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Content Type: 4
Title: Long Bets
Body:
by Lindsay Marean, InterCom Editor
When I was in middle and high school, some teachers' projects were legendary, even if I never took the class myself. Home Economics student carried flour sacks to simulate caring for a baby. Shop students build an actual shed that was sold to a local person each year. Spanish 2 students wrote timelines of their lives, an event for each year since they were born, which were displayed for everyone to see. Here is a project that can be used with advanced language learners, or with learners of any proficiency level in their first language. It calls on students to expand not only their awareness of their place in this world but also their awareness of the long span of time and how current events can have long-reaching impacts. The project is long on teacher and student investment, but hopefully will facilitate a life-long change in student awareness of place and time. Your binder of years of student predictions may become a cherished part of your shared classroom culture.
Targeted Proficiency Level: Advanced Low
Learning Objectives:
- Students will be able to make a mid-range prediction about a community issue.
- Students will be able to make a long-term prediction about a global issue.
- Students will be able to support their predictions with reasonable arguments.
- Students will be able to evaluate the likelihood of their classmates’ predictions.
- Students will be able to negotiate a “bet” on the likelihood of an outcome with a classmate.
Modes: Presentational Writing, Interpretive Reading, Interpersonal
Recommended Materials:
- Internet access
- Long Bets handout in English
- Reaction worksheet
- Prediction scaffolding worksheet
- Presentation template
- LFO To Go or other conversation-recording framework
- Binder for curating students’ “bets”
Download the entire project plan with step-by-step procedure here.
For a background on the "long now" perspective that inspired this activity, read this essay.
Learn more about Long Bets here.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 5
Title: University of Oregon Graduate Student Research
Body:
The 7th annual University of Oregon Graduate Student Research Forum was held on Friday, with over 100 graduate students presenting their research and ongoing work in a myriad of disciplines. One of the conference themes this year was “Crossing Borders, Crossing Cultures, Crossing Frontiers,” and some of the CASLS graduate students presented under this umbrella on the topic of language learning. CASLS graduate teaching fellow Kathryn Carpenter presented a poster on her ongoing research on motivation and differentiation in language learning, and CASLS intern Becky Lawrence gave a blitz presentation on her research on digital storytelling in the language classroom.
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Content Type: 3
Title: Place for Learner Engagement
Body:
by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director
“Formal educational environments are typically profoundly place agnostic, both physically, where classrooms isolate the learners from the outside world, and in discourse, where textbooks, syllabi, and instruction are ideally standardized across courses with respect to location, and thus make little reference to the actual lived contexts of their subjects”. (Holden and Sykes, 2009, p. 4).
In recent years, the prolific availability of mobile devices has reinvigorated our exploration of ways we can leverage place for language learning to connect learners with the communities, cultures, and places in which language is spoken. Creating scenarios in which learners have the opportunity to explore unknown places and delve deeper into spaces outside of classroom architectures has demonstrated a profound impact on learners’ framing of their own language learning experience. A number of practices can utilize the power of place to richly transform language learning.
- Exploration: Providing opportunities for learners to leave the classroom and engage in targeted community exploration through scavenger hunts and guided observation can connect learners with language they are studying. In some cases, these places might be obvious, for example, a Spanish-speaking neighborhood in Albuquerque; however, in some cases, the places can be less obvious. For example, find influences of French food and culture in Nashville, TN. Critical to designing these experiences is affording the opportunity for learners to take time in the place and move beyond surface level observation.
- Documentation: A second possibility is affording learners the opportunity to document places with which they are connected and they asking them to document their own experience in that place. This can be especially effective on study abroad trips, field trip adventures, and units in which learners examine the spaces which they inhabit daily. For example, create an exhibit in which you photograph ten instances of globalization and [insert target language] in your own neighborhood.
