Contents

This activity highlights the way the physical environment structures human communication. A working knowledge of this basic principle is tremendously helpful for language learners. When we communicate, we use our bodies, media, and other objects to structure communication and attention.  This lesson focuses specifically on using the environment to construct compliments, but it also serves as a more general example of the way the material world provides just-in-time resources to support any functional, situated communication.

Modes: Interpersonal, Intercultural

Materials: Pen, paper, and your classroom (or other target) environment.

Procedure:

1. Construct. Ask learners to work in pairs to draft 2-3 sample compliments drawn from the environment that function in the following ways:
   1. Novice: express admiration or approval of someone’s work/appearance/taste.
   2. Intermediate: open and sustain conversation.
   3. Advanced: establish/confirm/maintain solidarity.

Potentially relevant scaffolding:

1. Novice: It may be necessary to help students identify appropriate objects/artifacts to incorporate into compliments to express admiration or approval.

• Example items include articles of clothing, stationary supplies, etc.
• Orienting question: How could nearby items be used in compliments to express admiration or approval?

2. Intermediate: It may be helpful to identify several environmental features to get students oriented to the task of using environmental features to open and sustain conversation.

• Example items include  academic work samples, creative work samples, physical styling, conversations (e.g. a recent topic or ongoing discourse).
• Orienting question: How could these objects/artifacts become “keys” or “tokens” to open and sustain conversation?

3. Advanced: Learners will need to identify which features within the environment they authentically identify with. Additionally, learners will need to identify a specific speech partner who shares a similar perspective with regard to the objects, speech utterances, or media.

• Example items include work samples, recent conversations, recent media (audio, video, images), clothing, other identifiable elements within the environment (e.g. curricular themes, relevant local/youth culture, etc.).
• Orienting questions: What is something you and your speech partner both identify with? How could you use that/those item/s to “get on the same page” with them and build a sense of mutual identification, affinity, and connection (AKA solidarity)?

2. Explain. In the same (or new) pairs, have students explain why the language samples they came up with function as compliments. Also, have them articulate why the items they chose were selected and see if they can identify any other object(s) that would function more powerfully as “compliment generators.” For novice and intermediate learners, these explanations will most likely be articulated in the L1.
3. Compare.
   1. Novice: Learners vote as a class which compliments and objects make the best pairs.
   2. Intermediate and Advanced: Learners discuss (as a class) which compliment/object pairs were most appropriate, convincing, and functional/powerful.
4. Extend.
   1. Novice: Students are encouraged (or assigned) to continue noticing and practicing throughout their day how features of their environment can/must be used to express admiration or approval of others’ work/appearance/taste.
   2. Intermediate: Students are encouraged (or assigned) to continue noticing throughout their day how the environment structures discourse and attempt to use features of their environment to open and sustain conversation.
   3. Advanced: Students are encouraged (or assigned) to continue noticing throughout their day how the environment structures discourse and continue to practice using features of their environment to establish/confirm/maintain solidarity.

CASLS Director Julie Sykes and Research Director Linda Forrest attended the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) and Language Testing Research Colloquium (LTRC) conferences in Atlanta, GA, in mid-March. With their collaborators, Meg Malone and Ayşenur Sağdıç from the Assessment and Evaluation Language Resource Center (AELRC) at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, they presented updates on the development of the Intercultural, Pragmatic, and Interactional Competence (IPIC) assessment. At LTRC, the presentation was a Work In Progress report high-lighting the features of the new assessment and eliciting attendee feedback. The AAAL presentation described the IPIC framework and presented results from a pilot study completed last spring.

Linda Forrest, Margaret Malone, Julie Sykes, Ayşenur Sağdıç present at AAAL 2019. 

From https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/engaging-language/

Engaging Language Learners through CALL: From Theory and Research to Informed Practice
Edited by Nike Arnold and Lara Ducate
Published by Equinox Publishing

Engaging Language Learners through CALL provides an updated overview of the field of computer-assisted language learning beginning with one chapter on the intersection of second language acquisition (SLA) research and CALL and another on online and hybrid language courses. The next eight chapters focus on the use of CALL for specific language skills or other learning goals and the volume concludes with a discussion of ways to evaluate courseware and apps. Each chapter contains preview questions, an overview of the most relevant and recent research, implications for teaching, assessment options, questions for reflection, case studies, and ideas for action research.

