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Welcome to Open Education Week 2022

March 2, 2022 Leave a Comment

March 7-11, 2022 is Open Education Week, an international event to build awareness of open education and show its impact on teaching and learning. Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness.* Read below to learn how to get involved during Open Ed Week.

Attend OLRC’s and COERLL’s FL OER Conference

The weekend before Open Education Week the Open Language Resource Center (OLRC) at the University of Kansas and COERLL will be co-hosting the second annual Foreign Language OER online Conference on Saturday, March 5, 2022 via Zoom. The goal of the conference is to provide a venue to showcase large-scale language OER and to exchange information on topics related to OER production and adoption.

This year’s conference will highlight materials in Arabic, Croatian, Czech, ESL, French, German, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Urdu. Presentations will explore inclusivity, accessibility, OER in K-12, faculty/developer partnerships, Heritage Language Learners, Creative Commons licensing and other important issues.!

There is no cost to attend the conference. It will be conducted entirely through Zoom and composed of 15 minute lightning talks and 30 minute presentations.

  • Register by March 4 at 12:00pm CST, 2022
  • Browse the program

Be featured on COERLL’s Language OER Network

Have you taught with openly licensed resources, created your own openly licensed resources, or helped others learn about OER? If so, we want to give you a digital badge and feature you on the Language OER Network! 117 faculty, teachers, librarians, graduate and undergraduate students are already listed there.

Visit the LOERN page to join

Find other events and resources for Open Education Week

You can discover other events around the world on the Open Education Week website. Here’s just a sample:

  • Presentation Ask Me Anything About H5P – March 7, 2022 at 10am CST
  • Panel Discussion Overcoming Faculty Barriers to OER Adoption – March 7, 2022 at 4pm CST
  • Keynote Equity and Inclusion in the Open Education Movement Keynote Address: Towards Sustainable OER Creation for Ethnic Studies – March 8, 2022 at 11:00am CST
  • Presentation COERLL project presentation series: Texas Coalition for Heritage Spanish – March 8, 2022 at 11:30am CST
  • Session Making OER Count: Incorporating OER into the Tenure and Promotion Process– March 8, 2022 at 12pm CST
  • Session Embracing OER: Tips, Tricks, and Strategies – March 9, 2022 at 1pm CST
  • Presentation COERLL project presentation series: Trayectos Presentation – March 10, 2022 at 3:30pm CST
  • Round Table Evaluating Open Pedagogies – March 11, 2022 at 10:30am CST

Learn more about OER for language learning in our introductory guide

Two years ago, we launched the Introduction to OER for Language Teachers, a series of modules on topics related to creating and using open educational resources and practices. We have been updating the guide ever since based on our conversations with teachers – it’s OER, so it continues to evolve!

If you are already a user or creator of OER, or are planning on becoming one, please take a look at the guide, and let us know what you think.

Try licensing your work

If you are already sharing activities, lesson plans, or other resources with colleagues, you might want to consider adding a Creative Commons license, so people know how they are allowed to use your resource and remember to give you credit. Here’s how…

  1. Somewhere in your document, write “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License” (or whichever other license you choose). This page can help you choose a license (that is, choose how people are allowed to use your resource).
  2. Add an image of the license if you have it.
  3. Don’t forget to include your name as the author!

 

*Definition from the Open Education Consortium’s Open Education Week website, licensed under CC BY.

Filed Under: COERLL updates, OER initiatives, Teacher Development Tagged With: conference, OEP, OER, open educational practices, open educational resources

Games2Teach Workshop Recap

September 5, 2021 Leave a Comment

Do you remember your favorite activity in school as a child? Without a doubt, mine were the games. From hide-and-seek to puzzles, every day I was prepared to live a new adventure. Probably, I am not the only one that grew up with the idea that knowledge, games, and enjoyment should not be separated from each other. The 4-day workshop Games2Teach Collaboratory sponsored by CASLS (University of Oregon) & COERLL (University of Texas-Austin) reminded me of this as an educator as well. Facilitated by Julie Sykes and Stephanie Knight from CASLS, the workshop provided ideas, tools, and skills for educators to promote second language acquisition through the lens of games and collaborative experience.

The workshops enlightened the idea that the classroom is a microcosm of learning experience in which games are a key part, because they are provocative and increase the authenticity of using knowledge and learning experiences in different settings. Take for example “The Candle Problem”. Imagine that you have a box of tacks, a candle, and a box of matches. How would you hang the candle right on the wall without burning yourself? There are 3 (or more!!) possible solutions such as using a few tacks to attach the candle to the wall or to build a base for the candle to stand against the wall… but what would be even easier? Using the same box of tacks to place the candle in it. This kind of game develops in the learner skills to solve problems focusing on the most practical solution and having fun while doing it!

Creativity, thinking, and playing are skills that learners of a second language can use in their learning journey with the guide of their teachers. To develop a collaborative game, it’s important to keep in mind what are the components of the study, general themes, concepts, and critical skills that learners must develop in the unit or chapter. A lesson plan, using this teaching strategy, can be divided into four parts: vocabulary, strategic skills, grammar, and pragmatic skills. We were provided with one example that encompassed these elements with a narrative oriented to a game to collaborate. The main theme was travel and weather. Instead of repeating vocabulary or grammatical forms, the lesson plan focused on a narrative in which students were ‘secret agents’ that had to help a missing colleague to finish her mission. By using this narrative, students already were involved in the idea of solving a problem and using critical skills while learning and enjoying their mission. Students were also developing skills for listening and reading details and using commands or interrogative words to bring the best solutions into the game.

