CALPER eNewsletter
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Center
for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at the Pennsylvania State University U.S. Dept. of Education Title VI Language Resource Center |
| Language Education for the 21st Century | |
| Dear Colleagues, Spring Break is passed and we are in the second half of our semester at Penn State. Now we are looking towards June, when we will hold our yearly workshop series for foreign language educators here on the main campus. Over the past few years, many teachers traveled to State College and we spent an exciting time together learning about topics and issues very relevant to world language education. Once again, we are looking forward to meeting new colleagues and re-connecting with participants from previous years and we hope to see you at University Park. Gabriela Appel |
| Summer Workshops at Penn State |
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June 20 - Projects in Foreign Language Courses
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CALPER Podcasts |
| Some time ago, we initiated our series of podcasts,
in which we introduce and discuss current issues of interest to language
educators. A free resource in an alternative medium, we hope that many
of our colleagues find the information useful to their teaching practice.
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Teaching Materials: |
| For Teachers of Korean: Korean Grammar in Discourse and Interaction Unit 5: Noun Modifiers Unit 6: Relative Clause Construction Professor Susan Strauss, who is the director of our Korean project, made two more units in her series on "Korean Grammar in Discourse and Interaction" available to teachers of Korean. Both units are in pdf-format and can be downloaded from the web page of the Korean project at calper.la.psu.edu/korean.php free of charge. For Teachers of German: If you are teaching high-intermediate and advanced learners of German, and would like to explore a new approach to teaching modal particles you might be interested in "Teaching German Modal Particles: A Corpus-based Approach" by Nina Vyatkina and Karen E. Johnson. The instructional sequence in this workbook moves from simple to complex awareness raising activities. Seven handouts contain explicit information on modal particles; ten worksheets engage learners in noticing, defining, analyzing, and using modal particles. Worksheets and handouts are ready to be copied for classroom use. For more details click here |
Conferences |
| IUP Spring Methodology
Conference on Foreign Language Teaching Plenary Speaker: Professor Renate Schulz, University of Arizona Date: April 18, 2008 Location: Holiday Inn, Indiana, PA Indiana University of Pennsylvania will hold its Spring Methodology Conference soon. Once again, you can look forward to this yearly event that brings you exciting new ideas that you can take back to your classroom, current issues in language education for you to discuss, opportunities for you to network with other language professionals, and the latest textbooks and materials for you to peruse. As in the past, you will receive six hours Pennsylvania Act 48 professional education credits. We hope to see PA teachers at the conference, where CALPER will display some of its resources and materials! more information. |
| 20th Annual Conference
of CATJ Theme: Towards Advanced Japanese Language Proficiency Plenary Speakers: Professor Steven Thorne, Penn State and Professor Mari Noda, Ohio State Date: May 31 - June 1, 2008 Location: University of Wisconsin-Madison. Co-sponsored by the Dept. of East Asian Languages and Literatures and the Center for East Asian Studies at UW-Madison, CALPER at Penn State, and the National East Asian Language Resource Center at the Ohio State University. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Ohio State University and Penn State paired up with the Central Association of Teachers of Japanese to bring the annual conference of the organization to Madison this year. The program of CATJ 20 has now been finalized and a preview is available at the conference site. Please visit the conference website for updated information. We hope to see many of our colleagues in Madison! |
| We also maintain an up-to-date calendar of conferences and events on our web site. If you would like to suggest an event to be included in the calendar, please send information to Vickie Lucas at the CALPER office. |
In the News |
| National Language Service Corps Recruitment Began.The National Language Service Corps (NLSC) is a civilian corps of volunteers with certified expertise in languages important to the security and welfare of the United States. Run by the Department of Defense, the corps is to consist of volunteers willing to serve as on-call Federal employees. The NLSC is an integral component of the Department of Defense Language Transformation Plan and the President's National Security Language Initiative. Recruitment will continue over the next two years. Currently, the languages for which volunteers are sought, are: Mandarin Chinese, Hausa, Somali, Swahili, Hindi, Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Russian. National Language Service Corps |
| Tennessee Senate Bill. Recently, the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee passed Senate Bill 2980 that urges the State Board of Education to develop guidelines for fostering fluency in a foreign language. The guidelines are to be used by Local Education Agencies for the K-12 levels of instruction. The bill considers fluency in a foreign language "to be part of a holistic education". |
| Cervantes TV. Instituto Cervantes initiated the first cultural TV channel in Spanish that can be viewed around the world through the Internet. The Instituto Cervantes is a public not-for-profit institution founded by the Government of Spain in 1991 to promote Spanish language teaching and knowledge of the cultures of Spanish speaking countries throughout the world. Visit CervantesTV . |
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Best regards from CALPER- the LRC in Pennsylvania Gabriela Appel, Program Coordinator We greatly welcome you to share this information with your colleagues. If you wish to unsubscribe to our occasional newsletter, please send email to Gabriela Appel Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research The Pennsylvania State University 5 Sparks Building University Park, PA 16802-5203 Phone: 814-863-1212 Fax: 814-865-1316 Email: calper@psu.edu Web: calper.la.psu.edu |
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