Calendar
Come learn about creating/editing your CV, with Drs. Patti Spinner and Debra Hardison, 1 to 3 PM, Oct. 20, B243.
Join us for a brown bag (bring your own lunch–we’ll have cookies and drinks) with practice presentations for MwALT (the Midwest Association for Language Testers).
- Karolina Achirri: Rater training de-mystified through the lens of an IELTS examiner
- Shinhye Lee: Planning time and task types in oral test performance
- Daniel R. Isbell: Measuring C2-level writing ability: Rater and examinee age effects
Presenters: Dr. Emily Heidrich and Dr. Koen Van Gorp
The Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Partnership, a grant project funded by the Mellon Foundation, has been underway for over a year now. We have started to pilot Swahili instructional materials developed in Year 1 of the project. We will speak about the successes and stumbling blocks we have encountered in working collaboratively across Big Ten Academic Alliance institutions to develop not only this project on the larger scale, but the collaborative processes involved in materials ideation and development.
Participants will come away from this session knowing more about the project as a whole and will gain ideas that they can implement into their own classrooms. The presenters will encourage discussion and solicit feedback on the materials presented, focusing on ways that materials can be continually tweaked and improved to fit the needs of the instructor and class at hand.
Conference Theme: Language Assessment and its Sociopolitical Context
Presenter: Adam Gacs
As language teachers it is crucial to think about incorporating more listening opportunities for our students inside and outside the classroom. But it is often a challenge to provide students with significant amount of practice in interpretive listening. We will look at strategies and resources to present students additional listening input in the target language and help them with comprehension. We will explore tasks around authentic resources that include film clips, radio, and television.
Presenter: Nate Evans
Language learning can reveal unique pedagogical challenges and opportunities related to accessibility and universal design for learning. This session focuses on promoting inclusive and accessible language learning environments with interaction and discussion from MSU IT Digital Content & Accessibility and the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities.
Dr. Gary Barkhuizen will hold office hours from 1 pm on Nov 14 at Wells Hall B402. If you want to schedule a half-hour meeting with Dr. Barkhuizen, please email Peter (pdecosta@msu.edu) directly.
The ACTFL Annual Convention and World Languages Expo is an international event bringing together more than 7,000 language educators from all languages, levels, and assignments. Our goal is to provide a comprehensive professional development experience that will have an impact on language educators at all levels of teaching and in turn help their students to succeed in their language learning process. Come participate in the world’s most comprehensive language education meeting of the minds featuring more than 800 educational sessions in a variety of formats that focus on innovative programs, emerging trends that impact the language profession, and research-informed practices. While the exhibit hall will showcase more than 250 companies exhibiting their latest products and services, it is a learning experience within itself where you will find exhibitor sponsored workshops, the ACTFL Collab Zone, the Social Media Lounge, a Career Café, and an ACTFL Confer-sation Corner.