Columbia LRC

Language Teaching Colloquium
2020-10-30 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-10-23 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-10-16 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-10-02 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom Meeting 203 508 3989
Each week, a Columbia language instructor will present an idea, a tool, or a challenge related to teaching online, and the attendees will be able to give constructive feedback and share their own experiences. During the second, less formal, portion of the Colloquium the participants will share what they are encountering in their classrooms as we move through the semester.
The purpose of the Language Teaching Colloquium is to gain a clearer sense of our shared challenges, and to come up with effective solutions to them. In our current time of disconnect, we are atomized and siloed, and this weekly event will allow participants to gain a wide perspective on what is happening across languages and departments.

Yale CLS Virtual Brown Bag Series: Dr. Carl Blyth
2020-10-29 08:45 - 09:45 | NY
Open Foreign Language Education: The Rise of a New Knowledge Ecology
Compared with STEM fields, foreign language (FL) education and second language acquisition (SLA) have been slow to embrace Open Education (OE) and the new knowledge ecologies it produces. FL educators may have been hesitant to participate in the OE movement due to a lack of research which investigates the benefits and challenges of FL learning and teaching in open environments. This talk contextualizes the impact of OE on FL departments by focusing on how different kinds of disciplinary knowledge is created and disseminated within different academic contexts: instructional environments (the microsystem), teacher professional development (the mesosystem), and the profession at large (the exosystem). Finally, the talk will touch on the ideology of openness (the macrosystem) to discern how the democratic ethos of OE is disrupting the “closed system” of higher education.

Instructional Innovation Workshop
2020-10-28 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-10-21 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-09-30 15:00 - 16:00 | Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
Our Instructional Innovation Workshops on pedagogy and technology in the virtual language classroom address the needs and interests of the language community. Some of the topics considered for this semester include: advanced Canvas functionality, working with non-Latin-based writing systems, and implementing project-based learning.
You are invited to join us in Zoom ID: 847 208 7081

Yale Virtual Brown Bag Workshop Series
2020-10-22 08:45 - 09:45 | NY
Please join us for our weekly Brown Bag on Thursday, October 22, 2020 from 12:45 – 1:45. Chris Kaiser (Program Manager, Columbia University Language Resource Center), and Mary Jo Lubrano (Associate Director, Yale University Center for Language Study), will discuss results and reflections from the Shared Course Initiative. The discussion will center on the longer-term perspective of distance language teaching, and will share experiences from the SCI’s 9 years of remote collaboration, as the language community as a whole approaches its 9th month of teaching in the Zoom format.
Click here to join the Zoom meeting.

Yale CLS Virtual Brown Bag Series: Dr. Florencia Henshaw
2020-10-15 08:45 - 09:45 | NY
Successful teaching strategies for online language courses
with Dr. Florencia Henshaw
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, all educators have been faced with the challenge of determining how best to utilize available technologies to provide students with quality web-based instruction. Although literature on computer-assisted language learning abounds, teaching online courses that integrate meaningful synchronous and asynchronous communication still remains a daunting task for most language educators. Therefore, the overarching goal of this talk is to help instructors tackle the pedagogical and practical challenges of fostering language development remotely. The presenter will discuss best practices and strategies, particularly as they pertain to community building, interaction, and assessment. Examples and ideas of technology-enhanced activities and projects will be provided.
Florencia Henshaw has a PhD in Second Language Acquisition and Teacher Education from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where she is now the Director of Advanced Spanish. In her 14 years at UIUC, she has taught 19 different undergraduate and graduate courses, and she has designed seven online courses. Dr. Henshaw has published and presented on technology integration, heritage language instruction, and research-based pedagogical practices at national and international conferences

LRC Instructional Innovation Grant - Project Presentations
2020-10-14 10:00 - 12:00 | Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
Presentations of the projects developed by Columbia language faculty with the assistance of the LRC Instructional Innovation Grants.
The presentations showcase the following projects completed in the Spring 2020 semester:

Elementary Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian Digital Textbook: Stage 1 by Aleksandar Boskovic
Recording of Vietnamese Language Audio Material by Chung Nguyen
Project on Advanced Chinese Supplementary Teaching Materials by Lingjun Hu and Juan Zhong
Creating interactive web-based learning materials for learning Punjabi at Columbia University by Sandeep Chohan
A Class Website that Promotes Learning, Sharing, and Mentoring by Zhongqi Shi

