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Content Type: 1
Title: Blog Post: 90% TL Is NOT the Only Goal
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From https://lasclasesdestilson.wordpress.com/
Here is a thoughtful blog post about the importance of thinking about modes during planning and implementation. Target language use is good, but if the teacher and students can’t identify which mode(s) they are reinforcing, the activity they are engaged in may not really be leading to proficiency gains. Read the blog post here: https://lasclasesdestilson.wordpress.com/2015/12/08/385/
Source: Las Clases de Stilson
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Title: 7 Steps to Create Videos for Personalized Listening IPAs for Genius Hour Projects
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From http://www.pblinthetl.com
Teacher Laura Sexton AKA Sra. Spanglish has her students do Genius Hour projects - independent research about a topic that they are passionate about. See how she sets it up here: http://www.pblinthetl.com/2014/05/passion-from-start.html. Now it’s the end of the term and time for assessment, so she’s using Integrated Performance Assessments. Each IPA is individualized to a student’s research topic, but she makes it doable: http://www.pblinthetl.com/2015/05/personalized-genius-hour-ipa-final.html. The listening component of the IPA involves playing a video for each learner. See how she addresses the challenge of creating good content for novice learners here: http://www.pblinthetl.com/2015/12/7-steps-to-create-videos-for.html
Your InterCom editor is inspired by this teacher’s integration of personalized learning and performance-based proficiency assessment!
Source: PBL in the TL
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Title: Clues and Snowflakes Activity
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From https://tekhnologic.wordpress.com/
Here is an activity for reinforcing vocabulary, practicing circumlocutions, and using critical thinking: students try to guess a vocabulary word based on clues. The more clues they need, the fewer points they earn.
The activity is available as an editable PowerPoint (the template is provided via the blog post), and a low-tech alternative way of doing the activity is also described.
Read a full description of the activity and access the supporting materials at https://tekhnologic.wordpress.com/2015/12/13/clues-snowflakes/
Source: tekhnologic
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Title: World Language Resources from Wikispaces
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Wikispaces has a curated collection of foreign language resources, some free and some for sale, for learners of French, Spanish, Italian, Latin, German, Japanese, Russian, and other languages. The collection includes murder mystery projects, speed dating activities, bartering simulations, and videos and quizzes.
Explore the available resources at https://www.tes.com/us/teacher-lessons/our-favorite-world-language-resources-collection
Source: TES
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Content Type: 3
Title: Self-Assessment, Empowerment, and Ownership: The Case for Revamping the Current Approach to Assessment in the Classroom
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Stephanie Knight is the Language Technology Specialist at CASLS.
Assessment, when employed correctly, is a powerful and transformative tool that motivates learning. However, in its current, mainstream iteration, it is as dangerous as it is ubiquitous. Important classroom time is lost in the name of standardized testing, educators are bullied when results are below what is desired, and perhaps most importantly, the top-down dissemination of assessment results leaves learners with little autonomy in setting learning goals and few opportunities for developing metacognitive skills. In short, the current approach to assessment is oftentimes as limited as it is limiting.
This observation of the current approach proposes a singular, inherently complex question: How should assessment be used in the classroom? The answer, unsurprisingly, lies in the students. To tell students what test results reveal to be their deficiencies in knowledge is belittling and uninspiring. However, teaching students to self-assess and to develop awareness of their own strengths and weaknesses and strategies for addressing those strengths and weaknesses is empowering. In order to engage in this thinking, McMillan and Hearn (2008) propose a “combination of three components related in a cyclical, ongoing process: self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and identification and implementation of instructional correctives as needed” (p. 41). In other words, learners must be aware of how they think about, process, and use material, where they stand in relationship to certain benchmarks, and what they need to do in order to meet certain goals. Logic therefore holds that the current interpretation of the delineation between summative and formative assessment is much too stark; all summative assessments should involve each student’s voice in analyzing results to inform subsequent experiences within the classroom. In this sense, providing feedback to students after they are supposed to have learned something is a largely futile effort. Instead, students must receive feedback as they learn. Simply put, assessment must no longer be contextualized as a tool used to punish learning that hasn’t happened yet. It should instead be an integral part of the learning process, shifting students away from a performance (grade) focus and towards a mastery (learning) focus (McMillan and Hearn, 2008).