The workshop, aside from providing us as teachers with tools to create games, gave us space to create and share our own ideas of how to incorporate the knowledge in our teaching. One of the participants shared a lesson plan using emojis to create a puzzle for students to learn the characters and vocabulary of a theatre play. Another participant had the idea of creating a virtual scenario in which students were gaining ‘points’ while solving language problems, and in the end, moving to a different level to solve a crime. And there was even someone that had the idea of using “The Candle Problem” as a vocabulary-building game.

What would you want to play while learning and collaborating with others? If unsure, make sure to sign up for the next workshop!

Learn more about Games2Teach and other projects on the CASLS website, and check out COERLL’s upcoming events.

—

Denise Castillo is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Wisconsin- Madison in Hispanic Literature. She has been teaching Spanish at college level for 10 years. Her passions include education, literature, and continuing her learning journey as an educator.

Filed Under: Teacher Development, Technology-based language learning Tagged With: CASLS, critical skills, emojis, games, play, problem solving, workshop

Literature for Transformation: Nicolás Guillén’s “Negro bembón”

August 30, 2021 Leave a Comment

Editor’s note: This post is the fifth (and final) in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. Read the rest here.

In this post, I share about how I use a piece of literature that’s almost 100 years old in order to frame a discussion about historical and present-day issues of race and identity. I hope this post helps you as you imagine how you might move from comprehension to critical reflection in your own classes using a variety of resources.

The text is “Negro bembón” (“Thick-lipped Black Man”), published by Afro-Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén as part of the collection Motivos de son (1930).

The presentation linked below explains the progression of activities that I follow to introduce the poem and engage students with comprehension and reflection activities.

Although the process differs slightly for each resource or topic, I do try to include each of the following components when introducing a text:

  • preparation (essential questions, standards, and can-do statements)
  • personal connection
  • historical context
  • comprehension activities
  • linguistic analysis
  • thematic analysis
  • intertextuality
  • connections to justice movements

The text conversation below (shared with the permission of the student) presents one example of how students may connect with the content in unexpected ways. Here, the student reflects on how the poem and related activities helped her to connect to the experiences of some of her family members, including her Black husband and Black stepson.

Student: The reason why I was so reluctant [to take a Spanish class] is because every single Spanish teacher I’ve had in the past just wants you to memorize a bunch of vocabulary words and I feel like they don’t really teach but you incorporate soo [sic] many different things it’s impossible for a student to not learn. Also on my fathers side of the family we have some Mexicans that are married into our family and I’ve got some mixed race Mexican cousins and I showed them the poem from module 2 and they loved it. They loved how respectful and inclusive your class is.

Me: That’s so wonderful! I’m glad they liked the poem. I definitely try to be intentional about including multiple perspectives from a variety of Spanish-speaking people … so I’m always appreciative when people notice. Thanks again!

Student: Well I had to get them to explain the poem and to be honest I felt kind of bad because we discussed all the issues and problems they’ve faced because they’re mixed with Black and Mexican and it was shocking and eye opening and I appreciate that kind of knowledge and awakening. And I’ll admit race wasn’t a conversation that I really had growing up because my family wasn’t racist. We just weren’t raised like that, But I never knew about the race issues in America and especially in the south until I met my husband. He’s Black but he’s an immigrant. He was born and raised in Jamaica so he’s very dark skinned and the looks we receive when we go out in a public [place] is just crazy sometimes especially from white people. And then to read that poem was just heart breaking.

Me: I can imagine! I’m glad that what we’re studying in class helped spark or continue other conversations. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and reflections with me. I enjoy hearing about the different connections students make to the content.

Student: No I should be thanking you instead and it definitely did open my eyes and force me to think about my past experiences. And it’s nerve racking to me because I’ve also got my step son which my husbands son and I’ve a lot of funny looks whenever he calls me mom out in public. I’ve raised him since he was 3 months old so he knows me as his mother but sometimes white people will stare at me whenever he calls me mama and I answer to him. So after completing module 2 it was a rude awakening but it was a needed awakening! So again thank you very much and I hope you enjoy your night Professor.

 

So, what are your thoughts? Has this presentation changed or enhanced the way that you incorporate literature (or other texts) as a way to promote critical language study? What other strategies have been successful in your own classes?

—

L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Filed Under: Critical language study, Teacher Development

Representation, Inclusion, and Activism: Small Steps Matter

August 23, 2021 Leave a Comment

Editor’s note: This post is the fourth in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. Read the rest here.

I have been teaching Spanish for nearly 20 years. In all of those years, the language departments in which I worked used textbooks to support instruction, in some way or another. While some texts have been better than others, a common thread among all the texts is a lack of representation when it comes to historically (and currently) marginalized groups, such as Black Latinx populations and members of Latinx LGBT+ communities. For example, in all the textbooks I’ve ever used, not even once can I recall even seeing a trans person, much less a critical examination of the various elements and intersections of that identity.

