Winter Workshops January 2021

Workshop leaders will be in touch about how to prepare for the workshop and then how to join on that day so be sure your contact information is correct when you register. Scroll down for a list of workshops offered and their descriptions.

All times shown in EST (Eastern Standard Time — US East Coast).  Here is a nice online time zone map if you need it.

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Monday, January 11

Strategic Instructional Design in Times of Emergency: Office 365 and Class Notebook

4:00pm-7:00pm EST

Conducted by: Yaniv Oded and Ilknur Oded

Strategic planning and systematic instructional design may seem challenging in times of emergency. However, clear theoretical grounding (in partnership with students and teachers), specifically when pressed in time is the best route for rapid, meaningful and cost-effective change. Following a brief theoretical discussion of Cognitive Load Theory and its application to instructional design, the facilitators will demonstrate how such change was facilitated at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) in response to COVID19, and then guide participants in creating a similar solution in their organization. The workshop’s hand-on stage will focus on the Microsoft Office 365 environment and the Class Notebook.

 

Tuesday, January 12

First Half: Game Exploration, Game Design Frameworks, and Game Prototyping with Twine

1:00pm-4:00pm EST continuing with some homework and final session on Saturday, January 16, 1:00pm-4:00pm EST

Conducted by: Phill Cameron, Frederik Cornillie, Jeremy Robinson and Randall Sadler

As Jon Reinhardt’s book, “Gameful Second and Foreign Language Teaching and Learning” explains, games, game-based learning, and gameful pedagogies are blossoming in world language classrooms. This workshop will introduce these concepts, guide participants in creating their own game designs, and participants will come away with a prototype of a game built in Twine. The design and prototyping of this game will be completed in groups, both synchronously and asynchronously. This workshop is appropriate for all levels–no prior knowledge about game-based learning is needed.

Fundamentals of Online Language Teaching

3:00pm-6:00pm EST

Conducted by: Kathryn Murphy-Judy, Victoria Russell, Julio Rodriguez, Christopher Hromalik, Ruslan Suvorov and Jennifer Quinlan

Over the last decade, CALICO has offered online language teacher training. In this three-hour ‘flipped’ workshop, participants will work through what it takes to launch a fully online language program for first- or second-year language learners (novice to intermediate-low proficiency ACTFL scale, A1-B1 CEFR). Before the workshop, participants will receive a survey and links to a set of TED-Ed lessons on topics related to online language pedagogy. Then, based on surveyed needs and lesson choices, participants will engage in hands-on tasks that lead them through fundamental design thinking, development strategies and appropriate tools, and assessment and evaluation routines.

A Corpus-based Language Pedagogy for EFL/ESL School Teachers

7:00pm-10:00pm EST

Conducted by: Ma Qing Angel

How to help students learn and use real language patterns has posed a big challenge for English teachers. Traditional tools (e.g. textbooks, dictionaries, other published materials, etc) and teachers’ intuition are unable to fully address this issue. Using corpus data allows teachers and students to study naturally occurring English language for grammatical patterns, word usage and textual discourse. In addition, corpus-based teaching allows teachers to develop their hands-on activities that cater for students at different levels. Students can also use corpora to explore authentic language data and answer their own queries about the English language, as well as to become more independent language learners.

 

Wednesday, January 13

Social Media to Further Connections and Communication in Remote Teaching

2:00pm-5:00pm EST

Conducted by: Marie-Christine Masse, Sophia Khadraoui-Fortune and Andrew Stafford

Remote teaching, both synchronous and asymchronous, requires language instructors to redefine the principles of meaningful participation and engagement. Social media have the ability to engage and motivate students in meaningful communicative practice, content exchange, and spontaneous collaboration (Greenhow, Robelia, & Hughes, 2009). As L2 instructors think of innovative ways to bring students further opportunities to connect and interact beyond what the breakout rooms and various apps offer to remote teaching and learning, they can turn to social media as a way to provide meaningful input representing diverse perspectives, and to maximize output in both formal and informal contexts. This workshop takes a look at the tools and techniques we can use to engage students in synchronous, blended, and fully online courses, through social media to provide meaningful learning experiences.

Thursday, January 14

Benefits and Challenges of Online Induction for Distance Language Learners

9:00am-12:00noon EST

Conducted by: Hélène Pulker

In a context of higher fees and student satisfaction surveys, it is becoming increasingly important for universities to understand what makes students succeed in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Attracting students is one thing, the challenge to keep them on course so that they achieve is quite another. This workshop, based on a longitudinal survey carried out at the Open University (UK) will give opportunities to discuss benefits and challenges of online induction programmes for language distance learners and explore the aspects of induction that have the most impact on student success.

