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Newsletter - July 2024
Check out more of our latest happenings below, including the upcoming ViVID cohort and our Fall 2024 Learning Community! 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!
Check out other events on our joint LRC calendar (also linked below under PD Opportunities and Resources).
Updates
Calling all LCTL educators! Join the ViVID Project as a fellow and participate in reflective teaching and peer mentoring through video-based feedback. The application deadline is July 15.
The ViVID Project provides opportunities for teachers of less-commonly-taught languages to form a lasting virtual community and use video-based feedback to develop skills in reflective teaching and peer observation. All participants will receive a $1,000 stipend for the 9-month program.
2024-2025 Learning Community – Project-Based Learning
This year’s Learning Community will focus on project-based learning. Last year and the year before the Learning Community adopted assessment-based learning and task based and proficiency-oriented language instruction, respectively. This time, we will be launching a project-based learning view on language instruction. Project based language learning can immerses language learners in real-life issues (i.e., a response to a challenging problem or question) and practical language application, achieved through creating meaningful projects serving genuine purposes, and sharing their products with an audience beyond the classroom context. The learning community is an excellent way for LCTL instructors to expand their teaching methods repertoire and explore with peers how small- or large-scale projects, infused or not with technology, help integrate culture, content and language and help advance their student to that next proficiency level. Participants will have the opportunity to:
- Learn how to design projects that engage students and help develop their language and life skills at the same time
- Create and scaffold appropriate and authentic materials with a student-centered approach
- Brainstorm with fellow LCTL instructors and learning community facilitators, and share ideas and stories to build off each other
NLRC Social Media Highlight
We have officially entered summer, with the passing of the Summer Solstice last month! This month we celebrated the revolutionary Pride Month, where we acknowledge all our LGBTQIA+ friends and the struggles they have gone through to get where they are. Alongside June being Pride Month, the month of June is also Caribbean-American Heritage Month! We also acknowledged the significant day of Juneteenth, which marked the ending of slavery in America and marked the independence of the Black community and African Americans. In terms of language, we also marked the day of Russian Language Day on June 6th, as well as promoting our ViVID fellowship recruitment advertisements. Follow us on our social media for more updates!
PD Opportunities and Resources
To view all current LRC offerings in an aggregate format, please see this calendar:
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 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 past 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!
- Registration is now open for the 11th Annual Community-Based Heritage Language Schools Conference on October 4-5, presented by the Coalition of Community-Based Heritage Language Schools!
- The LCTL Program at the Ohio State University has created self-paced, asynchronous LCTL Courses on their Scarlet Canvas platform. Course options exist in Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Catalan, Persian, Polish, and Romanian.