- Augmented Reality Mobile Games: In recent years, a number of mobile applications have been created for language learning. For example, students can solve a murder mystery in a Spanish speaking neighborhood in Albuquerque through Mentira or play Chrono Ops to save the world as an agent from the future who has returned to the past to explore sustainability in Portland. Augmented reality projects, while still low in number, offer a number of potentially transformative opportunities for learners. (See pebll.uoregon.edu for a growing database of place-based experiences currently in existence).
Regardless of the approach one takes, the power of place is undeniable and offers immense opportunity to engage learners throughout their language learning journey.
References
2011. Holden, C. & Sykes, J. Leveraging mobile games for place-based language learning. International Journal of Game-based Learning. 1(2), 1-18.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Content Type: 3
Title: Interpersonal Communication in the Digital Age
Body:
by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director
On June 29, 2007, Apple released the first iPhone into the wild, simultaneously shaping human communication behaviors and technology innovation for the decade to come. No one could have predicted the significant influence of smart phones and mobile technologies; nevertheless, their impact on human communication practices cannot be ignored.
Take, for example, the case of text messaging. At first reduced to the transfer of acronyms and short sayings, text messages have evolved to included complex turn taking mechanisms such as three dots to indicate someone is typing or systematized structure to review conversational turns between two people or groups of multiple people, all color coded for the interlocutors. As such, much like email, text messages have become a high stakes context for human communication that should not be ignored in the language classroom. As learners build their repertoire across modes and levels, instructors have a unique opportunity to develop formal presentational skills as well as a diverse range of interpersonal communication skills including digitally-mediated interactional contexts. We give three examples for classroom instruction below.
1 – Text messaging: social norms and structures for text messaging in the target language are fundamental to interpersonal communication. Utilizing models for observation and analysis, learners can develop their abilities to, for example, take turns via text, add context through emojis and hashtags, and self-correct in reviewable instances of miscommunication.
2 – Email: As email practices evolve to occupy a more formal space for academic and business transactions, explicit attention to greetings and leave takings, organizational structure, and context of use can be of noteworthy use to the language learner. This extends beyond writing skills to include genre specific content.
3 – Social media: With the vastly changing landscape of social media to mediate human interaction, learners must be taught how and when to communication in social media circles based on cultural, demographic, and discursive explanations.
Regardless of the context chosen for instruction, it is fundamental to consider the unique interpersonal nature of each as its own space, rather than a mirror of alternate types of non-digital interactional contexts.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Content Type: 4
Title: Digitally-mediated Communication: Text Messaging
Body:
This activity focuses on the development of interpersonal communication skills by developing learners’ text messaging skills in the target language. This is not intended to replace other forms of interpersonal speaking, but rather expand each learner’s communicative repertoire.
Modes: interpersonal “speaking”
Objectives
- Students will be able to interpret turn taking behaviors in text messaging contexts.
- Students will be able to close a text message conversation sequence properly.
Resource: Text Messaging Handout
Procedure
- Observation: Ask students to observe three text message sequences (ideally taken from your own texts messages or that of a target language speaking colleague). Note, if you cannot use a conversation of your own, you may create one using one of the many free text message simulators online. As they observe, have them do the following:
- Draw arrows between turn parts. For example, a question and it’s answer.
- Highlight all texts that are part of the closing sequence of the conversation.
- Analysis: Ask students to examine the three sequences and their observation notes to identify the following.
- The number of turns that typically overlap. For example, how often are the pairs one after another or separated by other texts?
- The number of closing sequence texts present in each of the highlighted sections. How many times does a person say good bye before actually ending the conversation?