LRC Invited Speaker: Dr. Sébastien Dubreil, Carnegie Mellon University
2020-10-09 15:00 - 17:00 | Zoom Meeting 203 508 3989
Using games to build a learning community in the L2 classroom
with Dr. Sébastien Dubreil
Carnegie Mellon Unviversity
Since the COVID‐19 pandemic has led to a radical transformation of the educational landscape, educators have had to manage the transition to a wide variety of models, including just about every variation between all online teaching and all face-to face classrooms, and every combination in-between, sometimes having to compose with both residential and remote learners. This situation has caused profound disruption to classroom instruction. In this presentation, I will try to envision how games, and game design can serve as avenues not only to structure the language classroom, but also to help in creating a community of learners and create and tighten the social bond between learners. Drawing from a course that was disrupted by the transition, we will examine how, by meshing a pedagogy of active learning with a pedagogy of care, we can meet the pedagogical challenge posed by current circumstances, retain the integrity of the course, and advance the teaching and learning enterprise. In particular, we will examine how the current situation is an opportunity to combine language and culture pedagogy with game design to enable students to think critically about the course content and contribute meaningful solutions to learning languages in the age of social distancing.
In preparation for the event we recommend reading the following:

Dubreil, Sébastien. “Using games for language learning in the age of social distancing.” Foreign Language Annals 53.2 (2020): 250-259.
Reinhardt, Jonathon, Kirby, Samantha. “8 things to know about teaching languages with videogames.” CALICO Infobytes. August (2020).

Reading Group
2020-10-07 15:00 - 16:00 | Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
The LRC Reading Group will be hosted on Wednesdays, once per month. The readings will be linked to articles suggested by our invited guests, and will help our community prepare to welcome and engage with our guest speakers.
You may join us in Zoom ID: 847 208 7081

Yale CLS Virtual Brown Bag Series
2020-10-01 08:45 - 09:45 | NY

Language Teaching Colloquium with Silja Weber
2020-09-25 15:00 - 16:00 | Zoom Meeting 203 508 3989
This is the inaugural meeting of the Language Teaching Colloquium, a new event for the Columbia language community. Each week, the Colloquium will spotlight a Columbia language instructor, who will present on a topic relevant to our current teaching in the Zoom format. We will then transition to an open conversation about the challenges and successes of teaching in our current time.
This week, we are delighted to be joined by Silja Weber of the Department of Germanic Languages, who will speak about reflective assignments for building community and equity.
Here is the program for the event:

Simon and Chris introduce the idea of the Colloquium
Silja Weber (German) speaks about reflective assignments for building community and equity
Q&A for Silja’s presentation
Open conversation about the challenges and successes of the Fall 2020 Zoom semester so far

At 4pm the event will transition to the LRC Social Hour, for those who wish to stick around and chat.
The event will take place will take place on Friday, September 25 at 3pm at this Zoom ID: 203 508 3989.

LRC Social Hour
2020-08-21 12:00 - 13:00, 2020-08-14 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
Every Friday at 4pm (Zoom Meeting: 847 208 7081)

Zoom Drop-in Hours
2020-08-21 11:00 - 12:00, 2020-08-20 11:00 - 12:00, 2020-08-19 11:00 - 12:00, 2020-08-18 11:00 - 12:00, 2020-08-17 11:00 - 12:00, 2020-08-14 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
Zoom Drop-in Hours with Simon – Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081

Zoom Educators in the Summer Trading Ideas (ZESTI)
2020-08-21 09:30 - 10:30 | Zoom Meeting 203 508 3989
A weekly working group for summer instructors, lead by Maria Luisa Gozzi.
Zoom Meeting: 203 508 3989

Zoom Drop-in Hours
2020-08-21 07:00 - 08:00, 2020-08-20 07:00 - 08:00, 2020-08-19 07:00 - 08:00, 2020-08-18 07:00 - 08:00, 2020-08-17 07:00 - 08:00 | Zoom Meeting 203 508 3989
Zoom Drop-in Hours with Chris – Zoom Meeting 203 508 3989

Instructional Innovation Workshop
2020-08-19 11:00 - 12:00 | Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
As we are slowly settling into our summer routines, many of us are discovering certain challenges with recasting our materials for distance instruction. Rethinking classroom activities in a way that renders them effective in a distance setting oftentimes requires targeted technological solutions. Join our weekly workshops to explore new ways to adapt in-person instruction to distance instruction.

Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
