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Newsletter - April 2024
Check out more of our latest happenings below, including our summer Professional Development schedule and our new Teach-a-LCTL Resources Guides!
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 here (also linked under 'PD Opportunities and Resources').
Updates
We are excited to announce our summer course schedule, which includes a brand new course we've never offered before titled Community-Oriented Teaching.
The class focuses on engagement within our classroom communities and beyond with the target language-speaking community locally and globally. We first explore what makes our language learning class communities special, review various community building efforts (e.g. extracurricular experiences) and reassess what realistic expectations for community engagement in various modalities may be.
In addition to this new course, we are pleased to be able to offer another session of Teaching the Whole Class, with guest educator Dr. Tom Garza (University of Texas at Austin).
As usual, our summer courses will be offered completely free of charge. The deadline to apply is June 3rd.
Announcing our Teach-a-LCTL Resources Guides
The Teach-a-LCTL Resources Guides combine scholarship on community language education, heritage language learners, and literacies-based approaches to language learning. The goal of the guides is to give an easy-to-use resource to teachers and coordinators of community LCTL education programs, so that they can adapt lesson plans to fit their languages, cultures, and learners.
The guide contains sample lesson plans on 5 themes: music; sports and movement; clothing; expressions and emotions; and food. It also directs community language educators to additional educational and organizational resources.
The Shared LCTL Symposium will again be held in conjunction with the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) Annual Conference in Chicago on April 18, 2024 from 1-5:30pm!
2024 Theme: Differentiated Instruction
Dr. Garza will explore topics and issues around differentiated instruction, intersectional identities, mixed proficiency levels, and other factors that influence and inform student motivation for language learning. A panel of LCTL instructors will respond with their own experiences and expertise.
NLRC Social Media Highlight
We have officially entered the season of spring! We kicked off this month by celebrating Womens History Month (as well as International Womens Day on March 8th), as we acknowledge all of the women in our lives that have impacted our growth. In terms of language and LCTLs, we observed French Language Day on March 20th, as well as International Day of Multilingualism on March 27th! We are proud of every LCTL speaker and educator, no matter how many languages or how much of them you speak or teach. Alongside these notable dates, we also advertised our SLCTLS early registration ending on March 16th, as well as our PD funds—that of which deadline is approaching on April 15th. Follow us on social media for our updates and other tidbits!
FREE PD OPPORTUNITIES
Learn more about our Summer 2024 Online Language Teaching courses!
Teaching the Whole Class
Leverage course design principles and learning technologies to facilitate proficiency development for class sections with heterogeneous learners (differing proficiency levels, heritage, abilities, backgrounds, etc.).
Summer session starts: June 7
Community-Oriented Teaching
The class focuses on engagement within our classroom communities and beyond with the target language-speaking community locally and globally. We explore what makes our language learning class communities special and imagine what realistic expectations for community engagement in various modalities may be.
Summer session starts: July 8
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 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 is looking to hire a Technology-Enhanced Language Education Director. Please see the job announcement here. The application deadline is April 22, 2024.
- CERCLL's Spring 2024 Webinar Series is called "Rebooting Language Educ-AI-tion" and has upcoming webinars in 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!
- Applications are now open for Wisconsin Intensive Summer Language Institutes! Most institutes have a March 15 priority deadline, but some of them may still be available!