ANVILL-LTI: Creating Spaces Where Speech Can Flourish

3:00pm-6:00pm EST

Conducted by: Jeff Magoto, Norman Kerr, and Joliene Adams

In this workshop, you will learn to use the latest version of the free and open-source software, ANVILL-LTI. This new version, rebuilt from the ground up, is optimized for pedagogical contexts that are fluid (F2F-hybrid-online) and for teachers who have very little time for authoring. One innovation is a seamless weaving of ANVILL’s strengths as a media tool with the interactivity of H5P.org interactive apps. The combination means that speech or video are no longer stumbling blocks as input or output tasks, and that content of all types can co-exist easily on a page.

Friday, January 15

Extensive TV Viewing: A Pedagogical Implementation in Real Language Classes

12:00noon-3:00pm EST

Conducted By: Anastasia Pattemore, Ferran Gesa, Imma Miralpeix, Maria del Mar Suárez, Júlia Barón, Maria Luz Celaya, Daniela Avello and Carmen Muñoz

Audio-visual materials are recognised by language teachers as an excellent way to fill their classes with authentic language. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to integrate these resources effectively. This workshop will be based on the experience of the GRAL research group of conducting pedagogical interventions (SUBTiL project) into learning different aspects of L2 from extensive TV viewing over a whole academic year in primary/secondary schools and at university. The workshop participants will learn how to select appropriate videos, edit them to meet educational goals, design pre- and post-viewing activities, integrate this practice into a regular classroom, and collect data online.

Saturday, January 16

Delivering Teacher Training Online: A Challenge Worth Pursuing

8:00am-11:00am EST

Conducted by: Christina Giannikas

With the uncertainty of in-person instruction as a result of COVID-19 combined with pre-existing staffing shortages and budget cuts, teacher education programs across the globe have adjusted teacher training and have transferred online. The present workshop is threefold and will focus on: 1) developing teacher trainers’ digital literacies and techniques, 2) online course design, and 3) practical strategies of sustaining high quality training in an interchangeable learning environment. The participants will learn about best practices in delivering online teacher training, become aware of learner characteristics, course environment and institutional factors related to delivery system variables according to learning theories and teaching models inherent in course design. Finally, the workshop will give participants the opportunity to discuss the potential of online learning/training and identify key issues that the crisis has highlighted.

Developing Chat Bots for Language Learning

11:00am-2:00pm EST

Conducted by: Adriana Picoral

Participants will design dialog rules (i.e., user input -> bot reply) to create a chatbot that can hold a conversation through text messages in any language. The base code has been written using the shiny R package, but no knowledge of R is needed for this workshop, since participants will be developing the dialog rules on an excel file. Before the workshop, participants are expected to install R and RStudio on their computer, and create a free shinyapps.io account. After this workshop, participants will be able to create chatbots to be used in their language learning lessons.

The Myths of Teaching Online

1:00pm-4:00pm EST

Conducted by: Lin Zhou and Yang Liu

Due to its intrinsic attributes, the practice of online teaching operates differently with content courses and skill-based courses. This workshop will present ways and online toolkits to teach both content courses and skill- based courses virtually. Online teaching of content courses will function as the benchmark for establishing essentials for online teaching. Building on the understanding of teaching content courses online, the discussion on teaching skill-based courses online will involve hands-on practice with technological tools. For example, academic listening and speaking is a type of skill-based course that is challenging to be converted to the fully online mode. How can we teachers help students enjoy the same learning experience in the online learning environment? What kind of online tools there are that can be exploited to make online learning equally effective?

(Second Half — Game Exploration, Game Design Frameworks, and Game Prototyping with Twine)

See full listing above on Tuesday, January 12

1:00pm-4:00pm EST

Teaching Languages with Games: A Practice-based Workshop

3:00pm-6:00pm EST

Conducted by: James York, Frederick Poole, Fabio Spano, Jonathan deHaan and Stamatia Savvani

This workshop focuses on the practical application of games in language teaching contexts. The presenters will discuss why games can be powerful tools for language teaching. Practical teaching models using games will be demonstrated. Models are underpinned by pedagogical approaches such as TBLT, multiliteracies, game design theory and finally from the perspective of teaching as GMing a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Guidance and lesson templates will be provided. Finally, attendees will be asked to work together on designing a ludic language pedagogy teaching plan with ongoing guidance from the presenters.

Register for Workshops