June 1st – 2nd
Developing Intercultural Competence in the Foreign Language Class: Why and How?
Presenter: Gilberte Furstenberg (M.I.T)
Materials can be download: Group presentations; Instructor presentation materials 2010; Handouts from this workshop
This two-day interactive and “hands-on” workshop will focus on the National Endowment of the Humanities funded Cultura project, a web-based online exchange that was created to develop students’ in-depth understanding of another culture within an intermediate level language class. Gilberte Furstenberg, one of the authors of this telecollaborative project, will share her twelve-year experience in designing and teaching an intermediate French language course in which her students interact with students at a French University via online discussion forums. The workshop will include many discussions and some hands-on sessions in which participants will start “imagining” and then designing their own project, adapting Cultura to their own language and culture courses, and for the level of their choice. At the beginning of this two-day workshop, Gilberte Furstenberg will (1) describe the context for the project, (2) detail its goals, approach and content, (3) illustrate the many ways in which students work with all the materials – including the online discussion forums, (4) focus along the way on the key aspects that allow students to develop intercultural competence and (5) showcase how language is learnt within such an environment. She will then focus more specifically on the role of the teacher (simulating a class with the participants) as well as the new challenges he/she faces, in terms of implementation, methodology, class management and assessment. She will also reflect upon the implications of such a project in terms of what it means to “teach” culture. This will open the way to more discussions – after which participants, working in groups, will start thinking about the Cultura-like projects they would want to develop. They will define how they might want to use the project and adapt it to their own environment (as a whole course? as part of a course? for what level? etc.) and then start generating appropriate content and activities.
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June 3rd – 4th
Reconceptualizing Technology in Language Education: Emerging Tools and Practices
Presenters: Wayne Brent, Garry Forger; Justin Lebreck; Jonathon Reinhardt from University of Arizona
These four workshops can be taken separately or as a group, or in any combination. Workshops will be 9am to Noon and 1pm to 4pm both days.
Technology Workshop 1 – Introduction to Teaching Online – June 3, 2010, 9:00am-12:00pm, Wayne Brent
This workshop will be an overview of the concepts and strategies for teaching online. This workshop will be generic to online teaching and as such is applicable to language instruction, but is not restricted to language instructors.
Technology Workshop 2 – New Media Technologies in the L2 Classroom – June 3, 2010, 1:00-4:00pm, Jon Reinhardt
This workshop will look at new media technologies and how they have been, and can be used in the L2 classroom. We will discuss theory of new media and L2 learning and pedagogy, look at examples of how L2 learning in new media-enhanced environments has been studied, and how it can be integrated into L2 curricula. Participants will explore various technologies, including social networking (e.g. Ning & Facebook), blogging & microblogging (e.g. Twitter), and collaborative documents (e.g. Google Wave), and discuss how these might be used in the L2 classroom.
Technology Workshop 3 – Using Chat Tools in the L2 Classroom – June 4, 2010, 9:00am-12:00pm, Garry Forger and Justin LeBreck
This workshop provides demonstrations and hands-on practice with technology tools for language teaching. We discuss choosing the right tool for each task, integrating curriculum requirements with technology use, and provide strategies for using technology to supplement the language learning experience. Two University of Arizona projects will be emphasized (COHChat and OLÉ). The workshop concentrates mostly on systems freely available over the internet. Sometimes referred to as Web 2.0 tools, there are many free online applications instructors can use. In these times of tight budgets it becomes even more valuable that we can use free web-based tools to enhance the language learning experience.
Technology Workshop 4 – Digital Gaming in the L2 Classroom – June 4, 2010, 1:00-4:00pm, Jon Reinhardt
This workshop will look at digital gaming technologies and how they have been, and can be used in the L2 classroom. We will discuss theory of digital gaming and L2 learning and pedagogy, look at examples of how L2 learning in digital game-mediated environments has been researched, and how it can be integrated into L2 curricula. Participants will explore various technologies, including MMOGs (e.g. WoW), stand alone computer games (e.g. The Sims), browser-based social networking games, and mobile games.
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June 7th – 8th
Teaching Texts: Pedagogical Stylistics in the Language Classroom
Presenter: Chantelle Warner (University of Arizona)
Presentation materials and handouts from this workshop are available to download
This workshop focuses on how concepts and methods from stylistics can enrich the teaching of texts in the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of foreign language study. Stylistic analysis concerns how various linguistic choices affect interpretation and thus, as a pedagogical approach, can help students to move from working with language on the sentence level to dealing with longer, more complex stretches of discourse and to encourage their awareness of the intersections between language and culture. In addition to learning some basic concepts about stylistics, participants will also be introduced to sample classroom activities and have an opportunity to create and receive feedback on their own lessons. The materials presented will feature a variety of text-types including literary, journalistic, conversational, academic and autobiographical genres.
Presenters' Short Biographies
Gilberte Furstenberg, Senior Lecturer of French, M.I.T.
