APRIL 2009

Dear Colleagues,

will you be in New York City this week for the annual Northeast Conference? If you are attending the conference, come and visit us at Booth 209 where we'll exhibit our teaching and professional development materials. We will also bring free copies of the Language Resource Center Booklet that describes major projects and initiatives of the Title VI LRCs. Next week we will exhibit at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Spring Methodology Conference.  We hope to see some colleagues in New York City, or closer to home here in PA.   

Best wishes from the LRC in Pennsylvania,

Gabriela Appel 

Northeast Conference, April 16-18, 2009. 

CALPER and the National Capitol Language Resource Center (NCLRC) will be distributing an extensive list of LRC produced

• Foreign Language Teacher Resources that are free of charge

• and the Language Resource Center Booklet

Interagency Language Roundtable.

The Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) just published self-assessments of Speaking, Reading, and Listening on its site. Go to the bottom of the ILR home page to access the documents in PDF format.

Matt Poehner, CALPER's project co-director of the Dynamic Assessment (DA) project will be presenting on the project to the Interagency Roundtable on April 17, 2009. If you like to get an introduction to DA, we invite you to listen to a conversation between Jim Lantolf and Matt Poehner, authors of our Teacher's Guide to DA, in a podcast on DA, which we recorded about a year ago. 

Bulletin:  Heritage Languages

CALPER developed a multimedia instructional resource for teachers of heritage and domestic language learners that can be used by language program directors in pre-service orientation courses for novice teachers; instructors of methods courses in foreign language and education programs; and individual novice or experienced teachers who wish to advance their professional knowledge and skills. More information on Teaching Heritage and Domestic Language Learners.

The National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA will hold the first International Conference on Heritage/Community Languages from February 19-21, 2010. 

At ACTFL 2008, a Heritage Languages Special Interest Group (SIG) was formed.

A State Task Force for the Preservation of Heritage Language Skills in Maryland was established during the 2008 Maryland General Assembly session to investigate language preservation efforts currently made in Maryland and to subsequently develop strategies that will help preserve world language skills in the state. Read press release.  

"Working with Spoken Chinese" - Student workbook for the unit "Driving Cautiously." 

Because the development of these materials is heavily subsidized by the U.S. Department of Education, teachers may use the materials free of charge, but are required to register. 

2009 Summer Institute in Linguistics

organized and sponsored by the Center for Language Acquisition 

co-sponsored by CALPER

will hold 

Session I: June 22 - July 3, 2009

Session II: July 6 - 17, 2009

at University Park campus.

More information

We invite our colleagues to visit us on the web. We update project information, add new online sections and make more research studies and reports available to teachers on a regular basis.

http://calper.la.psu.edu