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Content Type: 1
Title: Process-driven Instruction and Writing
Body:
From https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com
Gianfranco Conti writes,
“Say you are the coach of a team of novice football players. You wouldn’t throw them into a very difficult match straight away, without the necessary training. Right? Surely you would make sure they received lots of practice in all the most crucial aspects of the game from the most basic skills (e.g. passing, drilling, tackling and shooting) to the most complex ones (e.g. defensive and offensive tactics). This is common sense, and it should apply to language teaching, too. Yet, many of us, from the very early days of A Level or IB, ask students to write cognitively and linguistically demanding discursive essays of some length, without teaching them all of the skills necessary to accomplish that challenging task effectively.”
Read on to learn more about how focusing on the process of writing can strengthen students’ writing skills: https://gianfrancoconti.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/how-process-driven-instruction-may-enhance-foreign-language-upper-intermediate-students-essay-writing/
Source: The Language Gym
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Title: Interaction Around the Game: A Look at Attendant Discourse Communities
Body:
by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director
When considering the integration of games in the language classroom, associated attendant discourse communities – the communities of players who analyze, debate, and create based on their gameplay experience – can add depth and complexity to classroom activities. Furthermore, the offer a window into a variety of social communities relevant to everyday global behaviors. This week, we explore three ways attendant discourse communities can be explored in the language learning classroom.
- Fan Fiction: A social practice in which all elements of a story, show, game, or book are expanded and repurposed through creative expression. Fans from all walks of life create stories, share them with a peer community, and comment upon one another’s work to make the stories better. Fan Fiction around games can be very useful to explore context, narrative, rhetoric, and writing practices of different cultures. Classroom activities can include reading others’ stories, analyzing commentary, and, at the intermediate and advanced levels, creating and submitting one’s own stories. Fan fiction examples can be found at https://www.fanfiction.net/ or by searching for fan fiction in the target language.
- Machinima: A remixing practice in which visual elements of a games are often combined with alternative sounds, voices, and animations. For some examples see http://www.machinima.com/. This digital remixing is posted online and shared among a community of peers. This peer-to-peer process provides excellent opportunities for learners to explore and analyze authentic cultural processes and narratives. Classroom activities can include watching machinima projects and analyzing language, cultural practices, and commentary. In addition, learners can be encouraged to create their own machinima excerpts.
- Strategy Forums: Information about the majority of popular digital games can be found in strategy forums online. These strategy discussions are ideal contexts to look at advanced language skills such as hypothesizing, critiquing, and discussing abstract concepts. It is always good to explore the game strategy sites when implementing digital games. Learners can be encouraged to analyze pragmatic practices or contribute to the sites as they are interested and able.
More information on attendant discourse communities and language learning can be found in:
Thorne, S. L., Black, R, Sykes, J.(2009). Second Language Use, Socialization, and Learning in Internet Interest Communities and Online Games. Modern Language Journal, 93, 802-821.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Content Type: 5
Title: Games2Teach
Body:
The Games2Teach, an online resource for teachers, is a joint project between CASLS and CERCLL (Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language, and Literacy). It exists to help teachers to incorporate games into language learning. Access to Games2Teach is free and available here.
Teachers can use the site for information regarding digital games in the classroom, for their own professional development, for advice on which game to use, and for printable, ready-to-go lesson plans and activities.
Resources on the blog include professional development resources, research regarding games and language learning, materials and activities using games, articles about games for language learning, game evaluations, workshops, and a host of other substantive resources for teachers looking to incorporate digital games into their language classroom.
Currently, the materials are available to be used in a variety of world language classrooms including Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and German.
Recently, the blog has been updated to include resources for teachers related to CASLS’ presentations and materials at ACTFL and additional activities that we have created for classroom use. Of particular note for Intercom readers is a new post about SimCity BuildIt that expands upon the activities that we have included in this newsletter in recent weeks. As we move into the new year, we will continue to post more sample activities, articles, and other resources. We encourage you to check out our new material, and feel free to contact us with any feedback at info@uoregon.edu, or on Facebook and Twitter.
The U.S. Department of Education, under grant #P229A14004, supports development of this project. Contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the U.S. Department of Education nor imply endorsement by the federal government.