While the fundamental lens for this volume is informed practice based on key theories and research, there are several themes that run throughout the chapters, including how technology creates unique learning opportunities and its ability to overcome constraints of time, space, and interlocutors, how CALL can facilitate the integration of applications originally developed for other purposes, and the high level of autonomous and student-centered activities that CALL provides. As these themes demonstrate, CALL provides an array of affordances and sometimes, challenges. It is our hope that this volume will continue to support readers in implementing a research-based CALL pedagogy and updating their practices as technology and research findings develop.

Visit the publisher's website at https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/engaging-language/

From https://brill.com/abstract/title/31954?rskey=2VFH2B&result=1

Perspectives on Indigenous writing and literacies
Edited by Coppélie Cocq and Kirk Sullivan
Published by Brill

Exploring Indigenous writing and literacies across five continents, this volume celebrates the resilience of Indigenous languages. This book makes a significant contribution to the understanding of the contemporary challenges facing Indigenous writing and literacies and argues that innovative and creative ideas can create a hopeful future for Indigenous writing. Contributions following the themes ‘Sketching the Context’, ‘Enhancing Writing’, and ‘Creating the Future’ are concluded with two reflective chapters evidencing the importance of volume’s thesis for the future of Indigenous writing and literacies. This volume encourages the development of research in this area, specifically inviting the international writing research community to engage with Indigenous peoples and support research on the nexus of Indigenous writing, literacies and education.

Visit the publisher's website at https://brill.com/abstract/title/31954?rskey=2VFH2B&result=1

From https://benjamins.com/catalog/hsld.8

Biscriptuality: Writing skills among German-Russian adolescents
By Irina Usanova 
Published by John Benjamins Publishing Company

In the context of constantly increasing linguistic diversity in many parts of the world, opportunities and challenges arise for the acquisition of literacy skills. The successful development of literacy skills becomes a crucial prerequisite for educational attainment determining future career prospects of migrant students. Multilingual settings reveal the diversification of languages and scripts prompted in the context of migration. This monograph explores the phenomenon of biscriptuality and aims to provide an approach for investigating the development of biliteracy in the context of divergent scripts. This interdisciplinary mixed-methods study bridges intercultural education science, education research and applied linguistics for gaining a complex view on the role of biscriptuality in students’ biliteracy. It considers the extent of students’ biscriptual skills, specifies language dimensions in which the influence on biliteracy may occur, and differentiates between the effects of biscriptuality on the development of writing skills in two different genres, narrative and expository.

Visit the publisher's website at https://benjamins.com/catalog/hsld.8

From https://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-1186.html

TESOL Quarterly is seeking proposals from prospective guest editors for the 2021 special topic issue. Proposals are chosen by the TQ Editorial Advisory Board, and the guest editor(s) are responsible for overseeing the review process and selecting the content of the issue. The issue will appear in September 2021. Successful proposals have an overarching theme that is timely and interesting to the TQ readership. 

View the full call for proposals at https://wol-prod-cdn.literatumonline.com/pb-assets/assets/15457249/TQ_2021_Call_for_Proposals-1551479625373.pdf

From https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bauhaus-beyond-borders-exploring-the-legacy-in-the-21st-century-april-5-7-2019-registration-56598515684

Bauhaus Beyond Borders: Exploring the Legacy in the 21st Century
April 5 – 7, 2019

Locations
Chicago Architecture Center, Chicago, IL • April 5 • 3 pm – 8 pm
Northwestern University, Evanston Campus, Evanston, IL • April 6 • 8 am – 5 pm
Elmhurst College and Elmhurst Art Museum, Elmhurst, IL • April 7 • 10 am – 3 pm (public) / 9 am – 5 pm (students)

This 3-day interdisciplinary symposium is organized to celebrate the centenary of the Bauhaus, one of the world’s most innovative art and design schools and movements, and to highlight its tremendous global influence. The German Bauhaus, known for its hands-on approach and its linear, functional, but elegant forms, was founded on April 1, 1919, in Weimar, and continued to operate during the Weimar Republic until 1933, when numerous artists and architects emigrated. Many moved to the USA and to Chicago, such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and László Moholy-Nagy. Perspectives will be shared via presentations, workshops, displays, and performances that illuminate the Bauhaus’ many connections to various disciplines, from art and architecture, theatre, music, dance, and mixed media, to the politics of the Weimar Republic and urbanism in the city of Chicago, and to pedagogical approaches to teaching the Bauhaus and architecture in the German Studies and German Language curriculum.

View the full schedule of events and register at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bauhaus-beyond-borders-exploring-the-legacy-in-the-21st-century-april-5-7-2019-registration-56598515684