For a PDF version of the summer brochure, click here.
Monday June 2, 2014
Engaging K-12 Students in Global Inquiry through Fiction and Nonfiction Literature (6 hours, 9am – 4pm)
Presenters include: Kathy G. Short, Richard Clift, Ke Huang, Mi-Kyoung Chang, Veronika Williams, Junko Sakoi, Fatima Jaber Abdul Kazem (all University of Arizona), and Desiree Cueto (Tucson Unified School District).
This workshop will explore the ways in which K-12 classroom teachers can use children’s and adolescent literature to engage their students in global inquiries. Nonfiction and fiction picture books and novels can support students in explorations of global perspectives and help them move beyond a tourist stance of only gaining surface knowledge about a culture. We will describe the development and use of Language and Culture Book Kits around specific cultures and languages in classrooms. We will share the types of books that have been most generative and strategies for using these books with students. These instructional strategies include literature response engagements, inquiry units, and beginning language explorations. Participants will interact with the books and experience the instructional strategies as well as work with international consultants. We will provide criteria and strategies so that participants can develop their own kits around other global cultures. The kits that will be available include Chinese Mandarin, Korean, Russian, Arabic-Speaking countries of the Middle East, Portuguese/Brazil, Japanese, West Africa/Somalian, Bhutan/Nepali, and American Indians of the Southwest. Finally, we will share the ways in which we have been assessing intercultural understanding of students and teachers. Participants will receive book lists, instructional strategies, and criteria for book selection as well as an opportunity to check out the kits for use in their own schools.
The Language and Culture Book Kits and other resources are available from Worlds of Words.
This workshop arises from CERCLL’s Global Cultures project. For more information about that activity, (add link to project Kathy Short)
Tuesday June 3, 2014
Fostering Multiliteracies through a Global Simulation (6 hours, 9am – 4pm)
Presenters: Kristen Michelson and Beatrice Dupuy, University of Arizona
Literacy-based approaches to FL teaching and learning represent an important paradigm shift from the predominant approach of communicative language teaching (CLT). While communicative competence focuses on interpersonal interactions through the linguistic mode with an emphasis on accuracy, literacy-based approaches foreground an ability to engage in meaning construction not only through linguistic interactions, but also across a range of modes (e.g. visual, audio, gestural, tactile, and spatial) and genres (e.g. newspaper articles, interviews, short stories, blogs, personal diaries, editorials, literary works, and documentaries). Further, literacy is seen as a socially situated practice with multiple purposes, specific for a given community, where students are called upon to engage critically with the subjective dimensions of texts which are constructed, circulated, and negotiated through particular social roles.
This workshop presents an overview of multiliteracies approaches and their specific application to FL teaching and learning through the pedagogical approach known as Global Simulation (GS). In a GS, students adopt character roles for the duration of the semester through which they act and interact through language and other modes of communication in order to enact specific social identities, thereby increasing their awareness of how language forms are linked to social identities and purposes. The workshop will be delivered in four parts. Part one will consist of a discussion of multiliteracies approaches and a brief history of Global Simulation. Part two will lead participants through a series of experiential activities framed in a multiliteracies approach which integrate the use of Web 2.0 tools and a range of textual genres. Part three will consist of presentation and discussion of assessment practices from a multiliteracies perspective. Finally, in part four, participants will engage in guided activity planning to develop an instructional module framed in a pedagogy of multiliteracies. Participants are encouraged to bring a sample text (written text, video, image, etc.) relevant to their own teaching context which can be used as a foundation for development of an instructional sequence. A laptop computer is required for this session.
Friday June 6, 2014
The Friday workshops were co-sponsored by the Confucius Institute at the University of Arizona.
SESSION 1: Engaging Chinese Language Students through Instructional Strategies, Activities and Relationships (3 hours, 9am – Noon)
Presenter: Eric Chipman (University of Utah Confucius Institute)
It is important for any teacher to understand that technology does not equal engagement. So before we explore the role technology might play in engaging students, it is important to first understand how to engage students when it is just the teacher and the students: this is the foundation of engagement. In this session, we will discuss specific strategies (classroom procedures, organization, instructional methods, content presentation) used by presenter and other experienced teachers to help students focus in on what is being taught. We will also learn a variety of both input and output activities (specific to Chinese) that both increase engagement and increase Chinese proficiency. In addition, we will discuss the importance of teacher-student relationships in engagement and discuss concrete steps towards building those relationships.
SESSION 2: Engaging Chinese Language Students using Technology and Multimedia (3 hours, 1pm – 4pm)
Presenter: Eric Chipman (University of Utah Confucius Institute)
After having discussed foundational student engagement strategies in the morning, this session will discuss technology and multimedia in engagement of Chinese language students. We will first discuss the role of technology and then turn towards specific technology resources (free websites, paid websites, software, apps) to be implemented in the classroom, including the pros and cons of each resource and experiences with implementation. Attendees will be given access to a teacher resource website including all the technology resources discussed throughout the session. We will spend the last hour looking at a websites and technology software in-depth and workshop-specific lesson plans using the resource, and go step by step through the process of set up. The goal of the session will be for teachers to have a new technology resource setup on their computer by the time they leave the workshop with specific activities and plans for its use in their classroom. (Please bring a laptop or other electronic device.)
Saturday June 7, 2014
Developing Digital Game-Mediated L2 Literacies (6 hours, 9am – 4pm)
Presenter: Jonathon Reinhardt, University of Arizona
This day-long workshop will focus on the activity of digital game adaptation and design as a means of developing L2 literacies, for both instructors and learners. Participants will begin by exploring a variety of digital game types and learn about creating game-enhanced L2 learning activities with commercial and educational games using the literacies framework developed as part of CERCLL’s Games to Teach project. Participants will then learn about the concept of game-mediated literacies as comprised of system, play, and design literacies, and as a way of interacting with, through, and about the L2. Participants will then be introduced to several new user-friendly online digital game makers that can be learned by teachers to make games for their students, and for learners to make their own games for L2 learning, thereby developing the literacies that potentially lead to better L2 learning.
CERCLL Project Directors Jon Reinhardt and Julie Sykes have a CERCLL project related to this workshop. Find the details and a link to their blog here.
Jon Reinhardt and Susan Penfield received a National Science Foundation grant to work with gaming in the Native American community; two workshops have taken place during the academic year and a presentation will occur on June 6. There is a blog entry about that grant here. Also see information about summer events at the University of Arizona’s American Indian Language Development Institute.