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Content Type: 1
Title: Examples of Project-Based Language Learning
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Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell writes, "PBL has been part of an overall revolution in education, one that has been pushing educators to abandon the Industrial Age model of education where students in rows memorize things we pour into their heads. It asks for teachers and students to take the point of view that young people are preparing for a world that is changing so fast they can’t even imagine what their grown-up lives will look like – or maybe even what planet they will be on. That everyone is walking around with access to more stored knowledge than can even be measured, and rote memorization of lists and facts is of little value in general education now. That the future belongs to those who can identify and solve problems.
"...But there’s a huge problem with asking world language educators to implement PBL in the same way other subjects do, and to me, that’s in a couple of words in PBLWorks’s definition: “respond” and “complex.” We simply cannot expect our learners to respond as fast or in the same way as those in the history class down the hall, and adding complexity is no one’s success formula for the first years of language learning."
Cottrell goes on to suggest several project ideas for different proficiency levels of learners in this very helpful blog post: https://musicuentos.com/2019/08/10-real-world-project-examples-for-pbll/
Source: Musicuentos
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Title: Four No-Prep Classroom Games
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Here are four low- to no-prep games for helping students review material: http://evasimkesyan.com/2019/08/05/games-for-the-classroom/
Source: A Journey in TEFL
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Content Type: 1
Title: Making Long-range Plans
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From http://misssenoritatpt.blogspot.com
We at CASLS are strong believers in a backwards design approach to curriculum planning. As you make your plans for the coming school year, we recommend reading this recent blog post by Jessica of the Miss Señorita site. In the post, she combines core elements of the big-picture aspect of backwards design ("What do you want your students to be able to DO?") with specific logistical considerations of classroom instruction ("Add quizzes and homework (and any other special assignment categories you don't give regularly) to your long-range plans and color-code them so you can easily see how many quizzes you're giving, how much homework, etc.").
Read the full blog post at http://misssenoritatpt.blogspot.com/2019/07/how-to-make-great-long-range-plans.html
Source: Miss Señorita
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Content Type: 5
Title: Welcome to the Fold
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On Thursday, Aaugust 11, CASLS hosted the Mavericks Conference: Welcome to The Fold at Silvan Ridge Winery in Euugene. Twenty-five experts enggaged in a day of connection, gammes, Play, and puzzlee solving as a meanns to facilittate future innovattion and Learning. Thhanks to all who attendeed and we look fforward to seeing many moore at another Mavericks event in the future.
Want to try your hAnd at some of the puzzlles? There are three coddes in this message. Can You find all three codes? (Answers next week in the Spotlight section of InterCom.)
Code 1: ________________________________________
Code 2: ________________________________________
Code 3: _________________________________________
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Title: Brain Break Idea: Five Second Rule
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Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell, similar to your InterCom Editor, loves brain breaks, which are short re-charge sessions for you and your students to help maintain focus throughout your class. In this simple activity, students name five things in a particular category as quickly as they can.
Read a full description of this activity and learn a little more about brain breaks at https://musicuentos.com/2019/08/brain-break-play-5-second-rule/
Source: Musicuentos
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Content Type: 4
Title: Cultivating Critical Dispositions: Curiosity
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By Isabelle Sackville-West
This activity is designed to help language learners to build the critical skill of utilizing contextual clues in their environments to support communication. The activity uses Geoguessr, an online game platform that utilizes Google Map’s satellite feature to drop the player somewhere in the world and then asks players to identify where they are placed based on what they can see and explore. This activity can be used in any classroom regardless of target language or proficiency level. Teachers can expand on this activity or make it tailored to one specific language by selecting a map specifically where the target language is spoken.
Students will be able to:
- Identify contextual clues within a simulated environment to draw conclusions
- Investigate contextual clues
- Explain how the skills used in the game transfer to real-world target language scenarios
Materials: https://geoguessr.com/, Geoguessr Worksheet
Procedure:
- Brainstorm: As a class, brainstorm what kinds of contextual information is important when in a new place. Examples include signposts, the side of the road on which cars are driving, architecture, scenery, and plant and animal life. It may be useful to write out the information students brainstorm on the whiteboard so that students can refer to it during gameplay.
- Gameplay 1: Visit the website https://geoguessr.com/. Direct students to begin by playing a map of the United States or a map of a location with which they are familiar. Ask them to take notes on their own sheet of paper regarding what environmental clues helped them to discern where they were on the map. Debrief as a class.
- Gameplay 2: Next, have the students play the map titled “A Diverse World” (https://geoguessr.com/maps/59a1514f17631e74145b6f47). This map will require that learners continue to shape and refine the critical skill of paying attention to contextual clues in order to draw conclusions about their environment. As they play, students should also fill out the Geoguessr Worksheet. As they fill it out, encourage them to investigate any contextual clues that they discern through Internet searches. For example, if they note an area code on a billboard, they may be able to determine what city or state they are in.