This lack of representation warps students’ views about what a language class should be. For example, consider the student reflection below (from my third-semester university-level Spanish class):

“The topics regarding things such as LGBTQ have nothing to do with Spanish culture and I feel that topics like that should remain reserved for ethics classes. I would have loved to know more instead about Spanish food, dances, architecture, etc.”

The comment above reflects the expectations and experiences of many of our students. If “culture” is understood to be “things” like food, dances, and architecture (as opposed to lived experiences of diverse communities), we create fictitious, imagined worlds in which certain identities do not exist in the speech communities of the languages that we study. More dangerously, we reinforce stereotypes that students may have about the people and cultures studied—and in some cases even introduce new stereotypes! As evidenced by the student’s reflection, we see how jarring and unexpected it can be when certain marginalized identities are simply brought into the conversation. And really, representation alone (simply seeing and hearing marginalized voices) is the absolute lowest bar; if we stop at mere representation, then it amounts to nothing more than tokenism. I like to think of representation as the first step on the path to true diversity—the kind of diversity that is embedded into the power structures of our institutions.

On the topic of how we go about diversifying our curriculum, my colleague Uju Anya and I (2019) wrote:

To set the stage for this discussion, we call on the analogy of Bishop (1990), in which she posits that a diverse curriculum should be a window, a mirror, and a sliding glass door—a window through which students examine and learn from the perspectives of others, a mirror showing students their own experiences and cultures validated, and a sliding glass door through which students are able to enter into and experience the lives and perspectives of others. We would also add that a diverse curriculum should be the lens through which students apply a critical perspective to what they are studying. A diverse and meaningfully representative curriculum does not happen naturally. We must be intentional about finding and incorporating authentic resources that represent non-dominant target language and learner communities and cultural narratives (e.g., non-white, non-heterosexual, non-cisgender, non-male, non-middle/upper class, non-Eurocentric, non-English) so that these voices may be amplified in our courses and, more importantly, so that our world and social realities can be more accurately and more completely represented. (p. 26)

Even if we follow the guidelines listed above, our students (and we ourselves) may feel like we’re not doing “enough” if our justice-oriented learning doesn’t lead to tangible action and engagement outside of the classroom. I think sometimes we get caught up in assuming that students must engage in activism outside of the classroom in order for it to “count” as justice-oriented pedagogies.

So, my advice is this; don’t get overwhelmed. The goal isn’t to solve or eradicate injustice in the course of a single lesson or unit or to have students immediately marching in the streets or writing letters to politicians. Students don’t have to go out and immediately change the world. In fact, I would argue that such an approach is dangerous because it reinforces the saviorism narrative that students, armed with their newly discovered critical awareness, must now place the onus on themselves to go out into the world and single-handedly enact justice. Instead, we want to push students to first consider perspectives with which they may not be familiar and then determine how they might align themselves as allies in liberation work already being carried out in those communities.

The Social Justice Standards from the Learning for Justice organization provide a helpful framework for understanding the action/activism element of justice-oriented learning. Here are a couple of the standards that might guide our work as we think about how to move students toward action.

Students will make principled decisions about when and how to take a stand against bias and injustice in their everyday lives and will do so despite negative peer or group pressure.

Students will plan and carry out collective action against bias and injustice in the world and will evaluate what strategies are most effective.

You’ll notice that in the standards above, part of the process of “taking action” involves decision-making, planning, evaluation, and reflection. While action can and should be an important element of justice-oriented learning, it’s important to remember that action takes different forms and involves different steps. Activities that call students to critically reflect and engage in their own perspective-shifting are also a form of activism.

So, how do we do this in the classroom? The answer is to start small. If you are not able to immediately engage students in action-oriented activism in their own and others’ communities, consider engaging students in the experiences below as initial steps. Depending on the proficiency level of the students, these activities may be completed in the language studied and/or in the student’s native language.

  • Respond to prompts, activities, and assignments in which they reflect on their own perspective shifting
  • Describe and evaluate the impact of historical and contemporary social justice movements in various communities of the language studied
  • Brainstorm how they might increase critical awareness of a social justice issue in their own communities
  • Identify contemporary activism campaigns in the communities of the language studied and outline how they might align themselves with such efforts

What other “small steps” have you found to be successful with including representation, inclusion, and activism in your classes?

References:

Anya, U., & Randolph, L. J., Jr. (2019). Diversifying language educators and learners. The Language Educator, 14(4), 23-27.

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives, 1(3), ix-xi.

—

L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Filed Under: Critical language study, Teacher Development

Finding Comfort in the Discomfort: Critical Moments and Courageous Conversations

August 16, 2021 Leave a Comment

Editor’s note: This post is the third in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. Read the rest here.

“Yet we don’t get our hands too dirty…We don’t usually listen to stories of escaping war and finding refuge and racism in a new land, despite the fact that these events occur in settings where so many of the languages taught in classrooms around the world are spoken” (Ennser-Kananen, 2016, p.557).

I get it. People don’t like conflict. People don’t like discomfort. I don’t like conflict or discomfort either, and I typically avoid those types of situations whenever possible. I like for things to be predictable and for conversations to lead to closure rather than chaos. But alas, critical and justice-oriented pedagogies rarely afford us such luxuries.