The classroom in which assessment is used as a tool to inspire progress is a much different classroom than that in which assessment punishes gaps in knowledge and understanding. The environment of the former is supportive, and all contributions made by learners are valued, regardless of their relative depth or superficiality (Clark, 2011). The implication of this placement of value then is that learners are celebrated for the knowledge that they possess due to its foundational implications for future growth rather than demeaned for what it is that they don’t know. Additionally, learners engage in metacognitive training, and expectations are scaffolded in such a way that learners see a clear pathway towards the appropriation and use of knowledge. The teacher plays the all-important role of guide, but it is the learners who propel themselves towards success through self-assessment and analysis.
References
Clark, I. (2011). Formative assessment and motivation: Theories and themes. Prime Research on Education (PRE), May 6th 2001, 27-36. Retrieved from http://www.primejournal.org/PRE/pdf/2011/may/Clark.pdf.
McMillan, J. and Hearn, J. (2008). Student Self-Assessment: The Key to Stronger Student Motivation and Higher Achievement. Educational Horizons, 87(1), 40-49. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ815370.pdf.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Content Type: 4
Title: Scenes and Storyboards
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Stephanie Knight is the Language Technology Specialist at CASLS.
As this week’s Topic of the Week indicates, assessment is motivating to students when it is paired with self-evaluation. The activities showcased here are included in order to highlight some formative assessments and subsequent self-evaluation methods that correlate with improved levels of student motivation. These activities are appropriate for learners of all proficiency levels and are targeted towards developing a learner’s awareness of his or her interpretive language skills.
Modes: Interpersonal Communication, Presentational Speaking, Presentational Writing, Interpretive Reading, and Interpretive Listening
Objectives:
Learners will be able to:
- Use existing knowledge to make inferences about texts and to negotiate meaning within texts.
- Engage in self-evaluation to achieve higher levels of motivation within the world language classroom.
Materials: Target visual or audio texts, scene depiction handout, RAFT template, Storyboard template
Activities:
- Scene depiction: Find a video or audio text and give learners the scene depiction handout. Allow learners to depict a specific scene featured in the text by working individually to draw and label what they understand on the handout. Afterwards, the class will engage in a gallery walk/carousel to evaluate what they understood by comparing and contrasting their drawings with those of their classmates. A short closing discussion regarding the content of the text will allow learners to more finely assess their interpretive skills than the carousel/gallery walk alone.
- Text marking: Have learners highlight the words that they understand or can figure out in an assigned written text. After they are done highlighting, learners must use only the highlighted words to answer comprehension question. This focus empowers learners to use existing knowledge to make inferences and to negotiate with unknown language. It also helps learners to see trends (e.g., thematic vocabulary strengths and weaknesses and the ability to recognize verb tenses) in the knowledge that they possess.
- RAFT: Allow learners to explore a targeted perspective featured in a given text by writing or speaking a RAFT (Role, Audience, Format, and Topic). In order to produce a RAFT, learners are assigned a combination of R, A, F, and T to consider as they produce language. Self-evaluation regarding using source texts can occur if learners to mark evidence in their source text that justifies the claims made in the RAFTs. To better understand how to assign a RAFT, see the example that we have provided regarding how the prince should choose his bride in Cinderella.
- Storyboard creation: Have learners work in pairs or small groups to create a storyboard with six scenes from a target audio or visual text. For each scene, learners will be charged with representing a specific chunk of the text. So that learners can engage in self-reflection of their interpretive language skills, have the pairs or small groups present their storyboards to the class to reinforce instances of comprehension and to highlight any instances of miscomprehension. A storyboard template is provided here for use with any target text.
Notes:
Though these activities are appropriate for learners of all proficiency levels, teachers must exercise care when choosing appropriate texts. Additionally, teachers should consider the appropriate amount of target language use to imbed in the closing reflection of each activity.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 5
Title: Self-Evaluation and Improvement: A New LFO Coming Soon
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The Center for Applied Second Language Studies at the University of Oregon is committed to an ongoing cycle of reflection and improvement regarding our efforts to positively impact the teaching and learning of world languages. A current example of this commitment is our redesign of LinguaFolio Online (LFO), our online assessment portfolio. This redesign is divided into three phases: design, pilot, and targeted improvements.
Currently, we are in the middle of our eight-month design phase, a phase informed by survey results from current LFO users. The changes that we are making to LinguaFolio Online involve improving the user interface, improving reporting tools, and including rubrics to enhance learner reflection and understanding. Moreover, we are simplifying a student’s ability to record evidence for multiple Can-Do Statements. We will test these improvements in a pilot group in the fall of 2016.
The potential of these changes to empower students with regard to reflection and learning with LinguaFolio Online is exciting. Carl Burnstein, lead technical designer of the project, stated, “I am excited to breathe new life into LinguaFolio Online. We’re making a lot of great design changes that should make LFO much easier to use and allow for some more analytical power behind the reporting features”. These features promise to allow learners and teachers to reflect on progress in a meaningful way.
