CERCLL offered a series of professional development webinars for language educators over the course of the 2022-2023 academic year, in which presenters brought newer, multiliteracies approaches to address traditional topics in language teaching.
Click on the titles below to access the recordings, slides and resources for the webinars in this series.
You can also view all the recordings in our YouTube webinar playlist!
Bruna Sommer-Farias
(Michigan State University)
Genre Pedagogies in the World Language Classroom
This webinar discusses ways to implement genre pedagogy in world language classes to develop genre awareness across languages. It includes: an introduction of genre pedagogies and the concepts of genre awareness and genre-specific knowledge as tools to scaffold writing instruction; and discussion of pedagogical materials designed for multiple languages, including Portuguese, Japanese and Spanish. These examples illustrate the use of genre as a concept to select relevant texts for reading and writing, to scaffold language and writing instruction, and to leverage learners’ background knowledge to support writing development in additional languages. These practices challenge the teaching of genres as templates and argue for genre knowledge development across languages as a way to recognize, leverage and expand learners’ multilingual repertoires in the world language classroom.
The concrete examples provided really took the discussion to another level by showing how something could actually be done. I’ve seen this same element in other CERCLL webinars, and I really appreciate the connection between theory and praxis.
I’m familiar with genre-based writing instruction, but I was interested in how Bruna’s applies it in her classroom. It will be helpful for the course on L2 writing research and instruction I teach (TESL program) and in my French language class (a form of content-based language instruction).
I appreciated Dr. Sommer-Farias’ description of strategies for designing genre-informed language tasks. I often enjoy these kinds of practical teacher-to-teacher techniques.
This webinar connects with the material, creative, and embodied dimensions of L2 learning and teaching, by examining what we can learn from, at, and with the art museum. Participants engage with the following questions: ‘What is a museum?’, ‘How do museum-based and pedagogies of multiliteracies intersect?’ and ‘How can I engage L2 learners with (art) museum texts across sites of practice?’ The webinar provides answers to these questions with a specific focus on the PreK-16 world language classroom, using texts from diverse museums, as well as instructional and experiential strategies drawn from research and from various collaborative projects.
Christelle Palpacuer-Lee
(Rutgers University)
Learning at, from, and with the art museum: A multiliteracies perspective.
The webinar reminded me of the unlimited possibilities of using resources outside the classroom for enhancing L2 learners’ multiliteracies. The clear demonstration and the activities were thought-provoking, and of course the resources that have been shared will also allow me to explore further.
I really enjoyed the webinar. For me the most beneficial of the webinar was: the multiliteracies bibliography, some activities on how we can apply multiliteracies in the classroom for “genre awareness, visual literacy and critical intercultural thinking in a new language”
Aside from English, I also have teaching loads for Social Sciences subjects. The webinar has encouraged me to think of an interdisciplinary approach in certain language lessons such as on global citizenship, critical thinking, and culture. I would also like to explore effects of multiliteracies and museum learning on the contextualization of learning English.
Elyse B. Petit
(Santa Rosa Junior College)
Nurturing Creativity and Agency in L2 through Digital Storytelling Projects
Digital Storytelling (DS) is a textual narrative embedded with other modes of communication. It consists of a “short, two to three-minute mini-film usually based on still photos brought into a multimedia format with a textual narrative read with the narrator’s voice (Lundby, 2008, p.366). Many studies have examined the integration of digital stories in educational settings. Still, studies have yet to explore DS in Foreign Language/L2 learning contexts and the beneficial impact on students’ cognition, language learning, and technology and media skills. Inspired by the Story Center’s movement and mission to “create spaces for listening to and sharing stories” and to provide “skills and tools that support self-expression, creative practice and community building” (https://www.storycenter.org), Dr. Petit uses the Center Story’s steps into the curriculum to help students to produce personal and unique digital narratives in L2.
It was extremely rich, detailed and organized with great examples. I also appreciated the presentation of her underlying theoretical approach.
I thought more about what digital storytelling means, and what it might look like. Because of my scholarly and personal background, I was anticipating this to involve more interactive media, e.g. video games and visual novels. Instead, I spent time appreciating and considering the value of simpler digital storytelling formats. These formats are much more accessible to students than gaming is, which enables them to assess and create those stories in ways that are more beneficial to students than I had realized.
The resources that Elyse gave us and the examples she showed. Most of the stories she showed reminded me of my Design’s teacher classes where, in the first week, made us write, shoot and edit a Digital Story, only he called it a Multimodal Composition.