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Title: Using Analog Games to Teach
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By Ben Pearson, CASLS Digital Technologies Associate
Using analog games in the classroom is one potential solution that language teachers can take advantage of when trying to motivate their students to speak. Schell (2008) defines games as “a problem solving activity, approached with a playful attitude” (p. 37), which is appropriate when we apply such a definition to a classroom setting. Several studies report that using games in the classroom lowers the “affective filter” of students and raises their willingness to communicate (MacIntyre et al., 2001; MacIntyre et al., 1998; Yashima, 2002; Reinders and Wattana, 2015). Unsurprisingly, students often enjoy it when teachers set class time aside to play a game of some sort.
One of the strongest features of using games in the classroom is how they can be used to motivate students and make them willing to communicate. The use of games is not a new idea to teachers, who use them as an attention grabbing exercise or activity for fun, or as a change of pace. Some would argue that this time spent playing games could be much better used, making students feel like they are not wasting their time with trivial pursuits. However, the effectiveness of a game in a classroom setting relies on the way in which a teacher uses it.
For example, the game Hanabi involves a great deal of cooperation and strategic language use. Players will take turns giving each other hints about what cards the other players are holding, playing cards from their hand based on color and numerical sequence, or discarding cards to draw replacements. Players are allowed a certain amount of hints and if they make four mistakes, the game ends and the score is calculated. Composed of a simple deck of cards with five different colors (six for the advanced game) and values from one to five, the game is a simple, cost-effective way to practice declarative statements, word prominence, and/or adjective use in an authentic, didactic way.
One Night Ultimate Werewolf is another game which could be used for teaching strategic language use. Players are assigned a hidden role where they are either a villager or a werewolf. The villagers are trying to figure out who the werewolves are and the werewolves are trying to convince everyone else that they are villagers. Players are given a time limit to discuss and decide who to vote out. The villagers win if they vote out a werewolf and the werewolves win if they vote out a villager, so persuasion and/or bluffing are key. The game also presents the teacher with some opportunities to introduce language features like declaratives, conditionals, and indirect speech.
These are only a few examples of how a teacher could use analog games for teaching, and if you are interested in getting more information on this topic, write to us at info@uoregon.edu, follow us on https://twitter.com/CASLS_nflrc, or like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/casls.nflrc.
References
MacIntyre, P. D., Baker, S. C., Clément, R. and Conrod, S. (2001). Willingness to communicate, social support, and language-learning orientations of immersion students. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 23(3): 369–388.
MacIntyre, P. D., Dörnyei, Z., Clément, R. and Noels, K. A. (1998). Conceptualizing willingness to communicate in a L2: A situational model of L2 confidence and affiliation. The Modern Language Journal, 82(4): 545–562.
Reinders, H. and Wattana, S. (2015). Affect and willingness to communicate in digital game-based learning. ReCALL, 27(1): 38-57.
Schell, J. (2008). The art of game design. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kauffman Publishers.
Yashima, T. (2002). Willingness to communicate in a second language: The Japanese EFL context. The Modern Language Journal, 86(1): 54–66.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: Expeditionary Learning: An Effective Approach for Heritage Language Education
Body:
Yvonne Fariño teaches at the John J. Duggan Academy Expeditionary School of Social Justice, is a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and she serves as co-chair of ACTFL's Special Interest Group on Heritage Languages.
Research shows that Spanish heritage language students do not have access to rigorous academic curriculum in the Spanish classroom (García, 2001), and the Spanish for heritage learners curriculum needs to address students’ cultural and individual differences (Carreira, 2012, 2007; Rodríguez, 2014), promote critical consciousness (Leeman, 2012), and focus on identity and affective issues (Martínez, 2012; Potowski, 2012).
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory (1987) links learning and development as a social product because through language social cognition and lived experiences are transmitted. Language is a representation of commonsense and general knowledge of our group’s social mind: historicity, beliefs and values. Because language is a mental tool that mediates the development and internalization of cultural forms of behavior, and semiotic systems in everyday activities (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986, 1998), social cognition, or ideology, can be materialized into activities during instructional design and pedagogical decisions. In this sense, language can also serve as a “cultural tool” to scaffold understanding, negotiation, and co-construction of knowledge when an instructional design affords learners to interact with different systems of knowledge.
