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January 2024
Do you know someone doing innovative work with technology and LCTLs? Nominate them (or have them apply) for the LCTL Innovation Award by January 31st (more information below)!
Check out a professional development workshop opportunity on AI & TBLT from the LCTL and Indigenous Languages Partnership, further below in this newsletter - applications due January 31st!
Check out more of our latest happenings below, including our finalized schedule of OLT courses for Spring 2024! The first application deadline is January 15th!
Don't forget to explore opportunities from other LRCs and Language Centers in our PD Opportunities and Resources section, at the end of the newsletter!
New to our newsletter? Explore all eleven of our projects in our three core areas of professional development, open resources, and strategic collaboration on our website!
LCTLs and Innovation: The MAFLT LCTL Innovation Awards
These awards recognize outstanding, innovative, and transformative uses of technology in the teaching of Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs). Up to three prizes ranging between $250 and $500 will be awarded this year.
Find out more and submit your application here by January 31st, 2024.
Professional Development Workshop: AI & TBLT
The LCTL and Indigenous Languages Partnership at Michigan State University is offering a professional development workshop on Artificial Intelligence & Task-Based Language Teaching.
- When: May 13-14, 2024
- Who: Any LCTL Instructor in the USA, with preference given to Big Ten University instructors
- Cost: Free to attend, plus up to a $700 travel/lodging reimbursement for each participant
- Application Deadline: January 31, 2024
For more information and to apply, click here.
NLRC Social Media Highlight
Welcome to the new year of 2024! This past month, the NLRC acknowledged and addressed Arabic Language Day of Celebration, as we celebrate the peoples, families, diasporas, and cultures that speak and interact with one of the oldest languages in the world! Our LoLA program held a second workshop for Fulbright Language Teaching Assistants on self-assessment creation, which took place December 14th. And of course, we had to celebrate all the early winter holidays that are celebrated across multiple cultures and languages such as Diwali, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas, and more! Make sure to follow our social media pages as we recognize more culturally significant days in the following months!
LoLA FLTA Self-Assessment Workshop
On December 14th, our LoLA project hosted our second workshop with the MSU Fulbright Language Teaching Assistants (FLTAs) on self-assessment creation! This time, we dug deeper into how to create comprehensive “can-do” statements!
FLTAs of multiple LCTLs took part in brainstorming self-assessment statements for their students, including instructors of Urdu, Turkish, Tagalog, Thai, Yoruba, and more! We are honored and excited to see more LCTLs being taught in our area and around the world!
Learn more about the LoLA project here.
SPRING OLT OPPORTUNITIES
Learn more about our Spring 2024 Online Language Teaching courses!
Oral Communicative Tasks
Engage in best practices for designing and facilitating synchronous and asynchronous oral communicative tasks for both presentational and interpersonal modes of instruction. Design scaffolded task progressions in order to meet all your language objectives in rigorous fashion.
Spring session starts: January 29
Creating Engaging Materials
Develop in-depth expertise for developing engaging online materials. Build a portfolio of 3-6 sets of materials in a variety of domains of your choice (vocabulary or grammar, reading or listening, and culture or pragmatics) for use in your online or hybrid courses.
Spring session starts: March 4
Purposeful Technology Integration
Explore novel and alternative technology-supported pedagogical approaches, identify technology-enabled practices with the most transformative potential, and design an intentional “new normal” for what language instruction might look like for you in the near future.
Spring session starts: April 1
Deadlines for spring course applications:
- Oral Communicative Tasks: Jan 15th
- Creating Engaging Materials: Feb 19th
- Purposeful Technology Integration: April 1st
Many of our fellow Language Resource Centers and National Resource Centers (and some of our collaborative partners) have their own professional development opportunities. This section highlights some of those opportunities/resources:
- The Transforming Language Instruction Project at the University of Chicago (funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) is accepting applications for their series of three summer workshops. Apply before March 15 for the Test Design & Development workshop and 4-day OPI workshop!
- CARLA will be opening registration for their Summer Institutes for Language Teachers in January 2024! The institutes have a scholarship for LCTL instructors - applications will be due March 15, 2024.
- CARLA will also host a Language Teacher Education conference in May/June 2024. The call for proposals closes January 12, 2024.
- Check out CARLA's workshops, too!
- CERCLL is holding the International Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence in February 2024.
- CERCLL's Spring 2024 Webinar Series is called "Rebooting Language Educ-AI-tion" and has upcoming webinars in January, March, and April!
- The NFLRC has an open-enrollment self-study course about Project-Based Language Learning, open for enrollment from now through April 30, 2024.
- The Teaching and Learning Languages in the United States (TELL-US) podcast series is available. This resource is aimed at novice LCTL instructors with content focusing on pedagogy and school culture.
- The Language Institute at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has several professional development events online this academic year (2023-2024), including topics surrounding SLA and language ideologies. Check out the link above for more information!
- The Cornell Language Resource Center has a podcast called "Speaking of Language" as well as a Speaker Series (with archived videos of previous events), covering topics of wide-ranging interest for language learners and instructors!
- The Fund for Teachers is having a grant competition ($5000 for individuals, $10,000 for teams) for K-12 teachers to design a "transformational learning experience." The funder "prioritize[s] teachers seeking solutions to their own, genuine problems of practice." Applications are due January 18, 2024.
- Applications are now open for Wisconsin Intensive Summer Language Institutes! Most institutes have a March 15 priority deadline, but be sure to double check the deadline for your desired institute!
