Calendar

Presenters: Madeline Shellgren

This workshop focuses on various notions of accessibility. We will start with questioning who students are and why that is important to consider. Together, we will also explore ways to make space for identity and student agency, discussing how we can help create opportunities for students to empower themselves and find relevance in course content, curriculum, and design. We will then move to ways to critically leverage today’s technology, specifically focusing on intentional and ongoing work we can do as instructors to remove barriers to information and education.

Presenter: Dr. Anne Violin-Wigent

As part of my current investigation on the effectiveness of explicit instruction, this project investigates the evolution of the accuracy of French liaisons produced by students over a semester. Do they actually produce French liaisons more accurately after they are given the list of explicit rules than before? How do they change after the lesson? After a brief explanation of what French liaisons are, I will present preliminary results that compare students enrolled in a French phonetics and pronunciation class (FRN 330) where they are taught the rules, to students enrolled in FRN 320, a grammar and writing class that does not include liaisons at all.

This workshop meets on Thursday from 3-4 pm in B135 Wells Hall. Cookies and coffee will be served.

Presenter: Alissa Cohen

This workshop will explore some of the challenges of promoting language study among American school children and look at the CeLTA Fellowship project I conducted this year to address some of these challenges. I will provide an overview of a language exploration club that was designed to introduce students at East Lansing’s MacDonald Middle School to the study of foreign languages in general and, more specifically, to the languages offered at the school, French, German, and Spanish. The goal of the project was twofold: To promote foreign language study by middle schoolers and to promote service learning and teaching practice by MSU students in the fields of language learning and teaching. Participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to review and evaluate the structure, materials, and outcomes of the program and contribute to the revision process, with an ultimate goal of encouraging greater future participation among the middle schoolers and MSU student teacher volunteers and to create contacts and collaborations across the many MSU units involved in promoting language teaching and learning.

Presenters: Drs. Susan Gass, Paula Winke, Koen Van Gorp, and Emily Heidrich

Join us to hear updates on the Language Proficiency Flagship Initiative, funded by the National Security Education Program within the Defense Language and National Security Education Office. The presenters will also discuss the progress of the Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Partnership, a cross-university initiative funded by the Mellon Foundation.

Presenter: Dr. Aline Godfroid

In this presentation, I give an interim report on a research project designed to chart the English knowledge of English as a Second Language speakers studying at Michigan State University. The specific aims of the project are to develop lab-based language tests that allow researchers and teachers to distinguish two types of linguistic knowledge (explicit and implicit) that differ in their usefulness for everyday communication. I will discuss what the different tests measure and focus specifically on the implicit knowledge tests, as these are key for measuring fluent language use during spontaneous communication. I will also consider the cognitive profiles of students that show a propensity for learning implicitly. Interested individuals will have the opportunity to try out some of the individual differences measures in the second half of the presentation.

Presenter: Drs. Zarema Kumakhova and Shannon Spasova

This presentation will show a project that aims to facilitate the use of authentic reading texts throughout the Russian language curriculum. In first- and second-year Russian, students will complete a series of lessons that focuses on various aspects of learning vocabulary and understanding words in context, and finish by beginning to read their first full authentic texts in Russian. In third- and fourth-year Russian, students will use a set of materials that help them to read works of classic Russian literature with exercises that help them to continue to develop their skills in understanding words from morphology and retain vocabulary across readings. The presentation will include some examples as well as a description of the process with lessons learned to benefit others who may want to undertake a similar project.

Presenter: Dmitrii Pastushenkov

The purpose of this project was to develop teaching materials for online tutoring sessions using Zoom. The teaching materials include lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, and recorded online sessions for IELTS Speaking Preparation, TOEFL Speaking Preparation, and Transition to Business courses. Each course includes ten 50-minute tutoring sessions. The workshop will include the following sections:

1. Overview of the three courses (general information about IELTS/TOEFL, why these tests are important for international students, Transition to Business and transition courses in general, structure of the courses, lesson plans, etc.)
2. Examples of how to use Zoom in online tutoring sessions (share screening, giving feedback in real time, etc.)
3. Examples from recorded tutoring sessions (warm-up activities, new vocabulary, speaking exercises, case studies for the Transition to Business course, etc.)
4. Future directions (the follow-up project on the effects of teacher-student interaction on task performance)
5. Q&A session

If you have any questions about the project/workshop, please contact Dmitrii Pastushenkov at pastushe@msu.edu.

The primary activity at this event will be low-stakes, open house-style Table Presentations with “lightning talks” focusing specifically on Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and ed tech tools and practices more generally. MSU’s Center for Language Training and Advancement (CeLTA) and hosts Adam Gacs (German) and Shannon Spasova (Russian) will also facilitate several presentations that will be broadcast and recorded for online participants.

This mini-conference event brings researchers and teachers together in dialogue around the questions “Do teachers care about research?” and “Do researchers care about teachers?” Plenary session presentations by researcher Dr. Masatoshi Sato (Universidad Andrés Bello, Chile) and a language educator (TBD) will be followed by a mixer in smaller break-out rooms, where language researchers and language teachers will engage in guided but informal dialogue. The event will conclude with a Town Hall-style forum, facilitated by MSU’s Second Language Studies program chair, Dr. Shawn Loewen.

Ed Tech Brown Bag #1: Speed Dating

Wed., Feb 5. 12:00-1:00pm. Wells Hall B342

ELC Ed Tech Specialist Austin Kaufmann will give a 2-minute Speed Dating pitch for each of his Ten Most Frequently Used Ed Tech Tools. Participants will note down which tools they are most interested in, and based on their top choices, Austin will create a semester schedule for smaller group trainings. (Feel free to bring your lunch!)