Learning Expeditions are tools for real-world application that engages educators and learners to go beyond the curriculum and not just across the curriculum. Learning Expeditions are also a great way for heritage language learners (HLLs) to share the richness that exists within each other, their families, and their communities, because it offers a multi-voice perspective, authenticity of knowledge with real-world application that affirms students’ social identity and membership. Thus, Learning Expeditions serve as “cultural tools” because they sustain students’ linguistic variety and funds of knowledge, while increasing their linguistic repertoire into academic literacy and concepts.
In order for HLLs to develop “academic concepts” (Vygotsky, 1994) as they progress from novice to intermediate levels, cultural and linguistic affordances are essential for student achievement because they foster student engagement and retention, and positions students as learners.
Linguistic features offer a way to integrate effective communication, whether oral or written, in a variety of situations and for multiple purposes, and to interact with cultural competence and understanding. As a critical language educator, affording opportunities for teaching and learning to develop “academic concepts” and literacy via linguistic functions have allowed me and students to reach our zone of proximal development (zpd) as we transform and are transformed by the knowledge that we are co-constructing.
I used backward design (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005) to create the Mexican Muralist Movement Learning Expedition. Once I knew which linguistic feature I wanted to use, I began to deconstruct the unit to have a better view of the linguistic, cultural, and literacy knowledge students were going to need prior to and during the Learning Expedition, while also meeting the language program curriculum. The linguistic feature that authenticates language learning for HLLs is Family and Community, which can be found in any Level 2 textbook. I made a conscious decision to rename the Unit Family, Community and Society, to show students how they are part of the social construction of society.
In this week’s Activity of the Week I present the overall plan for the Learning Expedition and go into detail for one three-day component of the expedition, a Case Study exploring Puerto Rican identity through art.
References
Carreira, M. (2007). Spanish for Native speakers: Narrowing the Latino achievement gap through language instruction. Heritage Language Journal 5(1). Retrieved from http://www.heritagelanguages.org/heritage/
Carreira, M. (2012). Meeting the needs of heritage language learners: Approaches, strategies and research. In S. Beaudrie & M Fairclough (Eds.), Spanish as a heritage language in the United States: The state of the field (pp. 223-240). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
García, E. (2001). Latinos education in the United States: Raíces y alas. Boulder, CO: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA): Connecting Assessment to Instruction and Learning model. Foreign Language Annals, 39(3), 359-382
Leeman, J. (2012). Investigating language ideologies in Spanish as a heritage language. In S. Beaudrie & M Fairclough (Eds.) Spanish as a heritage language in the United States: The state of the field, (pp.43-60). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Martínez, G. (2012). Policy and planning research for Spanish as a heritage language: From language rights to linguistic resource. In S. Beaudrie & M Fairclough (Eds.), Spanish as a heritage language in the United States: The state of the field, (pp.61-100) Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Potowski, K. (2012). Identity and heritage learners: Moving beyond essentializations. In S. Beaudrie & M. Fairclough (Eds.), Spanish as a Heritage Language in the US: State of the Science (283-304). Georgetown University Press.
Rodríguez, A. (2014). Culturally relevant books: Cultural responsive teaching in bilingual classrooms. In NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 5. Retrieved from http://www2.nau.edu/nabej-p/ojs/index.php/njrp/issue/view/8
Transition by Design: The Power of Vertical Teams: https://www.amle.org/BrowsebyTopic/WhatsNew/WNDet/TabId/270/ArtMID/888/ArticleID/501/Transition-by-Design-
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher psychological processes. (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, and E. Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1986). Thought and language. (A. Kozulin, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1987). The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol.1. Problems of General Psychology. R. W. Rieber and A.S. Carton, Eds.; N. Minick, Trans.). New York: Plenum Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1994). The development of academic concepts in school aged children. The Vygotsky reader, 355-370.
Vygotsky, L.S. (1998). The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky. Vol. 4. The history of the development of higher mental functions (M. Hall, Trans.; R. W. Rieber, Ed.). New York: Plenum Press.
Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design – Expanded 2nd edition. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: Mexican Muralist Movement Learning Expedition
Body:
Yvonne Fariño teaches at the John J. Duggan Academy Expeditionary School of Social Justice, is a doctoral candidate at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and she serves as co-chair of ACTFL's Special Interest Group on Heritage Languages. This Activity of the Week exemplifies the Learning Expeditions that she talks about in this week’s Topic of the Week.
The goal for designing the Learning Expedition on El Movimiento Muralista Mexicano initially was to draw on students lived experiences, academic knowledge, home literacies and funds of knowledge, which then led me to think of the following four goals: 1) to beautify the school with students’ artistic talent as a way to create a sense of belonging, 2) to give students’ voice to tell their story, 3) to affirm students’ social identity and memberships while sharing their individual funds of knowledge, and 4) for students to have access to a rigorous curriculum that is often offered in the Advance Placement of language programs at the secondary level.
The unit design includes:
- Family structure via surveys and readings. The vocabulary and concepts students practice are the application of question words, what is appropriate to ask, and varying their language use according who they interview.
- Interviews conducted to family members and neighbors and then share their stories. In this activity, students practice and learn how to describe family members and community in the present and in the past. They also learn how to negotiate turn-taking, synthesize information, while practice real-language in context, and learn about their family and community history.
- The importance of family and community traditions and celebrations. In this activity, students also learn geography, culture and historical background of where the family member or neighbor comes from or that person’s heritage. In addition, students learn and practice numbers, months of the year, activities that correlate with seasons and weather conditions, and how geographical location, culture and history dictate traditions and celebrations.
- Artifacts and symbols that represent the heritage or ethnicity of a family member and community.
The full description of the Learning Expedition I developed is included here.
I realized that prior to the Learning Expedition, students were going to need an introduction in understanding the artist’s point of view. Artists know how to use cultural symbols, cultural artifacts, space, color, brushwork, movement of forms, to name a few, to represent a sentiment, honor a story or a person or persons, etc. A Case Study is a great activity because it mediates the learner’s awareness of what it means to think like and create art like an artist, while scaffolding academic concepts, structural features, and linguistic variety that exist in Spanish. Case Studies also offer students an in-depth look at how cultural symbols and artifacts are representations of a group’s identity, and because of its cultural construction, they are flexible and hybrid. In this perspective, the three-day lesson that follows was a way for students to learn to think like an artist in order to understand his or her pieces of work, and the message they are transmitting.
The student population in my urban school is primarily Puerto Rican, so I chose to introduce Puerto Rico through a Case Study which I named La puertorriqueñidad a través del arte. My goal was to increase students’ linguistic repertoire, practice grammatical structures and develop their writing skills through reading. The idea of a Case Study was to have students building background knowledge through analysis of “puertorriqueñidad”, or Puerto Rican identity, and practice basic Spanish literacy.
Here is a description of my three-day Case Study lesson, including learning targets, mini-lesson, guided practice, independent practice, and debriefing questions.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 4
Title: Safari Tales Intermediate Activity
Body:
Playing a Story
This activity is designed to develop literacy skills in intermediate learners through the use of Safari Tales and its ability to inspire students to play with language. In completing this activity, the learners will augment the digital storybooks that they create in gameplay with additional details. After completing that phase of work, learners will work with a peer to think critically about their respective abilities to explain situations and characters with detail.
Objectives
Learners will be able to:
- create a story about a character.
- write a descriptive narrative using adjectives and other supporting details.
- format and write a short story.
Modes: Interpretive reading, Presentational Writing, Interpersonal speaking
Resources: Intermediate Activity 1 Writing Template, Intermediate Activity 1 Peer Review Handout, Safari Tales app
Procedure:
- Ask learners to brainstorm three activities an animal might do in a safari by using the Intermediate Activity 1 Writing Template. Learners will also make predictions about an animal character from Safari Tales. They will document these predictions in first person as if they were an animal.
