We are pleased to announce our Spring 2007 series of seminars, presentations, and workshops. There is a lot happening at the CLS, and there will be events almost every week for the rest of the semester hosted by CLS staff, foreign language faculty, and special guests.

Some events will be discussions of pedagogical issues, some will be demonstrations of new technologies, and some will be presentations of completed materials development projects funded and supported by the CLS. In most cases, ideas being presented will also be of interest to language faculty teaching languages and levels other than those for which the materials were originally created. In all cases, there will be plenty of opportunity for asking questions and sharing ideas.

Events will be held at the Center for Language Study, 370 Temple St., Room 106 (unless otherwise indicated), and are open to anyone interested in the teaching of foreign languages. Most events will be videotaped and made available to language faculty upon request.

Please feel welcome to come to any event, and bring a friend! We also welcome your comments and suggestions for future topics.

SPRING 2007 SCHEDULE

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Friday, February 2, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Scott Payne, Director of Academic Technology Services and SLA researcher at Amherst College

The Promise of Corpus Analysis: Transforming L2 Pedagogy, Assessment, and Research

Corpus linguistics is rapidly moving into the spotlight in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). This presentation will provide an overview of current applications of corpus analysis to L2 pedagogy, as well as a discussion of emergent work in corpus-informed L2 assessment and the potential impact of corpus analytic techniques on SLA research and theory.

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Tuesday, February 27, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

IIG Project Presentations

Ling Mu, Senior Lector, East Asian Languages and Literatures (Chinese)

"Creating a Web-based Chinese Placement Test" - to meet the challenge of the new foreign language requirement, a new web-based placement test was created to work more effectively and precisely. The online feature will allow the test to be administered more flexibly and frequently without limitation to a specific time and place.

and

Francoise Schneider, Senior Lector, French

"French 150 VISION Project" - using short documentaries, clips from the news, interviewers, and other authentic materials to acquire a better knowledge of francophone culture while improving students' speaking and listening skills; providing regular and intensive practice of aural comprehension with exposure to different accents, different speeds, and even different levels of language, while gaining a glimpse at the culture that drives the language.

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Wednesday, March 7, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

at Teaching & Learning Experimental Space: Sterling Memorial Library Nave

Why Use Images and Library Image Resources? - the seminar series will move to Sterling Library for a two-part presentation on images. Mark Knowles will give an overview of the use of images in language courses, providing examples of both vocabulary learning exercises and activities with a greater discursive emphasis. Members of the library staff will then offer an introduction to the library's special image resources - especially digital - available to Yale faculty. The presentation will focus on images with historical and cultural import and impact, as well as how to access them, store them, and take advantage of them instructionally.

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Tuesday, March 27, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

IIG Presentation

Kiarie Wa'Njogu, Senior Lector, African Studies (Kiswahili)

"Kiswahili Course for Medical Purposes" - a Kiswahili course developed specifically for students in the medical field providing extensive medical vocabulary and simulated dialogues with audio recordings intertwined with cultural components. Special interest was paid to how Kiswahili speakers (and speakers of other African languages) talk about issues that to them are regarded as taboos. The role of traditional African medicine and the Western misconception of the same as witchcraft was also addressed.

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Tuesday, April 3, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Resurrection of Memorization as a Foreign Language Learner Strategy

Duong Thi Hoang Oanh, Fulbright Scholar in Higher Education Management, The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, and Council on Southeast Asia Studies, Yale University

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Friday, April 13, 3:30 - 5:00

"The teacher and the machine: What should be blended and how in computer-assisted language learning?"

Robert Fischer, Chair
Department of Modern Languages
Texas State University

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

IIG Presentation

Irina Dolgova, Senior Lector, Slavic Languages and Literatures (Russian)

"Interactive Homework: Cultural Stream" - this project sought to enrich students' homework experience by providing them with different types of interactive activities based on relevant cultural context, ranging from short historical comments in English to assignments designed to promote perceptive and productive language skills. Restructuring homework to include some activities traditionally performed in the classroom setting will enable students and instructors to use valuable class time more effectively, while giving students an opportunity to acquire material at their own pace by taking advantages of multi-media resources.

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Thursday, April 25, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Image Databases; IP Issues

Howard Barnaby will bring his intellectual property rights expertise to bear on the question of how to best leverage an image collection for both on-line and off-line language instruction. Jeremy Bennett, Vincent Cangiano and Matt Croasmun will then offer a best practices demonstration for creating and maintaining an electronic database for images.

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Tuesday, May 1, 2007 from 3:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Audio/Image Showcase

Faculty who have experimented with various technology-enhanced teaching solutions using either audio or images inside and outside their classroom will present their case studies, followed by what promises to be a scintillating question-and-answer session.