Contents
Content Type: 4
Title: Informal Learning Reflection
Body:
This activity was prepared to complement this week’s Topic of the Week article in which we highlight the necessity of working with groups of traditionally marginalized learners so that their informal learning experiences might be used to the benefit of the classroom space.
Objectives: Learners will be able to:
- Identify the ways that they best learn in informal environments
- Develop a plan to use their informal learning tendencies to support their formal educational goals.
Modes: Interpersonal Communication, Presentational Writing
Procedure:
- Explain to your learners that it is important for you as their teacher to understand how they learn outside of the classroom so that you can use those strengths within the classroom. Let them know that the questions that you will ask them will only be used so that you know how to best attend to their specialized needs.
- Ask your students the questions listed below. You may provide them as a handout to learners or write them on the board.
- Think about the stories that you learned as a child. How did your family or caretaker teach you stories growing up? Were they read to you? Were they recited to you? How often were images used to support the stories?
- What types of stories did you learn growing up? Were they fictional? Family histories? Mythological? Fables?
- What values, if any, did you learn from the stories that stuck with you? For example, were there any morals embedded within the stories that you learned?
- Outside of school, where do you turn to for information now? Your parents or caretaker? Your friends? Books? Social media? Something else?
- What is important to you in determining the credibility of a source? A variety of facts and figures? The reputation of the person providing the information? Your gut reaction?
- When you are learning to do anything (ride a bike, play a video game, write a Tweet), what types of activities do you most enjoy? Is it observing others do the activity/use the knowledge well? Is it trying the activity/using the knowledge yourself? Is it working with others to understand and eventually engage in the activity/use the knowledge? Is it having individual reflection time?
- What technology do you regularly use? What technology can you regularly use?
- After reviewing everyone’s answers, provide the class with a brief overview of what you saw. Then, work with the learners to make a list of strategies for learning classroom material that reflects their strengths and tendencies as formal learners. Post a classroom list somewhere to refer to throughout the school year. Also, allow learners to make their own personal modifications to the classroom list that more closely represents their individual needs.
Notes:
The proficiency level of learners will determine how much of this activity can be carried out in the target language.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 4
Title: Humans of Your School
Body:
This activity was created for classes of intermediate language learners and is intended to valorize every individual’s unique experience in an effort to creating an accepting classroom environment.
Objectives: Learners will be able to:
- Explain events in the past in detail
- Recognize and use words dealing with everyday life
- Transcribe, analyze, and correct learner-generated output
Modes: Interpretive Reading, Presentational Speaking, Interpretive Listening, and Interpretive Writing
Resources: Testimony outline handout, peer feedback handout, computers with internet access, a blog platform such as WordPress, Humans of New York (humansofnewyork.com)
Procedure:
- Learners should explore a digital text (blog, online magazine, online newspaper) like Humans of New York (humansofnewyork.com) that features first-person accounts of life/testimonies. In order to conduct this exploration, dissect some texts as a class in which you identify the characteristics of a strong testimonial and any structural components that should be included in a written testimonial (e.g., byline, title, and/or pictures).
- Learners will outline their own testimonies regarding an event that they think shaped them as an individual using the outline handout.
- After learners complete the outline, allow them to get feedback from a peer by using the peer review handout.
- Next, give learners roughly 45 minutes to write their testimonies.
- The next day in class, give learners feedback on their testimonies. Be sure to point out issues related to meaning making and to valorize them as more important than issues related to grammatical accuracy.
- Give the learners 30-45 minutes to make improvements to their testimonies. The should upload those testimonies to a blog previously created by the teacher entitled “Humans of School Name”. While no specific blogging platform is required, teachers should look for platforms like WordPress that allow for inviting multiple contributors to post on the same blog.
Notes
As an extension activity, have learners pick someone from the class that they don’t know very well and interview that person to find out more information related to the testimony. This information could be shared corporately or individually as comments on the original blog posts.
Another possible extension activity is to have the learners think of a way to represent the stories collected by their class collectively. This representation could include an art installation, an original play, or a digital flier that promotes the class.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 4
Title: Biographies and Perspectives
Body:
One of the issues affecting access in education is the celebration of and appreciation for the disparate and unique realities facing learners. The purpose of this activity is to engage novice university (and possibly high school) learners in critical thinking and language output regarding how situations impact one’s perception of self. In order to complete this activity, students will first complete a bio poem of themselves as university or high school students. Then, learners will work in teams to play Day 1 and Day 2 of This War of Mine. They will reflect upon their gameplay to write a new bio poem in which they demonstrate how war might impact one’s perception of self.