Over the past several years, I have given dozens of talks on how to incorporate critical and justice-oriented pedagogies in the language classroom. One of the biggest pushbacks I get is from teachers who are hesitant to tackle potentially polemic topics due to negative consequences that might arise. These teachers are not alone in their hesitance. In a study conducted by Wassell et al. (2019), language teachers identified the following challenges to the teaching of social justice:

  • Fear of potential backlash
  • Lack of supportive colleagues
  • Pushback from students
  • Lack of developmentally & linguistically appropriate curricular resources

Instructors are not alone. Students, too, may have reservations when it comes to these types of discussions. For example, consider the following comment from one of my early course evaluations: “[We had] very politically charged conversations with little room to feel comfortable sharing an opinion different from the majority.”

Even though sometimes I think that teachers can be overly cautious and may (unintentionally) exaggerate the amount of pushback they will receive, the truth is those concerns are valid, and I have even experienced pushback in my own classes. Also, the fact that I’m a Black man who teaches Spanish to overwhelmingly White student populations gives me more reasons to be a little reticent. For example, on many occasions I’ve been accused of pushing a racial agenda and unnecessarily inserting race into the classroom. So, I do understand the tendency to shy away from controversial, uncomfortable topics and have been tempted to do so myself. Yes, it may be irresponsible from a justice-oriented pedagogical perspective, but at least it protects my mental health! Nonetheless, I persist in this work, because I truly believe in its transformative potential, and I do think that there are some concrete strategies that instructors can employ to create a supportive (yet still messy and unpredictable) environment to address these issues. In this post, I highlight some of those strategies, many of which are based on an article I co-authored with Stacey Margarita Johnson (2015).

  • Use small, consistent groups. This allows students to develop more intimate relationships throughout the course, which fosters a classroom climate that might lead to more vulnerable sharing and richer dialogues. In addition, it helps guide students to trust each other’s good intentions, promotes positive feelings of belonging, and creates a greater sense of community as students overcome challenges together. This is especially important in online classes, where team building can be an inherent challenge. In my online classes, I typically divide large classes into smaller groups of 6-8 students. Students complete almost all collaborative activities (e.g., discussion boards, conversations, annotated readings) with that same group of 6-8 students throughout the entire course.
  • Incorporate several low/no-stakes, community-building activities (brain breaks, games, icebreakers, etc.) throughout the course. One of my early mistakes as a teacher was that I incorporated icebreaker-style activities at the beginning of the term, but I didn’t do it enough once we finished the preliminary unit. The result was that although I had established a fun, inclusive, light-hearted classroom climate at the beginning, as the semester continued students eventually became stagnant in nurturing and expanding those relationships. I quickly realized the importance of intentionally including low/no-stakes community-building activities throughout the entirety of the course and not just at the beginning of the course or each unit. These activities aid in lowering the students’ affective filters and building the types of relationships that are necessary for students to engage collaboratively in the study of critical topics.
  • Establish guidelines for healthy dialogue and disagreement. Explicitly explain and model for students how they should engage in conversations in which there will likely be differences of opinion. A good preliminary activity might be to post a potentially controversial opinion and then as a class brainstorm ways that students might respond or engage if they heard that opinion. Glen Singleton’s (2014) courageous conversation framework also offers helpful suggestions for centering the discussion around controversial topics: 1) stay engaged, 2) speak your truth, 3) experience discomfort, and 4) expect and accept non-closure.
  • Be as proactive as possible. Before introducing these topics, instructors must plan and reflect as much as possible. This is necessary not only to provide the linguistic and contextual support that students will need but also to anticipate possible ways that the conversation may become derailed. In those situations, it helps to have a planned course of action for redirecting the conversation when necessary and providing support for students during the process. Of course, it’s impossible to predict everything that students will say, but some intentional planning and preparation beforehand will help the instructor to respond more thoughtfully when unexpected moments arise. Chapter 6 (“Critical Moments”) of Glynn, Wesely, and Wassell’s (2018) Words and Actions: Teaching Languages Through the Lens of Social Justice provides additional guidance and resources for ways that instructors can prepare for these critical moments.

References:

Ennser-Kananen, J. (2016). A pedagogy of pain: New directions for world language education. Modern Language Journal, 100(2), 556-564.

Glynn, C., Wesely, P., & Wassell, B. (2018). Words and actions: Teaching languages through the lens of social justice (2nd ed.). ACTFL.

Johnson, S. M., & Randolph, L. J., Jr. (2015). Critical pedagogy for intercultural communicative competence: Getting started. The Language Educator, 10(3), 36-39.

Singleton, G (2014). Courageous conversations about race: A field guide for achieving equity in schools (2nd ed.). Corwin.

Wassell, B. A., Wesely, P., & Glynn, C. (2019). Agents of change: Reimagining curriculum and instruction in world language classrooms through social justice education. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 1-22.

—

L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Filed Under: Critical language study, Teacher Development

Comprehension of Authentic Resources

August 9, 2021 1 Comment

Editor’s note: This post is the second in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. Read the rest here.

