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Content Type: 3
Title: Learner Agency and the Authentication of Learner Experiences in Project-based Language Learning
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by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director
A key element of project-based language learning (PBLL) is learning through the creation of a project that is meaningful for learning and shared with a public audience. This key characteristic adds to the experience by making the learning process relevant beyond the classroom space and extending the experience to others. However, as with any well-designed activity, if the experience itself is not authenticated by the learner, it does not matter how amazing the design is. Some students might relish the opportunity to share with the wider community, while others might be stifled by the idea their work will be seen by others. As teachers, we are designers of learning experiences. Sometimes our favorite activities don’t work as we intended and other times the projects we are guessing might be more challenging are taken on by learners and made their own. A key factor in this variability is learner authentication – or the perception by learners that the task itself is meaningful. The motivating factors impacting why and how learners decide what is valuable is complex and variable, sometimes shifting one day to the next. However, one way to tackle this challenge is through differentiation and the facilitation of learner agency – that is, student choice throughout the learning process. Learner agency can be enhanced in small, yet meaningful ways.
- Offer a number of possible final products or formats. Without straying from your learning objectives, a project can be designed to have a variety of possible final products. For example, in a canonical example of a project-based learning project around a political campaign, learners could be offered the choice to create a video or radio campaign advertisement or a print or digital advertisement. In offering multiple final outcomes, learners are given the opportunity to choose what meets their interests.
- Allow for multiple pathways to the same outcome. Another technique for facilitating learner choice is by making the goal clear and offer a variety of ways the learner might reach that goal. This can include offering three or four instructional resources to choose from or multiple pathways within the same learning process. For example, if working with the aforementioned political campaign project, one learning objective would be to describe key characteristics of a variety of types of campaign advertisements. Instead of the teacher offering one model of each, learners could be given a template of what to look for and then sent to find advertisements of each type related to the issues in which they are interested.
Regardless of the way learner agency is addressed, offering learner choice increases buy-in and can greatly enhance the classroom environment through variety and personalization by the students themselves. This week’s Activity of the Week offers an additional means for personalization through differentiation based on a variety of individual motivating factors.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Content Type: 5
Title: Catch the Latest Post on Games2Teach
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This month, on Games2Teach, Jon Reinhardt discusses co-presence, situatedness, and mobile-enhanced language learning. He begins, "The great power of mobile smart devices is that they can connect us with people, ideas, and places with which we do not share the same physical space, and conversely, they allow us to share our selves, ideas and places with those remote others." and then continues to explore exemplar projects which take advantage of mobile applications for language learning. See his full post at: https://games2teach.uoregon.edu/learn/whats-new/.
The Games2Teach website provides curricular resources and professional development opportunities designed specifically for incorporating language learning games into the classroom. The site also includes sample lessons, information on how to adapt teaching styles, and additional resources for teachers on how students can learn languages more effectively. Check back often. Next month, we will discuss newest augmented reality phenomenon, Pokemon GO.
Language teachers explore Pokemon Go in a 2-day workshop about games in the language classroom during the Language Teaching Summer Institute (LTSI) in Gainesville, FL. The two-day session was lead by Julie Sykes, CASLS Director.
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Content Type: 5
Title: F-LAN Annual Retreat
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The Flagship-Language Acquisition Network (F-LAN) held its 5th annual retreat in Park City, Utah from Thursday, July 14 to Friday, July 15. During the retreat, Chinese and Portuguese educators from around the United States focused their efforts on building infrastructure for K-12 Immersion and Secondary Chinese & Portuguese.
To begin the retreat, participants were provided with an overview of the consortium and the state of the language flagship. Then, participants broke out into groups to discuss questions regarding the critical components of F-LAN to maintain overtime. After that, participants were treated to discussions and presentations regarding developing language proficiency as part of the K-12 continuum and instructional strategies related to both secondary language learners and dual language immersion learners.
The end of the retreat was just as robust as the beginning. Retreat participants had the opportunity to learn about the various K-12 pathways that exist for dual language immersion nationwide and the systems that are being developed in order to ensure the fidelity of said pathways. As part of this presentation, the Bridging Project, a CASLS and Portland Public Schools partner project designed to address the attrition rates of secondary dual immersion students, was featured. After this discussion came to a close, a panel offered ways to authentically embed culture into the language curriculum and given an overview of the F-LAN materials that are available online.
CASLS would like to extend its gratitude to all of the people who planned such a successful and worthwhile retreat!
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Content Type: 4
Title: Exemplar PBLL Projects
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For this week’s Activity of the Week, we highlight three exemplar projects in this growing collection of project blueprints. Our hope is these will serve as an inspiration for the creation of engaging and transformative PBLL experiences.