- Allow learners to play Safari Tales for 15-20 minutes (enough time to play one quest and create one story in the game). As they play, learners will write down three descriptive words about their animal and three things it might do tomorrow on the Intermediate Activity 1 Writing Template.
- Next, ask learners to continue working on the Intermediate Activity 1 Writing Template by expanding their own story to include a description of and predictions about their in-game characters.
- Finally, instruct learners to get into pairs to engage in peer review. Learners will use the Intermediate Activity 1 Peer Review Handout to guide their discussion and to provide feedback..
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Title: Immersion Research-to-Action Brief
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From http://www.carla.umn.edu/about/carlaupdate.html
CARLA’s new series of annual Immersion Research-to-Action Briefs provides a readily digestible means of keeping educators informed about ongoing research in the field of language immersion education that has implications for their daily practice.
For the inaugural Brief, Dr. Renée Bourgoin (University of New Brunswick, Canada) drew upon her dissertation research that investigated at risk and typically developing readers’ use of reading strategies in Gr. 3 French immersion classrooms. A free copy of Reading Strategies: At Risk and High Performing Immersion Learners can be found online at: carla.umn.edu/immersion/
Source: CARLA
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Title: The Boren Awards: A Report of Oral Language Proficiency Gains During Academic Study Abroad
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The Boren Awards: A Report of Oral Language Proficiency Gains During Academic Study Abroad
A Cumulative Report over 15 Years and 53 Languages (2015)
By Leah Mason, Christopher Powers, and Seamus Donnelly
The Boren Awards: A Report of Oral Language Proficiency Gains during Academic Study Abroad explores the language gains made by U.S. undergraduate and graduate students who received Boren Scholarships and Fellowships for language study overseas between 1996 and 2011. To the authors’ knowledge, this report is, in size, the largest presentation of data on oral language proficiency development by U.S. college and university students during study abroad, and, in scope, it represents the greatest number of host countries and languages studied to date.
The research questions guiding this report address how several factors affect language gain in the study abroad environment: duration abroad; initial oral proficiency; the relationship between initial oral proficiency level and duration abroad; and gender, education level (academic status), academic major, language category of difficulty, and knowledge of other languages.
Highlights of this report include the following:
- Analysis of 2,466 Boren Awardees.
- Most Boren Awardees study abroad for six months or longer and make an average gain of two sublevels on the ACTFL scale.
- New language learners can gain as many as four sublevels on the ACTFL scale and achieve the Intermediate Low level by studying abroad for three months or fewer.
- For students who start at the Intermediate level, studying abroad for six months or longer is critical to reaching advanced levels of proficiency.
The basis of these findings are detailed in this report, along with additional analysis regarding length of study, initial proficiency levels, academic levels, gender, and differences among languages.
Access the report at http://www.iie.org/Research-and-Publications/Publications-and-Reports/IIE-Bookstore/The-Boren-Awards-A-Report-Of-Oral-Language-Proficiency-Gains
Source: IIE
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Title: Book: Major versus Minor? – Languages and Literatures in a Globalized World
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From https://beta.benjamins.com/#catalog/books/fillm.1/main
Major versus Minor? – Languages and Literatures in a Globalized World
Edited by Theo D’haen, Iannis Goerlandt and Roger D. Sell
Published by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Do the notions of “World Lingua Franca” and “World Literature” now need to be firmly relegated to an imperialist-cum-colonialist past? Or can they be rehabilitated in a practical and equitable way that fully endorses a politics of recognition? For scholars in the field of languages and literatures, this is the central dilemma to be faced in a world that is increasingly globalized. In this book, the possible banes and benefits of globalization are illuminated from many different viewpoints by scholars based in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania. Among their more particular topics of discussion are: language spread, language hegemony, and language conservation; literary canons, literature and identity, and literary anthologies; and the bearing of the new communication technologies on languages and literatures alike. Throughout the book, however, the most frequently explored opposition is between languages or literatures perceived as “major” and others perceived as “minor”, two terms which are sometimes qualitative in connotation, sometimes quantitative, and sometimes both at once, depending on who is using them and with reference to what.
Visit the publisher’s website at https://beta.benjamins.com/#catalog/books/fillm.1/main
Source: John Benjamins Publishing Company
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