One of the easiest, most effective, and seamless ways to integrate social justice is careful, intentional selection of resources. You can be certain that individuals from marginalized communities are already thinking deeply about some of the topics and perspectives that you may be considering integrating into your class for the first time. I recommend selecting open resources that present counterpoint and counternarratives and that don’t “oversimplify diversity or gloss over controversy and inequality” (Johnson & Randolph, 2015, p. 37). In many ways, if we just select resources that focus on how diverse people critically engage with various issues, justice-oriented experiences will come about much more naturally in our classes. These “authentic” resources are often not learner-centered and may not have the pedagogical support necessary for students to understand them. (See Simonsen (2019) for a more detailed discussion on authentic texts, learner-centered texts, and non-learner-centered texts). Thus, many students may find such resources to be too challenging. In this post, I will share a few of the strategies that I use for selecting resources and facilitating language comprehension with novice and intermediate learners in particular.

Simple resources pack a big punch. Songs are great due to their short length and predictable patterns and rhymes. Infographics are great because the language is limited and includes visual support. Blog posts written by members of the speech community of the language studied are another option. Finally, although they may not be the traditional resources we’re used to seeing, memes and social media posts (e.g., Twitter and Instagram) are good options as well. Such posts usually contain accessible language, and even in cases where the language is too advanced, it usually is easy to provide adequate support due to the limited amount of language that students have to process.

Direct students to meaningful details. When confronted with a complex text, students may often feel discouraged or frustrated if they are not able to understand the text well enough to adequately engage. I have found that there are several strategies that can be employed to guide language learners to focus on the most important details. These strategies might include:

  • Develop simple true/false or multiple-choice comprehension questions that draw students’ attention to the most important details. One-word answer, as described by Meredith White on Twitter, is another option.
  • Have students express a reaction to the text via a mock tweet (100-200 characters) or a meme via Jamboard or Padlet.
  • Ask students to write a title for each paragraph or section of the text.
  • Have students develop an original caption for any images that accompany the text.
  • Ask students to simply highlight what they believe to be the three most important passages of the text.
  • Develop an embedded reading. Click here to view an example of an embedded reading for the song “El Niágara en bicicleta.”
  • For absolute beginners, only read the title, section headers, and/or picture captions. Then, provide as much additional contextual information as possible (at the students’ language level) to facilitate comprehension.

Make comprehension an interactive, collaborative endeavor. The onus of comprehending and processing texts should not always fall on the individual student. Below, I highlight three tools that I use to make reading comprehension a process-oriented collaborative activity. The beauty of these tools is that they work well in a variety of course modalities (face-to-face, hybrid, and online synchronous/asynchronous).

  • EdPuzzle. I use this tool to divide video and audio resources into manageable chunks. I then incorporate checks for understanding, contextual information, and reflexion questions throughout. This creates an immersive, interactive experience as the student listens to or views the resource.
  • Google Docs. I use Google Docs with texts to create a shared, collaborative reading experience. First, I upload the text as a Google Doc. Then, I go through and annotate various sections. I might provide vocabulary support, give background/contextual information, post my thoughts/reactions, or pose comprehension and reflection questions. Next, I update the sharing settings of the document so that others can view my comments and leave their own comments. Students are then able to annotate the text directly and are encouraged to upload their own original reflections and questions as well. To prevent the document from becoming overloaded with comments, this works best when students are divided into groups of about five to eight students each, and each group has its own version of the document to annotate. While Google Docs works fine for my purposes (all of my students have Google accounts), other tools like Perusall were created specifically for this purpose and offer more functionality.
  • VoiceThread. I use VoiceThread with audio/video resources in the same way I use Google Docs with written resources. Once the recording is uploaded, students can engage in asynchronous conversations (via text, video, or audio) in response to prompts provided by the instructor throughout the recording or topics/questions raised by fellow classmates. Again, this works better when students are divided into small groups and each group has its own VoiceThread presentation to work with.

No matter which strategies you use, the main takeaway is to understand that with the right strategies, any text can be adapted to any learner skill level. Do not let the thematic or linguistic complexity of so-called “authentic” resources prevent you from incorporating them into your classes. In many cases, such resources provide the points of entry to study critical content from marginalized perspectives.

What other strategies have you found to be successful in your classes?

References:

Johnson, S. M., & Randolph, L. J., Jr. (2015). Critical pedagogy for intercultural communicative competence: Getting started. The Language Educator, 10(3), 36-39.

Simonsen, R. (2019). An analysis of the problematic discourse surrounding “authentic texts.” Hispania 102(2), 245-258.

—

L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Filed Under: Critical language study, Teacher Development

Setting the Stage for Critical Language Study

August 2, 2021 1 Comment

Editor’s note: This post is the first in a series by Dr. L.J. Randolph on the subject of critical pedagogy, social justice oriented teaching, inclusivity, and anti-racism in the language classroom. The advice here is for teachers of any language and culture, although the classroom examples given are for teaching Spanish. Thank you to Dr. Randolph for sharing his expertise, and to Luis Avilés, Shavonne Coleman, and Rachel Frankel for their input during the process. A new post will be published each Monday in August, and the full series will be available here.

