SOCALLT 2014’s theme is Beyond the Classroom: Language Learning From Local To Global. It will be held on the campus of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, March 13-15, 2014.
Our keynote speaker is Dr. Paige Ware, Associate Professor and Director of the PhD in Education Program at Southern Methodist University.
Prior to earning her doctorate in Education, Language, Literacy, and Culture at the University of California at Berkeley, she was an English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher. Fluent in Spanish and German, she was a Fulbright scholar in Germany before moving to Spain, where she taught in a bilingual Spanish-English elementary program. Her research focuses both on the use of multimedia technologies for fostering language and literacy growth among adolescents, as well as on the use of Internet-based communication for promoting intercultural awareness through international and domestic online language and culture partnerships. Her research has been funded by a National Academy of Education/Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellowship, by the International Research Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF), and by the Ford Scholars program at SMU. She was also the principal investigator of a Department of Education Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) professional development grant supporting secondary school educators in obtaining their ESL supplemental certification.
2014 Conference Program
THURSDAY, March 13
Welcome reception at the Acme Oyster House
3535 Perkins Rd ( 10 mn from the conference hotel) at 6PM
FRIDAY, March 14
9:00-10:00 Breakfast and WELCOME ADDRESS, Capital Chamber Room – 329
10:00-10:30 Session 1
Capital Chamber Room – 329
Online Distance Learning at Louisiana State University: An Online Design to Learning Beginning Level German
Michael Dettinger, Louisiana State University
The School of Continuing Education at Louisiana State University (LSU) has shifted from paper-based course delivery and launched online distance learning (ODL) correspondence courses for beginning level German. The new ODL courses, which use the Moodle Course Management System and the online exercise program ConnectGerman, now offer students easier access to materials and content. The goals of this presentation will be: 1) to illustrate how these courses were developed by changing the design from paper-based to online, 2) to describe the technologies used by the instructor and students including Moodle, ConnectGerman, voice file uploads, and email exchanges for feedback, and 3) review students’ results by comparing exam scores and averages between ODL and face-to-face students.
10:30- 10:45 Coffee Break-Hallway outside of Capital Chamber Room
11:00-12:00- Workshop 1
Capital Chamber Room – 329
High Tech/Low tech — engaging the jaded FL learner
Anna Love Wild
Foreign language learning is fun when everything is shiny and new in level 1. How do we keep their enthusiasm and hold their interest when the “new car smell” is gone? See demonstration of social media techniques, Ipad apps, smart phone applications and good old-fashioned “old school” low-tech/no tech ideas to keep the students engaged and communicating into the more advanced levels.
12:15-1:15 Opening Lunch
1:30-2:30 Keynote Address
Capital Chamber Room – 329
Beyond Conventional Classrooms: Embedding the Global inside the Local
Dr. Paige Ware, Associate Professor and Director of the PhD in Education program at Southern Methodist University
Technology that connects learners globally offers new learning opportunities for enriching language classrooms. As language educators and researchers, we have begun to rethink which goals might be targeted in our classes, which assessments might be retooled to better understand language development, and which new areas of learning might be forged with digital tools. The affordances of new communicative technologies offer our classrooms steady streams of innovation that can create novel learning environments, expanded semiotic resources, and new modes of communication. In this talk, I showcase how one such learning opportunity—international telecollaboration—was embedded into a local secondary language arts classroom. I highlight the roles that over 100 adolescent partners in Texas and Spain took up during the project and illustrate how their text-based and multimedia messages reflect both local concerns as well as more global discourses about language and culture that surround them.
2:30- 2:45 Coffee Break- Hallway outside of Capital Chamber Room
2:50-3:20 Concurrent Sessions 1- Capital Chamber 329
Incorporating Embedded Technology and Authentic Media in the Spanish Language Classroom
Bryant Smith, Nicolls State University
Foreign language instructors are expected, if not required, to incorporate technology into their classes. Modern texts eliminate the need for bulky workbooks and tedious CD/DVD packets by incorporating embedded technology, often via an online learning platform. Technology-enabled texts often have speaking, listening, writing, and reading activities that can be done outside of the class, while allowing the instructor to respond, give feedback, and differentiate instruction. They also allow students to be exposed to authentic cultural and linguistic components in the form of video clips of authentic media, films, music and television shows. While professors are often overwhelmed with the many choices of textbooks that incorporate embedded technology, this presentation will illustrate how one university-level Spanish program has implemented new course materials in order to facilitate learning in various class levels, from introductory to advanced. I will also discuss the benefits to using the same publisher for the language courses in a program, which include students becoming familiar and comfortable with the texts’ interface and layout. This presentation will also highlight some disadvantages to online teaching so that others may avoid these mistakes.
Red River Room – 323
Double your students’ talking time with Free Web Tools
Helen Stapleton, Sewanee University of the South
The typical student only gets an average of 2 minutes of talking time per class. By using the free services Audio Dropbox and Video Dropbox, hosted by Michigan State University’s Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR), teachers can dramatically increase opportunities for students to speak the foreign language without the anxiety of having to perform in front of others.
