Modern Greek Studies Association

MGSA Greek Language Pedagogy Webinar V

Translation as a pedagogical tool: the view from the Language classroom

It is no secret that translation and L2 teaching have been involved in a fraught and ‘complicated’ relationship for many years. In light of recent scholarship in the fields of Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition, this relationship seems to have been rekindled (Laviosa 2014, Kelly & Bruen 2015, Carreres, Norriega-Sánchez and Calduch 2018, Mellinger and Gasca-Jiménez 2019).

The MGSA Undergraduate Studies Committee invites you to a workshop bringing together language and culture instructors who will present examples of classroom practice that illustrate the affordances of Translation in Language Teaching (TILT).

The webinar will take place on Friday, May 6th at 3:00 pm. Please register here.

 

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MGSA Greek Language Pedagogy Webinar III

March 26th, 3:00-4:15 pm

Meaning without Borders: From Translanguaging to Transposition in the Era of Digitally-Mediated, Multimodal Meaning

The MGSA Undergraduate Studies Committee invites you to the third webinar in the MGSA series on pedagogy. Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis (Department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership, College of Education, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign)  will be speaking.

REGISTER HERE FOR THE SECOND ONLINE WEBINAR.

For more information on the exciting and innovative work of Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope, visit their website.

Abstract:

“Translanguaging” is a concept that connects with older traditions of analysis in linguistics and practices in language pedagogy, while at the same time making some distinctions that justify the creation of a new word. In this talk Bill Cope & Mary Kalantzis, drawing from an article co-authored with  Anastasia Olga (Olnancy)Tzirides, set out to extend the terms of this discussion by introducing another term  “transposition”, a concept designed to cast the net wider than language. 

Transposition captures the restless fluidity of multimodal meaning making. In their constant movement, meanings are both translatable and to an extent untranslatable—across different forms and functions of meaning that must be conceived more broadly than distinct “languages” or even “language” itself. Digital media precipitate a renewed urgency to reconsider the terms of our theoretical discussions and pedagogical practices. They raise challenges, at once deeply concerning and potentially productive, for the job of language teaching and its professional practices. The theme of this talk  is “meaning without borders,” or the project of supplementing traditional analyses of meaning-through-language and developing a widened repertoire of pedagogical practice for language teachers.

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MGSA Greek Language Pedagogy Webinar II

 "Aligning Technologies and Learning Outcomes in the L2 Classroom" 

Chelsea Timlin (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is Assistant Director of Technology for the Center for Language Studies and Lecturer in Language Studies at Brown University. Her research and pedagogical interests lie in the field of second language acquisition and teaching and include learners’ practice of interactional literacies, conversation and discourse analysis, language teaching and technology, and graduate student instructor professional development. She has published on technology-oriented professional development of graduate student instructors, and is currently working on several manuscripts related to interactional literacies in the second language classroom. 

Abstract:

Research surrounding the role of technology in second language learning and teaching has suggested a wide array of affordances for its use -- from its ability to connect learners to the target language and culture through multiple modes and texts, to the opportunities it provides for interacting and learning collaboratively (Chun, Kern, & Smith, 2016; Gonzalez-lloret, 2020; Michelson & Dupuy, 2014; Thoms, 2018, 2020). With seemingly infinite possibilities, how do language instructors decide which technologies to use and what function they have in the classroom? This webinar will present several strategies for approaching technology use through course learning outcomes and curriculum design. It will provide several examples of how to scaffold technology use purposefully throughout a course and will highlight several key technologies that have become more prominent over the last few years in the language classroom.

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MGSA Greek Language Pedagogy Webinar I

Andrew Ross, Director of the Language Center, Harvard University

“Language Learning in the COVID Crisis: Hybrid, HyFlex, and Online”

The present crisis, as challenging as it is for language programs across the country and the world, has perhaps finally put to rest the question of whether languages can be taught successfully online, or in an environment in which student and faculty co-presence is not always physical.  Clearly, high-quality learning experiences can be crafted and employed across a variety of instructional modalities.  The most common and best understood of these is the hybrid model, in which elements of the curriculum are delivered in an asynchronous environment, often the institution’s learning management system (LMS), and students are primed for synchronous activities in a face-to-face environment (Laurillard 2002).  Perhaps less well-researched is the distance learning modality, in which all interactions between teacher and student, and student and student, occur without recourse to a physical environment that all participants occupy together.  The popularity of such online courses is increasing, often in response to financial and physical pressures associated with face-to-face instruction, and the perception on the part of administrators that language learning can benefit from the same economies of scale that other subjects do.  Research in this area tends to focus on qualitative, rather than quantitative aspects of the student experience, and longitudinal studies of learning outcomes are less well-represented in the literature than one might wish (Blake 2013).  Finally, a newly-salient mode of instruction, HyFlex, combines face-to-face instruction with online affordances to allow students to choose which of these modalities they wish to participate in at any given point in the course.  Conceived at San Francisco State University in 2006 (Beatty 2007), HyFlex provided a means to allow graduate students to attend courses in person when practicable, but also to participate in equivalent learning opportunities online when they could not.  The advantages of such an approach in the current – and continuing – environment are obvious, but the preparation needed to implement such a solution can be daunting.

In this presentation, I will briefly outline the design and implementation of these three modalities, and offer a set of best practices and strategies for language faculty to use as they prepare and teach students in these environments, focusing on online instruction as a mid-term necessity, and HyFlex as a likely new standard in the aftermath of COVID.

 

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