As a language learner, I have always been drawn to critical content in the context of language learning—social issues that matter deeply but that are also messy and uncomfortable to wrestle with, marginalized perspectives that clearly show how language and power/powerlessness are inextricably linked, and innovative experiences and pedagogies that challenge traditional approaches to the discipline. Unfortunately, I did not often see those themes reflected in the curricula of the novice and lower intermediate courses in which I was enrolled. Such topics seemed to be reserved for specialized advanced courses at the university level, and when those topics did appear in lower level courses, they were approached in superficial ways. Perhaps we compared very generalized practices, products, and perspectives of the “target” culture with “our” culture (these always seemed to fit neatly within a Venn Diagram), or perhaps we learned superficial facts and tidbits about Spanish-speaking individuals and societies that the textbooks or teachers deemed important (again, neatly packaged cultural knowledge that could easily be regurgitated and assessed through traditional tests).

When I became a language teacher, I desperately wanted to challenge this status quo. Inspired by the work of various critical scholars, I wanted to enact a language class that challenged the very idea that proficiency could ever exist outside of the politicized nature of language. The more I began to fully develop this pedagogical approach, the more I came to realize that my class was veering away from the format of the introductory language classes that I had taken and the language learning experience that many of my students had come to expect based on their previous language courses. I also saw that my students experienced a bit of shock, and probably some anxiety too, when they were asked to engage with the critical content that was a part of my class.

As an instructor, I had naively assumed that my students would understand my approach and would be along for the ride as we approached language study in a new way. While many students did eagerly hop on, many others approached with caution, while some others missed the ride completely.

In this post, I wish to highlight one simple way in which I proactively set the stage for the type of course that my students might expect to experience. I share this information in one of the first official pieces of communication that my students receive from me: the syllabus.

My ever-evolving statement that I use for my third-semester Spanish 201 course is below. At this level, most students in the course are at the novice-high/intermediate-low proficiency range.

Spanish, like many European languages (including English), has a history characterized by centuries of colonization and imperialistic domination. This history has often diminished, devalued, or erased the language varieties, cultures, and experiences of people who do not reflect Eurocentric identities. We still see those effects today. For example, certain dialects of Spanish spoken in Spain often enjoy more prestige than dialects spoken in, say, Puerto Rico or Mexico. And the literature, culture, and history of Spain are usually taught as their own separate courses, while the literatures, cultures, and histories of all Latin American countries are usually combined into the same course (check out UNCW’s Spanish course offerings as an example). In my attempt to flip the narrative and diversify the curriculum, this course will take an intentionally anti-colonial, anti-racist approach. That means that I will often supplement activities from the textbook with readings and other resources that more authentically reflect the racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity of Spanish-speaking people from around the world, with a special emphasis on people from historically underrepresented, minoritized groups. We will use these resources to reinforce linguistic elements like grammar and vocabulary. However, we will also critically examine the perspectives presented in the resources. At times, this will require the use of English, since you have not yet developed the skills in Spanish to engage in this level of dialogue. Also, this will often require us to push ourselves a little beyond our comfort zones in order to grapple with societal problems that matter deeply to us all but that are also highly complex and nuanced with no easy solutions. It is my goal for us to empathize with and celebrate a multitude of diverse lived experiences (including our own) and to learn some Spanish along the way. I hope that you will join me on this transformative journey!

In crafting this statement and sharing it to students, I hope to accomplish the following:

  • openly and honestly acknowledge the politicized nature of language study.
  • be upfront about my intentional efforts to take an anti-colonial, anti-racist approach to language learning.
  • clearly explain the rationale for the topics and instructional resources that will be included in the course.
  • take an initial step in helping students feel “comfortable with the discomfort” of critical engagement.
  • express reasons and expectations for using English.
  • affirm that I, too, am willing to engage in critical self-reflection along with my students.

This process of clearly articulating the language learning philosophy that drives the course is important for students and instructors alike. For instructors who may not use a traditional syllabus (e.g., non-postsecondary), such a statement can be included as part of a course introduction or policy document, or it can be posted to a course website or LMS landing page.

Finally, it’s important to iterate that this is an ongoing process. Students need to be reminded of this course framework throughout the duration of the term (not just at the beginning of the class), and several low-stakes/no-stakes team-building activities should be incorporated throughout the term in order to build the relationships necessary to support the type of dialogue that is expected in the critical language class.

So how did students respond? I copied below some of the recent feedback that I received from novice and intermediate-low Spanish classes. Although the format of the class was different from students’ expectations (based on previous experiences), these reflections show that students ultimately appreciated the approach and content of the course.

“I learned so much about the Latino identity, culture and history, and in doing so I feel like I learned more about myself.”

“I really appreciated the identity material in this course. It was nice to see some issues that I deal with as a diverse student brought to the attentions of my white pupils and then to be able to discuss these issues was extremely eye-opening to a lot of students in the class.”

“I really enjoyed this course. I like how Profe Randolph tied everything we were learning with social issues/racial issues, by doing so it made the class more memorable and interesting. I’ll always be able to remember about what we learned about even if I may forget the Spanish components (oops).”

 

—

L. J. Randolph Jr., Ed.D., is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Education and coordinator of the World Language Teacher Education Program at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. He teaches courses in Spanish language, contemporary Latinx cultures, and second language teaching methods. His research focuses on a variety of critical issues in language education, including the teaching of Spanish to heritage and native speakers and the incorporation of critical and justice-oriented pedagogies.