These services are efficient for the teacher because all of the recorded submissions are in one convenient location, listed with the student’s name and the time and date of submission. I will guide the participants through the process of setting up their own accounts and show examples of submissions other students have made.
I will demonstrate how to use Audio & Video Dropbox through a WordPress blog, Blackboard, and other platforms, and show them how to use it from the student’s end as well. Students just need is access to a computer with a microphone and an internet connection.
I plan to share negative and positive feedback that I have gotten from professors and students who have used it at my institution. The session will conclude with a brainstorming session about the pedagogical implications of Audio Dropbox.
Capital Chamber Room – 329
3:30- 4:00 Session 3
Capital Chamber Room – 329
Developing Tasks for Telecollaboration
Paige Ware, Southern Methodist University
This session will focus a discussion around a typology of 12 different task types that are grouped into 3 main categories: Information Exchange, Comparison and Analysis, and Collaboration. Participants will generate their own ideas for intercultural tasks and develop an understanding of how their suggested activities fit within the current spectrum of typical telecollaboration tasks. Handouts with examples will be provided.
400-5:00 Workshop 2
Capital Chamber Room – 329
Open Your Ears! Listen and Do!
Carmen Garcia and Veronica Proano, Calcasieu Parish School Board
Teaching methodologies that emphasize listening comprehension as the first skill to develop the natural process of language acquisition should be chosen over other language teaching methodologies that prioritize in writing and or reading.
We have to realize that listening is used far more than any other single language skills in normal daily life. On average, we can expect to listen twice as much as we speak, four times more than we read, and five times more than we write (Rivers, 1981; Weaver, 1972), so the importance of listening cannot be underestimated in second and foreign language acquisition at all.
Our main goal to develop listening skills is based on students “outcome”, an essential component in both two-way and one-way communication listening comprehension activities.
A format that reflects information-gathering and information-using (“Listen and Do”) is recommended for listening instructional activities in the languages curricula.
We will provide some resources from the following categories,
1) Listening and performing actions
2) Listening and transferring information
3) Listening and solving problems
4) Listening, evaluating, and manipulating information
5) Interactive listening and negotiating meaning through questioning /answering routines
6) Listening for enjoyment, pleasure, sociability
The purpose of this roundtable is to propose and share teaching experiences in order to empower students when learning a second language.
5:15-5:45 OPEN FORUM
Capital Chamber Room – 329
Meeting the Challenges of Teaching Foreign Languages Today and Seeking Opportunities to Make Foreign Language Learning Relevant Locally and Globally
Friday evening dinner at Mike Anderson’s Seafood
1031 W Lee Dr, Baton Rouge, LA 70809
SATURDAY, March 15
8:30-9:15 Breakfast and visit to exhibitors
9:15-9:45 Session 4
Capital Chamber Room – 329
Personally-tailored Open Educational Resources: Websites in the Language and Literature Classroom
Louise Stoehr and Carlos Cuadra, Stephen F. Austin State UniversityThe variety of Open Educational Resources currently available enables us to bring high-quality, low-cost materials to our students and our classrooms. Students in both the German and the Spanish programs at SFA benefit from websites that were crafted by their professors, and that are tailored to the specific needs of the respective classes. We will present examples of how we have enhanced our language and literature curricula with sites that we make available to students and colleagues at our home institution as well as to others around the globe.
9:45-10:45 Workshop 3
Capital Chamber Room – 329
Build Your Own Digital Badges to Recognize Learning
Rachel Gilg and Garin Fons, Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL)
Digital badges act as validated indicators of accomplishments, skills, qualities or interests. What sets them apart from a traditional credits or certificates is that embedded in the digital badge’s image is a collection of important metadata that provide evidence and confirmation of the learning activity. These metadata can be included with traditional forms of credentialing and shared through online profiles and resumes. In this way, learners showcase their achievements and provide interested parties with a unique way to better understand their talents, competencies, or interests.
In this workshop, the presenters will first introduce the concept of digital badges and the emerging open badge ecosystem. Then, participants will create their own digital badge using free online tools such as the Open Badge Designer, badg.us, and Mozilla’s BadgeKit. Finally, the presenters will lead the group in brainstorming ways to integrate open digital badges with language learning curricula.
10:50-11:50 Session 5
Capital Chamber Room – 329
Digital Writing at All Levels with Storybird
Marie Schein-Texas Christian University
Are you looking for alternatives to traditional, computer-assisted writing projects? Are you interested in providing a real-world and global audience for your students’s work? Then, come discover what they can accomplish with Storybird, the online digital storytelling tool that inspire students to be creative in the L2 they are learning. Storybird provides thousands of ready-to-use and copyrights-free illustrations to facilitate storyboarding and produce sharp and inviting online books that, once published, contribute to developing an eLibrary of stories in all languages. This workshop lets the participants read students’ stories and manipulate the tool to create their own.
12-1 Business Lunch