"Easy Japanese" & How We Want It to Be: Messages from Japanese Learners in American Colleges
by Naoko Nemoto
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/pebbles/prototype/52/
Encouraging and Engaging Young Brazilian Readers
by Rachel Mamiya Hernandez
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/pebbles/prototype/49/
Girl power!
by Nicole Naditz
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/pebbles/prototype/55/
Tourist Guides for Teens - An Intercultural Journey
by Don Doehla, NBCT
http://nflrc.hawaii.edu/pebbles/prototype/176/
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 3
Title: What is project-based language learning (PBLL)?
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Julio C Rodríguez, Director, Center for Language & Technology and National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Julio Rodriguez joined the faculty of the College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa as Director of the Center for Language & Technology (CLT), formerly Language Learning Center, and associate director of the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) in 2011.
Before you read this, take a minute to make a list of what you think are the essential qualities of a project designed to optimize second language acquisition. For example, “a project should result in a product.” Keep reading after you finish your list.
When thinking about projects, an idea that often comes to mind is learners engaging in an extended task or series of tasks that require meaningful use of language and result in a product. Although this depiction highlights important aspects of a project, it does not reveal the potential that project-based learning (PBL) offers to immerse language learners in highly engaging learning experiences. The purpose of this brief article is to summarize key aspects of quality project-based language learning (PBLL) and how attention to those aspects can help foster conditions that have the potential to enable second language acquisition.
In recent years, the Buck Institute for Education (BIE) has been a leading advocate for what is described as rigorous PBL, a model composed of essential elements that characterize a quality project. This model is captured in a document entitled Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements (BIE, 2015). Building on the foundations laid out by the BIE, language professionals at the Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) have worked with a broad community of language education professionals around the nation. Their goal is to craft projects that can serve as workable PBLL models and inspire other language teachers to learn more about and implement PBLL. An important aspect of this process has been the definition of exemplary language learning projects. The table below presents the key criteria for PBLL (left column) and a synopsis of how they relate to the context of language learning and teaching (right column).
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Key Knowledge, Understanding and Success Skills |
In quality PBLL, learners acquire the language through the use of their language skills in the real world with the purpose of creating a product, solving a problem or understanding a complex issue or question of relevance to the target culture. Two types of guidelines are useful to identify key knowledge, understanding, and success skills: (a) guidelines that help teachers identify content and (b) guidelines that help teachers align content with proficiency levels. The former are best represented by the World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages, ACTFL’s 21st Century Skills Map, or institutional outcomes (student learning objectives or SLOs). The latter type of guideline is represented by proficiency scales such as the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines or the ILR Proficiency Scale. |
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The Challenge |
Projects are built around a challenge, which may be in the form of an open-ended problem or question or the creation of a product. The challenge should be meaningful, in the sense that it should be informed by learners’ interests and needs. |
|
Sustained Inquiry |
Projects that support sustained inquiry encourage learners a) to generate questions that target both form and meaning and promote language and cultural comparisons, and b) to learn how to find and use resources that will help them answer those questions, become curious about more complex questions, and produce their own answers. |
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Authenticity |
Authenticity has long been discussed in second language acquisition, in particular with reference to materials and contexts of language use. In PBLL, authenticity also applies to language learning materials and contexts of language use but reaches beyond to include the tools (for example, using Wechat for a Chinese language project rather than a social media outlet that is not used in the target culture), and the products that are created through the experience. The extent to which the project produces an impact in the real world and connects with the learners’ own concerns, interests, and identities is also a measure of a projects’ authenticity. |
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Learner voice & choice |
Research in second language acquisition has shown that motivation is a factor deeply linked to success in acquiring a language. Projects that build in opportunities for learner input in the choice of topic and in the evolution of the process are likely to increase learners’ instrumental and integrative motivation (Gardner & Lambert, 1972). Instrumental motivation refers to practical reasons to learn a language. Projects that meet learners’ needs are more likely to awaken this type of motivation. Integrative motivation refers to the learners’ interest in learning a language in order to connect with the people and the culture. Although both types of motivation are important, integrative motivation is a better predictor of success in language acquisition. Well-designed projects offer multiple opportunities to awaken a learner’s integrative motivation by creating the need to interact with the target culture in the target language. Achieving success in this regard attests to the transformative impact of the experience. |
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Reflection |
The impact of learners’ and teachers’ beliefs in second language acquisition has long been documented and explored in SLA research and instructional technology. Quality project designs build in opportunities for participant reflection (both learners and instructors) thus providing ways for participants to discover and possibly revise beliefs about language learning and teaching that might impact acquisition. |
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Critique and revision |
This element of a project design refers to both the importance to build in opportunities for corrective feedback in a general sense (from instructor, peers, and native speakers) and for the revision of ideas and products throughout the project. Critique and revisions in PBLL may include an intercultural dimension where members of the target culture are involved in this process. |
|
Public product |
Quality projects result in a public product presented to an authentic audience. According to the BIE Gold Standards (2015), a product can be a tangible artefact that showcases the learner’s knowledge or a presentation of a solution to the project challenge. An authentic audience ensures that learners receive meaningful feedback on the final product. Authentic audiences are considered those which are made up of speakers of the target language who have real stakes in the solution of the challenge. |
Adapted from Essential Project Design Elements by the Buck Institute for Education (bie.org)
Designing projects that meet all these criteria is a challenging project itself. However, a group of language professionals have taken up the challenge of conceptualizing and designing projects that illustrate these qualities and that might help their colleagues in the exploration of this exciting approach to language instruction. These are highlighted in the Activity of the Week section below.