Filed Under: Critical language study, Teacher Development

Welcome to Open Education Week 2021

February 28, 2021 Leave a Comment

March 1-5, 2021 is Open Education Week, an international event to build awareness of open education and show its impact on teaching and learning. Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness.* Read below to learn how to get involved during Open Ed Week.

Attend OLRC’s and COERLL’s FL OER Conference

The Open Language Resource Center (OLRC) at the University of Kansas and COERLL will be hosting the first annual Foreign Language OER Conference on Saturday, March 6, 2021. Language instructors will showcase large-scale foreign language OER and exchange information on topics related to OER production and adoption. We hope this will be a space for sharing lessons learned and building a community of practice!

There is no cost to attend the conference. It will be conducted entirely through Zoom and composed of 15 minute lightning talks and 30 minute presentations.

  • Register by March 4, 2021
  • Browse the program

Read NEW OER from COERLL

  • Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar! (Everything Begins with a Hello!), a multimedia textbook with supplementary materials for intermediate Turkish language learners, developed by Jeannette Okur and licensed under a CC BY-SA license.
  • Open Education and Second Language Learning and Teaching: The Rise of a New Knowledge Ecology, a compilation of case studies about open projects and practices in the language classroom and beyond the classroom, edited by Carl Blyth and Joshua Thoms and licensed under a CC BY-ND license.

Be featured on COERLL’s Language OER Network

Have you taught with openly licensed resources, created your own openly licensed resources, or helped others learn about OER? If so, we want to give you a digital badge and feature you on the Language OER Network! 117 faculty, teachers, librarians, graduate and undergraduate students are already listed there.

Visit the LOERN page to join

Find other events and resources for Open Education Week

You can discover other events around the world on the Open Education Week website. Here’s just a sample:

  • Presentation Engaging Students as OER Contributors – March 1, 2021 at 10am CST
  • Webinar Equity and Open Education Faculty Panel – March 1, 2021 at 12pm CST
  • Webinar Implementación de un curso en México y Chile para la producción de REA – March 2, 2021 at 3pm CST
  • Workshop Create interactive H5P elements for your course! – March 3, 2021 at 1pm CST
  • Session Open-inspired Midday Yoga – March 4, 2021 at 1pm CST

And check out these resources:

  • 10 minute challenges to learn more about OER from BCcampus
  • Creative Commons license training content from Creative Commons
  • #OEWeek hashtag on Twitter
  • Faculty Spotlight of Dr. Jocelly Meiners, Texas Coalition for Heritage Spanish Project co-director, from University of Texas at Austin Libraries

Learn more about OER for language learning in our introductory guide

Two years ago, we launched the Introduction to OER for Language Teachers, a series of modules on topics related to creating and using open educational resources and practices. We have been updating the guide ever since based on our conversations with teachers – it’s OER, so it continues to evolve!

If you are already a user or creator of OER, or are planning on becoming one, please take a look at the guide, and let us know what you think.

Try licensing your work

If you are already sharing activities, lesson plans, or other resources with colleagues, you might want to consider adding a Creative Commons license, so people know how they are allowed to use your resource and remember to give you credit. Here’s how…

  1. Somewhere in your document, write “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License” (or whichever other license you choose). This page can help you choose a license (that is, choose how people are allowed to use your resource).
  2. Add an image of the license if you have it.
  3. Don’t forget to include your name as the author!

 

*Definition from the Open Education Consortium’s Open Education Week website, licensed under CC BY.

Filed Under: COERLL updates, OER initiatives, Teacher Development Tagged With: case studies, conference, OEP, OER, open educational practices, open educational resources, Turkish

Activities for remote language teaching

May 6, 2020 3 Comments

On April 29th, COERLL hosted a webinar where three teachers shared activities they have used for their remote language classes. You can view the video, linked below, but we’ll summarize some of their ideas here.

Recommended activities

Olivia Grugan (Arabic/German/Spanish Teacher, World of Learning Institute at Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8) first asked us to ponder: what does good teaching look like, and what one aspect of good teaching is most important to you to preserve in your remote class?

For Olivia, routines are an important way of grounding an online course. Routines provide repetition for students, build confidence, and make it easier to stay in the target language. For example, by using the annotation tool in Zoom, students can collaboratively add to a Google Slide that lists the date or the class objectives for the day.

Catherine Ousselin (French Teacher, Mount Vernon High School) decided that doing activities in the interpretive mode is more accessible for students learning from home. They had just completed the food unit when remote teaching began, and eating is an activity everyone is doing in common at this time. Hence, interpretive tasks based on food!

Catherine showed some Google slides listing steps students could take to build on their knowledge, with each step linking to a different interpretive task. For example, beginner students would answer some short questions, look at a vocabulary list, use Quizlet to practice vocabulary, categorize foods in Seesaw, and finish by watching videos.

Daniel Verdugo (Spanish Teacher, Ann Arbor Public Schools) regularly writes and publishes Ñ magazine in Google slides with his students, and continued this when his classes went remote, with some tweaks.

