupation, etc.)?
- What would be the most effective way to discuss this information (email exchange, chat, video chat, etc.)?
- In class: Instructor will provide students with information to register/get started with the program being used for this project.
- At home: Students use instructor-created worksheet to document their communication and make notes about what they have learned.
- Students follow pre-established instructor guidelines to produce an artifact that illustrates what they’ve learned through their telecollaborative exchanges and present this artifact to the class.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 5
Title: CASLS Moves In
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Since 2010, CASLS and the Chinese Flagship program have been working with students in the Global Scholars Hall to provide an academic residential community for learners of Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish. As part of the Living the Language program, students live in language communities where they pledge to interact in the target language and meet once per week to engage in cultural activities tied to their language studies.
Robert Davis, CASLS Advisory Board Member and Julie Sykes, CASLS Director cook in the GSH Demo Kitchen for the UO Board of Trustees, December 2014
CASLS Director, Julie Sykes joined the GSH team in July 2014 as the Resident Scholar in the Global Scholars Hall. In this capacity, she lives in the hall and works with all of the academic residential programs to bridge academic and residential life. Says Sykes, "The experience is one-of-a-kind, and while challenging some days, is an amazing way to connect with students where they live and work. I have learned a lot from them." Future CASLS work in the Global Scholars Hall will extend to the design of a place-based mobile experience tied to academic residential communities dedicated to language learning.
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Content Type: 1
Title: Book: Academic Vocabulary in Learner Writing
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From http://bloomsbury.com/uk/academic-vocabulary-in-learner-writing-9781441102195/
Academic Vocabulary in Learner Writing: From Extraction to Analysis
By Magali Paquot
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
Academic vocabulary is in fashion, as witnessed by the increasing number of books published on the topic. In the first part of this book, Magali Paquot scrutinizes the concept of 'academic vocabulary' and proposes a corpus-driven procedure based on the criteria of keyness, range and evenness of distribution to select academic words that could be part of a common-core academic vocabulary syllabus.
In the second part, the author offers a thorough analysis of academic vocabulary in the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) and describes the factors that account for learners' difficulties in academic writing. She then focuses on the role of corpora, and more particularly, learner corpora, in EAP material design. It is the first monograph in which Granger's (1996) Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis is used to compare 10 ICLE learner sub-corpora, in order to distinguish between linguistic features that are shared by learners from a wide range of mother tongue backgrounds and unique features that may be transfer-related.
Visit the publisher's website at http://bloomsbury.com/uk/academic-vocabulary-in-learner-writing-9781441102195/
Source: Bloomsbury Publishing
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Content Type: 1
Title: Book: Second Language Sentence Processing
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From http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415632003/
Second Language Sentence Processing
By Alan Juffs and Guillermo A. Rodríguez
Published by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group
This addition to the Cognitive Science and Second Language Acquisition series presents a comprehensive review of the latest research findings on sentence processing in second language acquisition. The book begins with a broad overview of the core issues of second language sentence processing research and then narrows its focus by dedicating individual chapters to each of these key areas. While a number of publications have discussed research findings on knowledge of formal syntactic principles as part of theories of second language acquisition, there are fewer resources dedicated to the role of second language sentence processing in this context. This volume will act as the first full-length literature review of the field on the market.
Visit the publisher's website at http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415632003/
Source: Routledge
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Title: Book: Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment
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Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning in a Virtual Learning Environment
by Miranda Hamilton
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
This book describes the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) by a group of advanced English language learners in Mexico, comparing what students thought and what they did in response to the technology. The theoretical aim of the book is to work towards the construction of a theory of the development of autonomy and virtual learning in an EFL context. Enhanced understanding about the relationship between autonomy and technology has the potential to inform academics, software designers, materials writers, teacher educators, and teachers and to help learners in their quest to acquire a foreign language.
Visit the publisher's website at http://bloomsbury.com/uk/autonomy-and-foreign-language-learning-in-a-virtual-learning-environment-9781472589767/
Source: Bloomsbury Publishing
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Content Type: 1
Title: Call for Proposals: Fifth International Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence
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From http://cercll.arizona.edu/development/conferences/2016_icc
CALL FOR PROPOSALS
Intercultural Competence: Traditions and Transitions
Fifth International Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence
January 21-24, 2016
Tucson, Arizona
Straddling tradition and transition, this Fifth International Conference organized by the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) will take stock of the histories that this field carries with it as well as the future directions it might take. This four-day event brings together scholars and educators in order to foster a conversation about what intercultural competence might mean to scholars and educators now, and what theoretical models, best practices, and approaches are best suited to fostering this sensibility in various learners.
CERCLL invites proposals for individual papers, symposia, posters, and workshops (half-day/full-day) with preference given to topics related to the conference theme of Intercultural Competence: Traditions and Transitions.
Proposal deadline: May 25, 2015
View the full call for proposals at http://cercll.arizona.edu/development/conferences/2016_icc
Source: CERCLL
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Title: TESOL 2015 International Convention and English Language Expo
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From http://www.tesol.org/convention2015
The TESOL 2015 International Convention and English Language Expo will take place March 25-28, 2015, in Toronto, Canada. The theme is "Crossing Borders, Building Bridges." The early registration deadline is January 15, 2015.
For full details, go to the conference website at http://www.tesol.org/convention2015
Source: TESOL
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Title: National Association for Bilingual Education Annual Conference
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From http://www.nabe.org/conference
National Association for Bilingual Education 44th Annual Conference
Achieving Global Competence: Biliteracy for All
March 4-7, 2015
Las Vegas
For full details about the conference go to http://www.nabe.org/conference
Source: NABE
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