Gilberte Furstenberg was born and educated in France where she received her Agregation. She taught English at the University of Paris-Nanterre, then moved to the United States where she became a correspondent for the French news magazine L’Express. Her next career move brought her to M.I.T. where she has been (1) teaching French language and culture for the last thirty years, and (2) developing innovating multimedia and web-based materials for fostering students’ active, experiential linguistic and cultural learning within authentic contexts.
Her research interests lie in the development of interactive multimedia programs for learning French and developing an understanding of its culture. She is the principal author of A la Rencontre de Philippe, a pioneering interactive fiction, Dans un quartier de Paris, an interactive multimedia documentary which have both won national and international awards. A la Rencontre de Philippe, initially published in videodisc format by Yale University Press, has been redesigned as a CD-ROM and is currently published by CLE Int. in Paris.
For the last ten years, she has been involved, along with Sabine Levet and Shoggy Waryn, in the development of a Web-based intercultural project, entitled Cultura which provides a unique comparative approach for developing in-depth understanding of another culture.
She has given numerous presentations, lectures and workshops in the U.S. and abroad, focusing on (1) the many uses of multimedia as well as the place of intercultural communication in the foreign language curriculum, and (2) the subsequent new emerging role of the foreign language teacher. She is the author of pedagogical guides, articles, and chapters in books.
Wayne Brent, Assessment, Evaluation, and Emerging Technologies, Senior Consultant, University of Arizona.
Wayne Brent has been working in the field of educational and learning technologies for over 30 years. He is a senior consultant for the Learning Technologies Center at the University of Arizona focusing on educational technologies and assessment. Wayne works with faculty and instructional designers incorporating teaching strategies, learning objects, and learning outcomes assessment with technology, where appropriate. Wayne supports Elluminate a virtual meeting and collaboration tool. Wayne also works with national organizations focused on teaching, learning and technology including Educause, Educause Learning Initiative, New Media Consortium, Advanced Distributed Learning?s Academic Co-Lab (ADL), and Internet 2.
Wayne runs the Student Technologies Preceptor program and teaches courses on Learning Objects, Emerging Technologies and Social Computing for Education at the University of Arizona.
Garry Forger, Marketing, Promotion & Grants Management, University of Arizona.
Garry is the Outreach and Grants Management Officer for OIA at the University of Arizona. He coordinates marketing and outreach activities, as well as supporting grant writing activities for OIA. He also participates in project management, client negotiation and contract management.
Garry has worked in the information field for over 20 years. He has a background in historical and archaeological research and has worked in public libraries, medical informatics, academic information systems, metadata consulting, distributed learning and educational technology. He has published on a wide variety of topics related to his profession and is an active semi-professional photographer.
He has a B.S. in History from the State University College at Oneonta, NY and a Masters in Library Science from Syracuse University and is always looking for new opportunities to learn.
Justin LeBreck, Application Systems Analyst, University of Arizona.
Justin LeBreck is a graduate of the UofA with a BA in Linguistics (Computational & Cog. Sci. emphasis) with minors in Computer Science and Psychology. He spent two years as a TA for introductory Computer Science before taking a position as Applications Systems Analyst for the Humanities Dept. He is currently working on the creation of a Spanish Heritage Learner Exam for FLPE and has recently completed work on the department’s first Chat Client/Server program used in educational teaching. His specialties audio/video production and java programming.
Jonathon Reinhardt, Assistant Professor, University of Arizona.
Jonathon Reinhardt is an Assistant Professor of English Language/Linguistics at the University of Arizona, where he teaches in the Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Ph.D. program. His research interests focus on technology-mediated second/foreign language pedagogy, with a focus on digital gaming, computer-mediated communication, (CmC) and curriculum design and integration. His most recent work focuses on analysis of technology-mediated L2 learner interactions, the application of awareness-oriented and corpus-informed pedagogical frameworks, and the development of digital L2 literacies.
Chantelle Warner, Assistant Professor, University of Arizona.
Chantelle Warner is Assistant Professor of German and a faculty member of the Interdisciplinary Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching at the University of Arizona. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she specialized in 20th-century and contemporary German literature and applied linguistics. She has also studied in Münster and Frankfurt. Chantelle Warner’s teaching and research interests cross the fields of literary and linguistic study. Her scholarly work focuses on language, and in particular literary language, as a site of struggle for social power and the investigation of how meanings and access to certain practices are regulated and controlled. These common theoretical issues drive her approach to literary texts as linguistic practices and her work on foreign language literacy and language/literature pedagogy. She has published on a variety of topics including the use of play in foreign language computer-mediated communication, the conceptualization of language study in the U.S., and immediacy effects in confessional literature. In her current book project, she looks at the abundance of autobiographically-based literary works appearing in German-speaking countries during the latter part of the twentieth century in relation to issues of recognition and representation and, through the purview of linguistic practice theory and literary pragmatics, examines the various textual effects that drive the production and reception of these works