References
Buck Institute for Education (BIE). (2015). Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements. Available: http://bie.org/blog/gold_standard_pbl_essential_project_design_elements
Gardner, R. C., & Lambert, W. E. (1972). Attitudes and motivation in second language learning. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: Book: Vers une approche intégrée en immersion
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From http://www.editionscec.com/fr/enseignants/hors-quebec/vers-une-approche-integree-en-immersion.html
VERS UNE APPROCHE INTÉGRÉE EN IMMERSION
By Roy Lyster
Published by Les Editions CEC
Summary: Intègre l’enseignement de la langue et l’enseignement du contenu disciplinaire.
Fruit de 25 ans de réflexion et de recherches.
• Explique les principales difficultés langagières des élèves en immersion ;
• Présente le modèle de l’approche intégrée et une démarche pour l’appliquer ;
• Fournit de nombreux exemples ;
• Propose des outils et des stratégies efficaces pour aider les élèves à atteindre des niveaux de compétence langagière plus élevés ;
• Inclut un DVD-ROM avec de courtes vidéos réalisées en salle de classe.
Visit the publisher’s website for more information about this French-language book: http://www.editionscec.com/fr/enseignants/hors-quebec/vers-une-approche-integree-en-immersion.html
Source: Les Editions CEC
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Title: Book: Feature Films in English Language Teaching
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From http://narr-starter.de/magento/index.php/feature-films-in-english-language-teaching.html
Feature Films in English Language Teaching
By Britta Viebrock
Published by Narr Studienbücher
Feature Films in English Language Teaching deals with the use of motion pictures in the advanced EFL (English as a foreign language) classroom. It provides a general introduction to film literacy and explains the rationale, methods, and objectives of working with feature films. In addition, the book contains in-depth considerations on sixteen selected films, which are grouped regionally (Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, USA, Great Britain). Each chapter describes the topical focus of the film and its central theme and provides background information on social, historical, political, and geographical issues. A profound analysis of selected scenes lays the foundation for considerations on the teaching potential of the film. In a download section, the chapters are complemented with ready-to-use teaching materials on film-specific aspects (narrative, dramatic and cinematographic dimensions), which are organized as pre-/while-/post-viewing activities. A glossary on technical terms for film analysis completes the volume.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://narr-starter.de/magento/index.php/feature-films-in-english-language-teaching.html
Source: Narr Studienbücher
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Title: Call for Papers: Symposium: Language Away from the Homeland
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From http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-3029.html
The Ohio State University's Slavic Linguistics Forum and Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures is happy to announce the first annual DSEELC Linguistics Symposium, a conference which will feature work by scholars at different career points working on language as it is spoken outside what it is traditionally considered its ''homeland''. The symposium will take place February 18, 2017.
It is often taken for granted that national boundaries delineate linguistic boundaries. However, languages are not circumscribed by political borders. The symposium organizers therefore invite scholars working in contact linguistics, bilingualism, heritage language, immigrant language, sociolinguistics, dialectology, historical linguistics, second language acquisition, and related fields to submit abstracts pertaining to the study of language as spoken elsewhere than what is considered its traditional “homeland.”
Call Deadline: 01-Nov-2016
View the full call for papers at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-3029.html
Source: LINGUIST List
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Title: German Teacher Virtual Conference “GETVICO”
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From https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/spr/unt/ver/vir.html
Virtual conference for German teachers
The Goethe-Institut and the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG) present GETVICO the Virtual Conference for German Teachers in the US and Canada.
The virtual conference will take place September 17, 2016.
For full details go to https://www.goethe.de/ins/us/en/spr/unt/ver/vir.html
Source: Goethe-Institut
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Title: American Association for Corpus Linguistics 2016 Conference and 14th Annual Technology for Second Language Learning Conference
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From https://apling.engl.iastate.edu/tsll-archive/
The 14th Annual Technology for Second Language Learning (TSLL) Conference will be held jointly with the American Association for Corpus Linguistics (AACL) 2016 Conference. The conference will take place September 16-18, 2016.
Visit both conference websites at https://apling.engl.iastate.edu/conferences/aacl2016/ and at https://apling.engl.iastate.edu/tsll-archive/
Source: Iowa State University
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