Language Learners in a Digital World
Lori Roe, Instructional Technology Specialist and Director, STARTALK Chinese Summer Program ; Cape Henlopen School District, Delaware

Technology and 21st century skills are essential in preparing world language learners to communicate effectively and live productively in an increasingly digital world. Today’s technologies can be used to support and enhance language and cultural learning. … The iPad has revamped teaching and learning with interactive apps, access to online resources, ibooks, videos, music, and the HD camera to engage and empower students beyond our expectations. The many apps for learning languages, as well as interactive books, podcasts, and videos in iTunes immerse students in the target language. Here are just a few activities that utilize these apps for supporting and enhancing language learning.
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World Languages and the Common Core State Standards
Victoria Nier, Center for Applied Linguistics

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) provide a unified set of educational standards in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics that have been adopted by many states in recent years. As part of a growing movement towards standards-based education and accountability, the CCSS clearly articulate high expectations for academic achievement in ELA and math. As world language teachers, it’s easy to feel that the CCSS are not particularly relevant to us. Read more to find out why the CCSS are relevant to us.
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Pronunciation and Speaking
Jamie Suria, GWU Graduate Student of Education

Finding authentic, quality listening materials that can spark student interest and motivation can be a challenge for any foreign language instructor, especially for the less frequently-taught languages. Luckily, there is a large variety of listening resources available online to fit any learning objective, in almost every language imaginable. Educators can take advantage of the growing library of free authentic and instructional podcasts to provide students with listening practice within and outside of the classroom. Students will also love to create and share their own podcasts, which integrates speaking skills and provides an authentic opportunity for performance-based assessment.
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Embassies: An Untapped Resource Being Tapped through Collaboration
Sheila W. Cockey NCLRC Facilitator for Spanish Immersion Institute

Embassies serve many purposes beyond being the diplomatic voice of a nation. Located in the nation’s capital, we at NCLRC have the advantage of being close to embassies and collaborating with them on a less lofty mission, but a mission that is no less important. That mission is getting the word out about a country, its culture and history, its people and ways of life, including its language.

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More STEM Ideas that have become STEAM in Nature: Adding in the Arts
Sheila W. Cockey

This request was prompted by my previous YANA post about STEM in the foreign language classroom. STEAM adds the arts to the science-technology-engineering-mathematics lineup. Since I’m an art-lover and try to bring the arts into my lessons as much as possible, I love the STEAM approach to learning! … While all of the suggested websites are in English, you can devise lessons in your language for your students. These excellent resources will help students explore the world and learn to talk about regular, everyday things in their new language. Your new lessons will reach out to your students and engage them in real life while incorporating your local curriculum, your state standards, and the concepts of STEM and STEAM.
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Why e-Portfolios Make Sense in 21st Century Education
Gabriela Appel, CALPER

… with the increasing development of Web technologies, the use of portfolios has shifted from paper-and-pencil versions to digital or electronic versions. … Many educators believe that portfolios in general and e-portfolios in particular are valuable in teaching as well as evaluating 21st century skills. Critical thinking and problem solving, communication, collaboration, creativity and innovation, skills stressed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21), will be needed to function in the future. Classrooms … need to provide opportunities for students to become effective, independent and confident self-directed learners, who understand how they are learning, and are able to relate their learning to a wider contexts, i.e. to situations outside of the classroom. Opportunities have to be created where one can learn to articulate personal goals and evaluate progress towards the achievement of those goals and cultivate a positive attitude towards learning throughout life.
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People Who Write Want to be Read
Marcel LaVergne, Ed.D.

The teacher who is usually the only person to read[ student’s compositions] then … spends countless hours in meticulously correcting all the grammatical errors. The result of all those red marks on the paper tells the student that s/he is hopelessly unable to write with any degree of competence and leads to a dislike in writing. Writing becomes the ultimate test of the student’s grasp of spelling and grammatical accuracy (which are achievement-based) rather than a springboard of communication between a writer and a reader (which are proficiency-based). Generally speaking, because people write to be read by others, it’s a good idea to let the students read one another’s papers by publishing some of the writings in the form of a handout or brochure.
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The Case for Teaching with Business Cases
Margaret Gonglewski, Ph.D., George Washington University

Language teachers are often surprised to learn that business cases are not always focused on problems based on numbers (e.g., profit margins) or concepts less familiar to those not trained in business. Indeed, many international business cases present problems centered on cultural (mis)communication, a topic in which language professionals have expert knowledge. For that reason, cases can be a valuable tool in business language classes, and the methods commonly used for teaching with cases are abundantly familiar to language teaching professionals.
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