Connecting New Emory Language Teachers:Outside Resources for Teaching Methodologies

Lilia CoropceanuDepartment of French and Italian

The “why”Demographic shifts, technological changes, and an increasingly global economy have brought about unprecedented levels of intercultural contact. The media bring news, images, and entertainment from around the world. The Internet introduces multimodal dimensions that go beyond those of printed texts by introducing a logic of visual display as well as new discourse structures, by opening up authorship to the masses, and by allowing users to form, choose, and maintain interactive learning communities that cross national boundaries.

These changes affect the ways we use language as well as the ways we learn and teach languages.

The “how”: Key Principles of Effective Professional Development

Effective language instructors should…

be actively engaged with the discovery of the knowledge base on teaching and learning and use it to inform his/her practice.

take joy in the process of inquiry and sharing their knowledge with others.

participate in professional activities that keep them current and enlarge the intellectual and practical opportunities available to students.

And finally, as responsible members of the university community, the language instructors should also dedicate their talents, experiences, and leadership skills to activities that sustain, develop, and improve the entire institution.

Some useful references:  Kern, Richard. Literacy and Language Teaching. Oxford University Press, 2000.

Janet K. Swaffar, Katherine Arens. Remapping the Foreign Language Curriculum: An Approach through Multiple Literacies. New York: MLA, 2005.

  Graves, Kathleen. Designing Language Courses: A Guide for Teachers. Boston, MA:

Heinle & Heinle, 2000.  Hall, Joan Kelly. Methods for Teaching Foreign Languages. Merrill Prentice Hall, 2001.

Hiram, Maxim. Advanced Foreign Language Learning: A Challenge to College Programs. Ed. with Heidi Byrnes. AAUSC Series Issues in Language Program Direction. Boston: Heinle, 2004.

Hiram, Maxim. Realizing Advanced L2 Writing Development in Collegiate Education: Curricular Design, Pedagogy, Assessment (co-authored with Heidi Byrnes and John Norris). Monograph Series of the Modern Language Journal, 2010.

Kate Paesani, Heather Willis Allen, and Beatrice Dupuy, A Multiliteracies Framework for Collegiate Foreign Language Teaching, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2014.

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Professional Organizations American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL):

http://www.actfl.org Modern Language Association (MLA): http://www.mla.org Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (ADFL):

http://www.adfl.org American Association of Teachers of Arabic (AATA): http://aataweb.org American Association of Teachers of French (AATF):

http://www.frenchteachers.org American Association of Teachers of German (AATG):

http://www.aatg.org American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI):

http://www.aati-online.org American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European

Languages (AATSEEL): http://www.aatseel.org American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP):

http://www.aatsp.org American Classical League (ACL): http://www.aclclassics.org American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR): http://www.actr.org Chinese Language Association of Secondary-Elementary (CLASS): http://www.classk12.org/ Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA): http://clta.org National Council of Japanese Language Teachers (NCJLT):

http://www.classk12.org Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ):

http://www.colorado.edu/ealld/atj American Association of Teachers of Korean (AATK):

http://www.aatk.org , etc., etc.

Exploring LRCs Teaching Ressources

In 1990, the Department of Education established the first Language Resource Centers (LRCs) at US universities in response to the growing national need for expertise and competence in foreign languages.

Twenty years later, there are sixteen LRCs, supported by grants under Title VI of the Higher Education Act, creating a national network of resources to promote the teaching and learning of foreign languages.

Led by nationally and internationally recognized language professionals, LRCs create language learning and teaching materials, offer professional development opportunities for teachers and instructors, and conduct research on foreign language learning.

LRC Example: The Center for Open Educational Resources & Language

Learning The Center for Open Educational Resources &

Language Learning (COERLL) is one of 16 National Foreign Language Resource Centers (LRC's) funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

The overall mission of this federally-funded center is to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages by producing resources (materials and best practices) that can be profitably employed in a variety of settings.

An Online Methods Course for Foreign Language Teachers:

http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/

This professional development resource

focuses on practical aspects of foreign language teaching in a virtual classroom setting.

You, the foreign language teacher, will be transported into a real-life methods course to watch and listen to instructors at the University of Texas at Austin and think critically about the ensuing classroom discussions.

Foreign Language Teaching Methods

Foreign Language Teaching Methods focuses on 12 different aspects of language teaching, each taught by a different expert instructor.

The site contains video footage from an actual methods course held at the University of Texas at Austin.

This flexible resource is designed to be used by foreign language teachers as a component of a classroom methods course or as a stand-alone course for independent learners.

What foreign language teachers can learn:

best practices for instruction that can be applied to any language

practical design for activities and lesson plans that can be adapted for any language classroom

analysis of classroom materials and classroom interactions, and

opportunities to learn by observing the development of actual foreign language teachers.

An online course designed to:

… give you the virtual experience of participating in the methods course alongside a diverse group of beginning foreign language teachers. A rich, interactive experience is facilitated by multimedia content, including footage of the actual methods course, videos of actual foreign language

classrooms, self-correcting exercises, portfolios of sample activities, and interviews with beginning teachers.

Twelve Featured Modules:

Listening Vocabulary The Language Learner Speaking Grammar Classroom Management Reading Pragmatics Technology Writing Culture Assessment