Objectives: Learners will be able to:
- Acquire new vocabulary related to one’s everyday life through context and collaboration
- Write general information about one’s self including physical and personal descriptions
- Provide meaningful feedback about another learner’s writing
- Engage in meaningful self-reflection about writing skills
- Use context to determine meaning while reading
Modes: Presentational Writing, Interpretive Reading
Resources: Bio poem template, Notes handout, Exit ticket, This War of Mine app or computer game
Procedure
- Learners will review how to write general descriptions of self by completing the bio poem template. A perfect way to review these rules is for the teacher to model using the template for the class.
- After learners complete their poems, allow them to work with a partner to review what they have written. To conduct this peer review, learners will suggest where more details might be needed for communication and will identify instances of misunderstanding or miscommunication.
- Now, learners will work with a team of four to play Day 1 and Day 2 of This War of Mine. At this proficiency level, learners will not be able to understand all of the text within the game. They should focus on using context and recognizing cognates and linguistic patterns to understand what is happening. As they play, learners will take notes on the appropriate handout regarding how the characters in the game feel. This information can be found in the conversations that the characters have with one another and on the status cards in the bottom right corner of the screen. After they play, learners will work individually to write descriptions of how the game characters in a war-torn country might feel regarding concepts such as family, home, and leisure. These descriptions will also be written on the notes handout.
- Next, learners will write new bio poems from the perspective of one of the game characters. Teachers will give learners the same template that was used in in Step 1 in order to complete this portion of the activity. Learners should be careful to make their descriptions as robust as possible for their proficiency level
- To close the class, learners will be tasked with answering the questions below on an exit ticket. These questions will inform instruction for subsequent classes.
- What similarities exist between the two poems that you wrote?
- What differences exist between the two poems that you wrote?
- What strengths do you have when it comes to writing descriptions?
- What do you want to improve upon when writing descriptions?
Notes:
This War of Mine is available for Android and iOS devices and on Steam for roughly $14.99. The mature content of the game (some language, violence, and substance abuse) requires that teachers play the game themselves before deciding whether or not to implement the game.
If the game is too mature for classroom use, a game like Fallout Shelter or The Sims would be easy to implement in its place. The important thing is to provide learners with the opportunity to experience the perspective of someone else through gameplay and to communicate their experience in a way that is appropriate to proficiency level.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 1
Title: Finding Excellent Open Online Content for Your Language Classes
Body:
The latest newsletter from our sister LRC, the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning, is available at https://www.coerll.utexas.edu/coerll/sites/coerll.utexas.edu.coerll/files/coerll-newsletter-fall-2016.pdf
This issue features an interview with Christian Hilchey that includes information about finding open video content on YouTube. Following the interview is an infographic that demonstrates the openly licensed video content currently available on YouTube. The issue also features a 4-page article, “Techniques for Searching Openly-License Materials,” which outlines techniques that teachers can use to increase the effectiveness of Internet searches.
Source: COERLL
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Title: New Publication: Building a Successful and Sustainable Language Immersion Program
Body:
From https://casls.uoregon.edu/research/chinese-immersion-research/
We at CASLS have finished an ethnography study, funded by The Language Flagship, examining the Portland Public Schools (PPS) Mandarin Dual Language Immersion Program. The report examines the historical development of the PPS program, sets forth key components of the PPS model that other districts may replicate, and examines catalysts and disruptors to the language immersion model.
You can read an executive summary of the report, “Building a Successful and Sustainable Language Immersion Program: The Portland, Oregon, Mandarin Dual Language Experience,” by Julie M. Sykes, Linda B. Forrest, and Kathryn J. Carpenter, at https://casls.uoregon.edu/research/chinese-immersion-research/. The publication is also available for download from the site.