- Extension: Ask learners to create two text message sequences that model the patterns they found. After the sequences are created, ask learners to evaluate one another’s sequences to see how they match and differ from their findings.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 1
Title: Book: Language, Identity, and Migration
Body:
Language, Identity and Migration: Voices from Transnational Speakers and Communities
Edited by Vera Regan, Chloé Diskin, and Jennifer Martyn
Published by Peter Lang International Academic Publishers
This volume presents a collection of the latest scholarly research on language, migration and identity. In a globalized world where migratory patterns are in constant flux, the traditional notion of the ‘immigrant’ has shifted to include more fluid perspectives of the migrant as a transnational and the language learner as a complex individual possessing a range of dynamic social and contextual identities. This book presents a variety of studies of transnational speakers and communities. It includes research conducted within both established and emerging methodological traditions and frameworks and explores a wide range of contexts and geographical locations, from the multilingual language classroom to the migrant experience, and from Ireland to Eritrea.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://www.peterlang.com/index.cfm?event=cmp.ccc.seitenstruktur.detailseiten&seitentyp=produkt&pk=85627&concordeid=431907
Source: Peter Lang International Academic Publishers
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Content Type: 1
Title: Book: Second Language Acquisition
Body:
From http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/second-language-acquisition-9780567200198/
Second Language Acquisition: A Theoretical Introduction to Real World Applications
By Alessandro G. Benati and Tanja Angelovska
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing
This book is written in order to help undergraduate students and trainee teachers to reflect on certain topics and key issues related to second language acquisition. Despite the proliferation of books and introductory courses in second language acquisition, most of these books very often provide a very complex account of theoretical views in second language acquisition and sometimes fail to emphasize the crucial interplay between how people learn languages and what is the most effective way to teach languages.
The overall purpose of this book is to provide an overview of second language acquisition research and theories by identifying the main key issues in this field and by highlighting the relevance of this research for classroom implications. The study of second language acquisition is a rich and varied enterprise, carried out by researchers, whose interests and training often lie in broader disciplines of linguistics, psychology, sociology, and education.
Readers will be encouraged to critically reflect on the presented content through self-engaging thinking activities in the form of questions, matching activities, choices and conclusions about the implications of SLA theories to the real world applications.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/second-language-acquisition-9780567200198/
Source: Bloomsbury Publishing
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Content Type: 1
Title: Book: Cognitive-Functional Approaches to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language
Body:
From http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/212822
Cognitive-Functional Approaches to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language
Edited by Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani
Published by de Gruyter
This innovative and original volume brings together studies that apply cognitive and functional linguistics to the study of the L2 acquisition of Japanese. With each article grounded on the usage-based model and/or conceptual notions such as foregrounding and subjectivity, the volume sheds light on how cognitive and functional linguistics can help us understand aspects of Japanese acquisition that have been neglected by traditionalists.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/212822
Source: de Gruyter
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Content Type: 1
Title: Call for Papers: National Association for Multicultural Education Annual Conference
Body:
NAME 26th Anniversary Conference Call for Proposals
November 10-13, 2016
Pre-conference sessions November 9
Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.
NAME welcomes critical dialogues for solutions of social inequities in today’s world. Equity must be granted to ALL forms of identity and for ALL people. As we continue to work together for a better world, we look forward to listening to your ideas through presentations and conversations that nurture the purpose and spirit of the National Association for Multicultural Education.
Each proposal must indicate one of the following Organizing Levels to which content is directed:
Introductory — Geared for newcomers to the field of multicultural education.
Intermediate — Geared for those with some exposure to multicultural education.
Advanced — Geared for mid-career practitioners of multicultural education.
Expert — Geared for established leaders in the field of multicultural education.
Submit proposals by March 11, 2016.
View the full call for proposals at http://nameorg.org/headline_news.php
Source: NAME
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Content Type: 1
Title: Oregon State English Learners Alliance Conference
Body:
From https://www.cosa.k12.or.us/events/state-english-learners-alliance-conference-1
Confederation of Oregon School Administrators
State English Learners Alliance Conference
"Diversity, Language Learning and Student Success"
March 9-11, 2016
Eugene
View the full conference program at https://www.cosa.k12.or.us/sites/default/files/images/2016_ela_conference_program_final.pdf
Source: Confederation of Oregon School Administrators
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