Webinar: World Languages Meet

World Languages Meet: Recruitment, Advocacy and Skills Development

Date:  Thursday, April 10, 2014

Presenter:  Deanne Cobb-Zygadlo

When the Language Resource Center and Modern Language Studies were asked to develop a recruitment event for their foreign language programs, the LRC and the MLS faculty looked to develop something unique. While there were many models for World Language program recruitment, Deanne Cobb-Zygadlo wanted to develop something that was unique to the Kutztown campus and delivered the message that Kutztown University offered quality, standards-driven language programs. At the time, the faculty and the LRC Director were also working heavily on program assessment and they wanted the meet to reflect the innovative practices of the faculty and their focus on ACTFL skills development. In addition, they wanted this event to meet multiple goals: recruitment, language learning advocacy in the community and K-12 teacher professional development. Driven by the overwhelming success of their Spring 2013 pilot event, the LRC Advisory committee, chaired by Ms. Cobb-Zygadlo, hosted the 2014 World Languages Meet which they modeled loosely on regional Science Olympiad events. In this webinar, I will discuss some of the considerations in the design including skills development, language assessment, campus logistics, and materials development. I will show examples of some of our events, and discuss how these encourage attention to ACTFL standards in language education. Finally we will discuss media attention to the event and the impact of the event on language learning in the communities Kutztown University serves.

• Webinar Recordings

Biography:

Deanne Cobb-Zygadlo is the Director of the Language Resource Center at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. She is the first director of the Center and has been with Kutztown University since 2009. She holds a Master of Arts in German from the University of Calgary, Canada and has been working in the field of Language Resource Center management since 2000. She is the current Social Media Coordinator for IALLT. Her research interests include gaming design, language assessment, curriculum design, computer-assisted language learning.