- Reflection: When students are finished playing, bring the class together for a group discussion to think about how the skills they used while playing Geoguessr can be applied to the spontaneous communication opportunities outside of the classroom. Have them consider both visiting a new part of the world, as well as interacting with members of another culture.
Source: CASLS Activity of the Week
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Content Type: 5
Title: Testing the Test
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Over the last several years, CASLS has been hard at work developing an assessment to measure the pragmatic, intercultural, and interactional competences which are essential for successful multilingual and multicultural interactions. The assessment (called IPIC) involves simulations of situations such as having dinner with a friend at a trendy restaurant. Learners can interact with the simulation more naturally than is possible with a paper test.
This week, students taking Spanish classes at the University of Oregon will get a chance to try out the Spanish version of the test. Their responses to the items, as well as their comments about the test, will help CASLS revise and improve future versions.
Spanish is the second language developed for IPIC. Last year an English version was developed and piloted. Current plans call for a Chinese version to be developed next year.
Source: CASLS Spotlight
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Content Type: 3
Title: Critical Dispositions for Successful Communication in the Wild
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By Stephanie Knight, CASLS Assistant Director
Language learning is not a panacea for ethnic and cultural discrimination. As Kubota (2015) writes, “the neoliberal paradox of investing in learning English as an international language and simultaneously avoiding communication with certain linguistic/national groups is a phenomenon individually shaped by one’s experiences” (p. 474). Indeed, whether an individual has a positive disposition toward learning about and interacting with others in the world is a more likely indicator of successful intercultural communication than whether the individual perceives an inherent value in language learning itself.1 The resulting paradox, a paradox in which the neoliberal value placed on learning global languages may not actually result in increased international communication (Kubota, 2015, p. 468), and as an extension, improved intercultural competence, is palpable concern upon consideration of the classroom as a vehicle for development of the necessary critical dispositions to yield successful communication in the (linguistically and communicatively) unsterilized, unpredictable wild.
The consideration of the inherent complexity of any communicative scenario provides insight into this claim. The language used is obviously important; having enough grammatical competence to convey intended meaning is always helpful (though with increasing advances in mobile technologies and translation software, perhaps less critical than it once was). However, any number of other factors cultivate nuances that impact that interaction; each interlocutor’s relative degree of individual or group orientation (Atkinson, 1997), conceptualization of self as victim or victimizer (Kubota, 2016), and even something as ephemeral as mood can determine the ease, efficiency, and agility with which communication is executed. As such, language learners negotiating communication in the wild have an enormous task at hand; they must be able to manage the creation and interpretation of utterances, but they must showcase enough openness to their fellow interlocutor to be able to simultaneously (and rapidly) notice, interpret, and filter social and environmental cues. Such high-level, high-stakes cognitive and social engagement necessitates practice in the classroom, practice which can be achieved through the analysis and evaluation of not only discourse, but the environment in which that discourse takes place.
In his critique of incorporating training in critical thinking in classroom courses designed for English language learners, Atkinson (1997) writes about the “(a) opposing notions of relations between the individual and the social system, (b) contrasting norms of self-expression across cultures, and [(c)] divergent perspectives on the use of language as a means of learning” (p. 79). That world language teachers are specially equipped to address (at least partially) these concerns is obvious; as has already been motioned, communication (in the wild) requires openness and blended engagement in social and cognitive processes. However, these processes are not given or inherent to the practice of language learning itself. Educators must strive to cultivate them in learners to promote high levels of intercultural competence. This week’s Activity of the Week provides an example one classroom activity designed with that particular goal in mind.
References
Atkinson, D. (1997). A critical approach to critical thinking in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly. 31(1), 71-94.
Kubota, R. (2015). Race and language learning in multicultural Canada: Towards critical antiracism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 36(1). 3-12.
Kubota, R. (2016). Neoliberal paradoxes of language learning: Xenophobia and international communication. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. 37(5). 3-12.
1For the purpose of this piece, successful will be defined as a situation in which either 1) intended meaning (illocutionary force) of utterances align with their impact (perlocutionary force); or 2) repair, when desired, occurs in instances of miscommunication.
Source: CASLS Topic of the Week
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Title: New Content on OASIS
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Source: OASIS
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Title: New Publication: Nourishing Indigenous Languages in the Home
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Language for Life: Nourishing Indigenous Languages in the Home
By Britt Dunlop, Suzanne Gessner, and Aliana Parker
Published by First Peoples' Cultural Council
The purpose of this handbook is to help families bring their Indigenous language into the home. In the past, children learned their Indigenous language when they were infants because their family members spoke to them in the language. This natural practice of passing on the language was taken away from Indigenous families but it can become normal again with hard work and dedication.
Access this handbook at http://www.fpcc.ca/files/PDF/Language/FPCC-LanguageforLife-190318-WEB.pdf
Source: First Peoples' Cultural Council
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