Pre-Conference Workshops

Developing Language Teachers to Work for Social Justice (AM1)

Helping language teachers to increase their awareness of social justice issues and to incorporate those issues into their content can sometimes be challenging in the teacher education classroom. In this workshop, we will address ways that teaching for social justice has become both a topic and a goal in our work as language teacher educators. We will review common challenges in developing language teachers to work for social justice as well as techniques and ideas for creating teacher education contexts that support the development of social justice-oriented language teachers.

Presenters:
Pam Wesely, Associate Professor of Foreign Language and ESL Education at the University of Iowa
Cassandra Glynn, Assistant Professor of Education at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota

Location: Think 1

Differentiated Language Teacher Education: Supporting Novice and Experienced Teachers (AM2)

University foreign language programs often employ teachers with varying levels of experience in the classroom—from novice graduate student instructors to more experienced lecturers. For language program directors who are often responsible for mentoring teachers with a range of training and classroom experience, finding the right balance of support can be challenging. This session provides language teacher educators with tools and strategies for providing appropriate and effective differentiated teaching support. In the workshop, participants will learn about the specific needs of beginning and more experienced instructors, as well as activities that target these different instructor groups. Larger programmatic initiatives that can effectively support meaningful professional development for teachers at all stages of development will also be shared. To contextualize this discussion on differentiated instructor support, additional variables impacting individual instructor needs will be explored (e.g., native versus non-native speaker, cultural background, beliefs about L2 teaching, age, learning style preferences). Throughout the workshop, we will discuss how to foster healthy interpersonal relationships, team-building, and collaboration among language teachers.

Presenters:
Cori Crane, Associate Professor of the Practice and German Language Program Director at Duke University
Heather Willis Allen, Associate Professor of French at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Location: Think 3

Learning to Respond to Students’ Identities in the Language Classroom (AM3)

This workshop will engage with the question of what it means to bring students’ identities into the language classroom and how we might work with language teachers to enable them to do so. We will ground our exploration in recent theorizing in applied linguistics that highlights the role of people’s histories of language use, their social identities, and imagined futures in the development of their communicative repertoires. We will then try out a number of practical activities and reflect on implications for language teacher education pedagogy.

Presenter:
Maggie Kubanyiova, Professor of Language Education and Director of the Centre for Language Education Research at the University of Leeds

Location: Think 4

Language Teacher Education 2.0: Designing and Implementing Online Learning (PM2) - FULL!

To reach more students and meet their diverse time and location constraints, language teacher education (LTE) programs are capitalizing on technological developments to offer part or all of their programs and credentials online (England, 2012). However, doing so can present practical and logistical questions that necessitate new and creative approaches to LTE while maintaining the development of what are considered critical components of language teacher knowledge-bases (cf. Freeman & Johnson, 1998). In this workshop, two faculty from the MA TESOL program at Hamline University, a program that has had distance and online offerings for more than 15 years, will guide participants in reflecting on their own contexts as sites for online language teacher education (OLTE) while taking stock of constraints and affordances. Workshop facilitators will then work collaboratively with participants to explore a framework for designing and developing OLTE courses with special attention to creating learning spaces and activities that are socially mediated, grounded in real world application and experiential learning, and foster reflective practice. Participants will have the opportunity to share and learn from each other and will leave with ideas for developing online courses and activities in their contexts.

Presenters:
LeeAnne Godfrey, Assistant Professor of Second Language Teaching and Learning at Hamline University
Julia Reimer, Associate Professor of Second Language Teaching and Learning at Hamline University

Location: Think 4

Preparing Teachers to Advocate for Language Programs (PM3)

Participants will engage in discussions about strategies to incorporate advocacy initiatives into teacher preparation curricula. The workshop will look at initiatives to build K-16 initiatives that better connect primary and secondary language education with programs and curriculum at the tertiary level. The workshop will look at strategies to build a sense of community among language educators and how they might be incorporated into the preparation of future teachers. Part of the focus on advocacy will include a discussion of culturally responsive teaching and how that can enhance language education for all students.

Presenters:
William Nichols, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures; Director of the Center for Language Teaching and Research at Georgia State University
Dana Salter, Interim Associate Director of the Crim Center for Urban Educational Excellence at Georgia State University

Location: Think 3

Speaking Assessment: Preparing Educators for Effective Classroom Practices (PM5)

Effective speaking assessment, including both formative, classroom-based tools and standardized assessment, can provide valuable information about student language growth and support effective instruction. However, assessing speaking presents many practical and conceptual challenges for educators. In this workshop, participants will review sample speaking assessments, consider the knowledge base needed to use, score, interpret, and apply speaking assessments effectively, and discuss best practices for developing educator knowledge in this area. The workshop will include scenario-based discussions and sample assessments. The workshop will cover the following three topics: 1) overview of the knowledge base of speaking assessment using example assessments; 2) scenario-based discussions about key challenges educators face in assessing speaking; and 3) resources related to speaking assessment for use in language teacher education.

Presenter:
Meg Montee, Director of Performance-Based Language Assessment at the Center for Applied Linguistics and Associate Director of the Assessment and Evaluation Language Resource Center at Georgetown University

Location: Think 1