Promoting foreign language study in middle schools

Promoting foreign language study in middle schools

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.