Source: CASLS
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Title: Book: Essential Competencies for English-medium University Teaching
Body:
From http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319409542
Essential Competencies for English-medium University Teaching
Edited by Ruth Breeze and Carmen Sancho Guinda, Carmen
Published by Springer
As English gains prominence as the language of higher education across the world, many institutions and lecturers are becoming increasingly concerned with the implications of this trend for the quality of university teaching and learning. With an innovative approach in both theme and scope, this book addresses four major competencies that are essential to ensure the effectiveness of English-medium higher education: creativity, critical thinking, autonomy and motivation. It offers an integrated perspective, both theoretical and practical, which defines these competences from different angles within ELT and Applied Linguistics, while also exploring their points of contact and applications to classroom routines. This approach is intended to provide practical guidance and inspiration, in the form of pedagogical proposals, examples of teaching practice and cutting-edge research by scholars and university teachers from all over the world. To that end, a leading specialist in the field introduces each of the four competencies, explaining concepts accessibly and synthetically, exposing false myths, presenting an updated state of the art, and opening windows for future studies. These introductions are followed by practitioner chapters written by teachers and scholars from different cultures and university contexts, who reflect on their experience and/or research and share effective procedures and suggestions for the university class with English as a vehicle for instruction.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319409542
Source: Springer
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Title: Book: Restrictive Language Policy in Practice: English Learners in Arizona
Body:
From http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781783096411
Restrictive Language Policy in Practice: English Learners in Arizona
By Amy J. Heineke
Published by Multilingual Matters
As the most restrictive language policy context in the United States, Arizona’s monolingual and prescriptive approach to teaching English learners continues to capture international attention. More than five school years after initial implementation, this study uses qualitative data from the individuals doing the policy work to provide a holistic picture of the complexities and intricacies of Arizona’s language policy in practice. Drawing on the varied perspectives of teachers, leaders, administrators, teacher-educators, lawmakers and community activists, the book examines the lived experiences of those involved in Arizona’s language policy on a daily basis, highlighting the importance of local perspectives and experiences as well as the need to prepare and professionalize teachers of English learners.
Visit the publisher’s website at http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781783096411
Source: Multilingual Matters
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Title: Call for Papers: Local to Global Perspectives on Language Revitalization and Documentation
Body:
From http://pages.uoregon.edu/nwili/conference_2017
Celebrating 20 Years of NILI
Local to Global Perspectives on Language Revitalization and Documentation
June 30-July 2, 2017
University of Oregon
The Northwest Indian Language Institute invites abstracts for presentations for next summer’s conference in celebration of NILI’s 20th Summer Institute. Paper presentations will be 30 minutes long followed by 10 minutes of questions. Potential topics of particular interest are:
What have we learned in 20 years? What are we doing better now? What do we need to keep working on?
Revitalization:
Evolving approaches to revitalization
Training and accrediting language teachers
Issues of how to handle standardization and variation
Approaches to working with post-vernacular languages
Community-Directed Documentation
Evolving best practices: Methods and ethics for working with communities
Moving to working BY communities: Training speech community members
Training local academic linguists to utilize best practices
Our effect on the field of linguistics: How has this approach changed linguistics?
The global context: How do we work differently in different parts of the world, for example, with North American & Australian communities, as opposed to East Asian, African, or Latin American communities?
Assessing levels of vitality / degree of endangerment
The deadline for abstract submission is Monday, December 5.
View the full call for papers at http://pages.uoregon.edu/nwili/conference_2017
Source: NILI
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Title: Call for Papers: Himalayan Studies Conference
Body:
From http://www.colorado.edu/hsc2017/
Himalayan Studies Conference V is scheduled for September 1-4, 2017 (Labor Day Weekend) at the University of Colorado Boulder. The organizers invite proposals for panels, roundtables and individual papers. Interdisciplinary and thematic panels that include more than one region of the Himalayas and/or involve presenters from multiple institutions are particularly encouraged.
Panel and roundtable proposals are due December 1, 2016. Individual paper proposals are due January 15, 2017.
See the full call for papers at http://www.colorado.edu/hsc2017/call-papers
Source: University of Colorado Boulder
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Title: Call for Papers: 20th Annual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages
Body:
From http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-4557.html
The Linguistics department at the University of California, Santa Barbara announces its 20th Annual Workshop on American Indigenous Languages (WAIL), which provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical, descriptive, and practical studies of the indigenous languages of the Americas. The workshop will take place May 12-13, 2017.
Anonymous abstracts are invited for talks on any topic relevant to the study of indigenous languages of the Americas.
Deadline for receipt of abstracts: February 12, 2017
View the full call for papers at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-4557.html
Source: LINGUIST List
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