Contents

by Stephanie Knight, CASLS Assistant Director

This week, we depart from our typical student activity to provide a possible structure for department meetings in which contemporary research is reviewed.

Materials Needed: Contemporary research (via blog, scholarly journals, webinar, or other relevant resources)

Procedure:

1. Observation: The observation phase should last at least 5 minutes. For literature from scholarly journals, using this time to scan and highlight the abstract and the conclusion from the article(s) is recommended. For more graphic texts (e.g., unit planners), educators should focus on developing a vary objective description of what they see.
2. Analysis: The analysis phase should last at least 5-10 minutes. During this phase, participants should process the information that they see. Possible analytical activities include engaging in discussions that require classification of the material in question, comparing and contrasting two points of view, and providing critiques of the document(s) being reviewed.
3. Application: The application phase should also last at least 5-10 minutes. This phase could potentially involve classroom simulations, S.W.O.T (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) analyses, assessment writing, or classroom planning.
4. Reflection: The reflection phase can happen during the meeting (e.g., journaling) or after the meeting. Any reflections should be addressed by the team leader at the subsequent meeting.

Notes:

All of these phases are very adaptable to your department’s needs and goals. Practitioners should feel free to play with strategies, processes, and times limits as necessary to deliver the most relevant professional development possible. 

CASLS believes that meaningful communication is the purpose of language learning. The Center’s commitment to sharing resources and research expertise related to this belief is well-documented through its various initiatives like Games2Teach and the Bridging Project. Due to this commitment and CASLS’ status as a National Foreign Language Resource Center and leader in world language education, CASLS was recently subcontracted by EPIC (the Educational Policy Improvement Center) to engage in an evaluation of the language acquisition course for the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme.

The evaluation report, “Alignment and coherence of language acquisition development in the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program,” was recently published by the International Baccalaureate. This report includes literature review findings, a within-document analysis, a cross-document analysis, a progression analysis, and a discrepancy analysis. Check it out at http://www.ibo.org/research/programme-development-research/myp-studies/. 

From http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781783098095

Learning Foreign Languages in Primary School: Research Insights
Edited by María del Pilar García Mayo
Published by Multilingual Matters

This book presents research on the learning of foreign languages by children aged 6-12 years old in primary school settings. The collection provides a significant and important contribution to this often overlooked domain and aims to provide research-based evidence that might help to inform and develop pedagogical practice. Topics covered in the chapters include the influence of learner characteristics on word retrieval; explicit second language learning and language awareness; meaning construction; narrative oral development; conversational interaction and how it relates to individual variables; first language use; feedback on written production; intercultural awareness raising and feedback on diagnostic assessment. It will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, teachers and stakeholders who are interested in research on how children learn a second language at primary school.

Visit the publisher’s website at http://www.multilingual-matters.com/display.asp?isb=9781783098095

From https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/language-teacher-education-and-technology-9781350020405/

Language Teacher Education and Technology: Approaches and Practices
Edited by Jeong-Bae Son and Scott Windeatt
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

Language teachers' competencies in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) are a crucial factor affecting their own implementation of CALL. However, there is still a concern that many language teachers are not adequately prepared to make effective use of CALL or to identify and evaluate potential CALL solutions. This can be the result of many different factors and raises the question of how to train teachers to develop their CALL knowledge and skills to a greater degree. 

The discussion of approaches to training language teachers in the use of technology adopted in areas of Australia, the UK and the US provides valuable insights for those already involved in this area, and inspiration for those who have some interest in carrying out this kind of training, but as yet have little or no experience. This book explores the current status of CALL teacher education and discusses issues and challenges CALL teacher educators face in their own contexts. Specifically, it looks at postgraduate CALL courses offered at different universities to find ways of improving CALL teacher training. It represents the first overview of a topic that is relevant to most postgraduate courses in Applied Linguistics or TESOL across the globe. The use of technology for language learning and teaching is increasingly common but, as is so often the case, training for teachers in how to use that technology remains limited, to a large extent by lack of expertise among trainers.

Visit the publisher’s website at https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/language-teacher-education-and-technology-9781350020405/

From https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/autonomous-language-learning-with-technology-9781474240413/

Autonomous Language Learning with Technology: Beyond the Classroom
By Chun Lai
Published by Bloomsbury Publishing

This book looks beyond the classroom, and focuses on out-of-class autonomous use of technology for language learning, discussing the theoretical frameworks, key findings and critical issues. The proliferation of digital language learning resources and tools is forcing language education into an era of unprecedented change. The book will stimulate discussions on how to support language learners to construct quality autonomous technology-mediated out-of-class learning experience outside the classroom and raise greater awareness of and research interest in this field. 

Visit the publisher’s website at https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/autonomous-language-learning-with-technology-9781474240413/

Umẹwaẹn: Journal of Benin and Ẹdo Studies is currently accepting submissions for its upcoming issue to be published in 2017. 

Umẹwaẹn is an open access and peer reviewed research journal hosted by the Department of History, State University of New York, Oswego, NY. It is dedicated to the study of the Benin Kingdom (Nigeria), Ẹdo speaking people, the border areas and the influence and relation of Benin Kingdom and Ẹdo speaking people with their neighbours and the wider world.

The journal welcomes high quality articles, research notes, reviews and interviews on other subjects dealing with Benin Kingdom, the Ẹdo people, their borders and influence/ relationship with their neighbours.

View the full call for papers at https://networks.h-net.org/node/28765/discussions/187639/um%E1%BA%B9wa%E1%BA%B9n-journal-benin-and-%E1%BA%B9do-studies-2018

From https://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-3148.html 

Instructed Second Language Acquisition invites papers that seek to address the link between second language teaching and Generative Linguistics for a special, guest edited issue. 

Recent research on first language acquisition suggests that what has long been held as the dichotomy between input-driven vs. knowledge-based language acquisition is not necessary and they are not mutually exclusive (Yang 2010; Lidz and Gagliardi 2015, a.o.). While this line of research has been active for first language acquisition in the last decade, the same question still awaits to be addressed in the context of second language acquisition. Moreover, much of the generative view on second language acquisition still relies on strict segregation of acquired vs learned knowledge (Krashen 1982; Schwartz 1993). However, can we still maintain that types of knowledge are mutually exclusive? To approach this question, one has to consider the special status of input that second language learners are largely exposed to - classroom input. Natural input has a special place in the heart of many generativists. However, most research findings in generative second language acquisition are based on the performance of second language learners whose main source of input lies in the classroom. Classroom input may be characterized by the presence of focused attention, scaffolding and interaction, selective feedback, repeated practice and explicit teaching of grammar rules. Recent psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic experiments found that some of these teaching-related factors may shape an adult's brain and may create the conditions for novel implicit/proceduralized knowledge to occur (see special issue on Neurolinguistics and SLA, Second Language Research.) 

Therefore, while some core ideas of generative grammar cannot be reduced or minimized, the relationship between generative theory and second language teaching research needs to be revisited. While doing so, one also has to address if the current classroom input best represents the use of language that matches natural input, and further, to what extent classroom input provides a privileged environment for implicit learning and acquisition. Along these lines, the special issue aims to create a unique dialogue to open up a Pandora's Box of links between Generative Linguistics and the second language classroom. The current special invites manuscripts that address the above or related questions and that are either conceptually or empirically oriented. 

Deadline for abstracts: September 15, 2017

View the full call for papers at https://linguistlist.org/issues/28/28-3148.html

From https://u.osu.edu/slrf2017/

Second Language Research Forum 2017
Growing Connection in SLR
October 12-15, 2017
The Ohio State University

Visit the conference website at https://u.osu.edu/slrf2017/