Keep on the lookout for future communication regarding our improvements to LinguaFolio Online! In the meantime, please feel free to browse our existing resources for LFO users at lfonetwork.uoregon.edu.
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Title: Language and Power
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Melissa Baese-Berk is an Assistant Professor of linguistics at the University of Oregon. Her research interests include the relationship between speech production and perception, especially in learning.
Each fall, I teach a general education course called “Language and Power” here at the University of Oregon. One of the textbooks we use is Rosina Lippi-Green’s English with an Accent. In this text, Lippi-Green introduces students to the idea of Standard Language Ideology: “a bias toward an abstract, idealized homogenous language, which is imposed and maintained by dominant institutions and which has as it’s model written language, but which is primarily drawn from the spoken language of the upper middle class.” Lippi-Green argues that by defining some “standard” all other languages, dialects, and accents are defined in contrast as “non-standard.”
During our term, we spend a lot of time examining our ideas about “standard language,” and the impact that these ideas have had on our thoughts about language more generally speaking. We begin the term discussing the remarkable structure throughout language, even in unexpected places (e.g., non-standard dialects). We also spend several weeks discussing the substantial variability found at every level of language both within and across speakers.
As students begin to examine linguistic facts about structure and variability, they frequently begin to question many of their own beliefs about language. Many of my students are heritage language students who have been exposed to one dialect at home and then learn a different dialect in their language classroom. They’ve received different messages about the prestige of their home and school dialects and languages throughout their lives. When they realize that many of the judgments about languages and dialects are social, rather than linguistic in origin, students begin to see value and prestige in all the forms of language they use.
Language teachers hold remarkable power in helping students form ideas about language, dialects, and accents. The language and dialects students are exposed to in the classroom are held in high prestige because they are the targets for learning. However, when the language varieties used in the classroom are limited to those typically seen as prestigious by the broader community, students may view other varieties as “non-standard.” Students from heritage backgrounds may feel as though their home varieties are being marginalized. Students being exposed to the language for the first time may learn to reinforce the typical societal views about prestige of certain language varieties. If, however, students are exposed to multiple dialects and accents during the course of their learning, they may learn to value all these varieties. Exposure to these varieties may have the added side effect that students may also able to communicate with more individuals outside of the classroom, rather than only individuals who speak a “standard” or prestige variety.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: Book: Language Policy and Planning
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From https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415727662
Language Policy and Planning
Edited by Thomas Ricento
Published by Routledge
The field of language policy and planning has evolved over the past half century into a flourishing field of academic inquiry, with identifiable research agendas, methods, and findings. Edited by Thomas Ricento, alongside an editorial advisory group of five leading scholars, this new Routledge collection features all the key articles published, both foundational and critical scholarship, to provide a comprehensive documentary record of a vibrant academic area.
Visit the publisher’s website at https://www.routledge.com/products/9780415727662
Source: Routledge
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Title: Book: Unpacking the Core Teaching and Learning Practices of Arabic at a Major U.S. University
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From http://lincom-shop.eu/epages/57709feb-b889-4707-b2ce-c666fc88085d.sf/de_DE/?ObjectID=9435623
Unpacking the Core Teaching and Learning Practices of Arabic at a Major U.S. University: Critical Assessment, Innovation, and Collaboration
By Abderrahman Zouhir
Published by Lincom
There is no doubt that Arabic is gaining ground in U.S. universities. However, U.S. students face major difficulties in learning Arabic as a foreign language. They are surprised to find a challenging curriculum that does not meet their needs and expectations. Many students are losing their enthusiasm for Arabic quickly and few of them are continuing their studies beyond the intermediate level. As such, the focus of any study should now shift to the retention and advancement of students learning Arabic. To this end, this study attempts to place Arabic within the fold of other foreign languages as they are taught in the Western world. This study will be useful not only to students but to teachers and program coordinators as well.
The data of this study was collected at a major U.S. university. A teacher and six students learning Arabic participated in this study. Questionnaires, interviews, observation, and think-aloud protocols were used as data collection methods. The study critically assesses the teaching and learning of Arabic, and provides some recommendations that are peculiar to the study setting as well as to the general field of teaching Arabic as a foreign language in the United States. Findings suggest that extra-curricular activities should be promoted in teaching and learning Arabic.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://lincom-shop.eu/epages/57709feb-b889-4707-b2ce-c666fc88085d.sf/de_DE/?ObjectID=9435623
Source: Lincom
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