Usually his students would write articles based on their interests. In the remote classroom, he asked them to write film reviews, since they were already watching media at home in quarantine. Students write their reviews in a shared Google Doc so they can read each other’s work, providing for a collaborative learning experience and enhancing their digital skills. All of this will be added to their digital magazine, which is published and distributed at school and in the community in Ann Arbor.

Key questions

To summarize, here are some questions to ask yourself when planning your remote classes:

  • What is good teaching? what one element of that do you want to focus on?
  • What mode of communication will your students be able to work on with the tools they have?
  • How can you build on what students are already doing at home?
  • What linguistic tasks and technology activities do your students already feel comfortable with that you can expand on?

Each of these teachers has met their students where they are by giving them activities they know their students are capable of completing, both linguistically and technologically. While the exercises they shared look polished, they are using basic tools like Google Slides and video-conferencing that most teachers can access. For teachers and students who can’t access these tools, the panelists provided suggestions for other ways to engage the students, which we’ve listed in the webinar notes on the event page.

  • See the event page for a recording of the webinar, more details about the presenters’ work and ideas for adjusting their activities to different levels, and information shared in the Q&A.

Thank you to Olivia, Catherine, and Daniel for sharing their ideas, and thank you to every teacher who is pushing to reach their students in these out-of-the-ordinary circumstances! Stay safe, everyone.

Filed Under: Spanish, Teacher Development, Technology-based language learning Tagged With: Arabic, categorize, French, Google Slides, interculturality, interpretive, magazine, remote, routine, Spanish, Zoom

Welcome to Open Education Week 2020

March 2, 2020 2 Comments

March 2-6, 2020 is Open Education Week, an international event to build awareness of open education and show its impact on teaching and learning. Open education encompasses resources, tools and practices that employ a framework of open sharing to improve educational access and effectiveness.* Read below to learn how to get involved during Open Ed Week.

Attend COERLL’s Open Ed Week OER Hangout Webinar

Celebrate Open Education Week by attending this discussion-based webinar on Wednesday March 4 at 6:00pm CST, where you will have a chance to chat with three instructors who have adopted OER and creatively adapted the content for their language classes.

  • Alexandra Gouirand is a French faculty member at South Puget Sound Community College. She uses Français interactif as the main textbook in her French 1 class, as well as ancillary books and online resources including YouTube videos.
  • Dawn Michael has been teaching French since 1991, and is currently a high school French teacher in Ohio. She uses the open curriculum Français interactif to teach blended French 1 and 2 courses and creates her own supplements to accompany the resources.
  • Valérie Morgan is a French lecturer. She uses the open curriculum Français interactif to teach Levels 1, 2, and 3 French. To supplement the textbook she uses Google Classroom, Google Tools, Flipgrid, and Padlet.

Since Français interactif is the most widely-used OER published by COERLL, it was easier for us to find French teachers to present here, but we hope teachers of all languages will join.

There will be 20 minutes of presentation time, and the rest of the hour will be dedicated to your questions and to conversation between participants and panelists. We want to hear from you!

Be featured on COERLL’s Language OER Network

Have you taught with openly licensed resources, created your own openly licensed resources, or helped others learn about OER? If so, we want to give you a digital badge and feature you on the Language OER Network! 102 faculty, teachers, librarians, graduate and undergraduate students are already listed there.

Visit the LOERN page to join

Find other events and resources for Open Education Week

You can discover other events around the world on the Open Education Week website. Here’s just a sample:

  • Online Wikipedia Edit-a-thon Honouring Indigenous Writers Wikipedia Edit-a-thon – March 2 at 3:00pm CST
  • Twitter chat #OERWishList: A Twitter Chat for the Future of Open Education – March 3 at 1:30pm CST
  • COERLL Webinar Talk to teachers who have adopted and adapted OER – March 4 at 6:00pm CST
  • Webinar Libretexts and H5P: How We Created a Spanish OER Grammar Manual – March 4 at 6:00pm CST
  • Webinar H5P for Assessment – March 5 at 1:00pm
  • Webinar Language Diversity in OER with Pressbooks – March 5 at 2:00pm

And check out these resources:

  • Follow the #OEWeekChallenge hashtag from Open Oregon for an OER-related challenge to do each day
  • Read about Julie Ward’s student-authored anthology project Antología abierta de literatura hispana

Learn more about OER for language learning in our introductory guide

Last year, we launched the Introduction to OER for Language Teachers, a series of modules on topics related to creating and using open educational resources and practices. We have been updating the guide ever since based on our conversations with teachers – it’s OER, so it continues to evolve!

If you are already a user or creator of OER, or are planning on becoming one, please take a look at the guide, and let us know what you think!

Try licensing your work

If you are already sharing activities, lesson plans, or other resources with colleagues, you might want to consider adding a Creative Commons license, so people know how they are allowed to use it and remember to give you credit. Here’s how…

  1. Somewhere in your document, write “This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License” (or whichever other license you choose). This page can help you choose a license (that is, choose how people are allowed to use your resource).
  2. Add an image of the license if you have it.
  3. Don’t forget to include your name as the author!

 

*Definition from the Open Education Consortium’s Open Education Week website, licensed under CC BY.

Filed Under: COERLL updates, OER initiatives, Teacher Development Tagged With: OEP, OER, open educational practices, open educational resources, webinar

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