Columbia LRC

Language Teaching Colloquium
2021-03-19 11:00 - 12:00, 2021-03-12 10:00 - 11:00, 2021-02-26 10:00 - 11:00, 2021-02-19 10:00 - 11:00, 2021-02-05 10:00 - 11:00, 2021-01-29 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York) | Zoom Meeting 203 508 3989
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.
Each week, an idea, a tool, or a challenge related to teaching online will be presented. In response, 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.
Following the Colloquium, we invite everyone to participate in our weekly virtual social hour, hosted until 5pm.
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Invited Guest Lecture: Steven Leveen @ Yale CLS
2021-03-18 08:45 - 09:45 | NY
The details about the Invited Guest Lectures are forthcoming.

"Post-pandemic language teaching: Our window of opportunity" with Dr. Bryan Smith
2021-03-10 10:00 - 11:00 | Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
“Post-pandemic language teaching: Our window of opportunity” with Dr. Bryan Smith
Abstract:
Starting from the assumption that post-pandemic language teaching will not look quite like it did in a pre-COVID world, I will consider how emergency remote teaching and the subsequent move to online language teaching will likely result in technology-enhanced language learning becoming the norm moving forward. In doing this, I will share experiences, predictions, and fears gathered from L2 classroom teachers, language learners, L2 researchers, language resource center directors, and industry, and will explore how we might take advantage of lessons learned during this time in a way that is consistent with and informs instructed second language acquisition.
Bio:
Bryan Smith is Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of English at Arizona State University, where he directs the Graduate Certificate in Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL). He is co-editor of the CALICO Journal and serves on the editorial advisory boards of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Computer Assisted Language Learning, the EUROCALL Review, the Journal of Virtual Exchange, and Language Learning & Technology. He conducts research at the nexus of CALL and instructed SLA and has focused on topics such as learner interaction, learner attention to form, the effects of teacher corrective feedback, and learner alignment during task-based interaction. His current work focuses on how the COVID-19 pandemic is likely to affect language teaching and learning moving forward, task-based learner-learner multi-modal interaction via mobile devices, and learners’ incidental focus on form. He regularly employs methods and techniques such as eye-tracking that capture learner process data. His published research has appeared in journals such as the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, CALICO Journal, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Computers in Human Behavior, Language Learning & Technology, Language Teaching, TESOL Quarterly, The Modern Language Journal, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, and System, among others.

"The Harvard Language Exchange: Toward Community-focused Informal Language Learning" with Dr. Andrew Ross and Dr. Mary DiSalvo
2021-03-04 07:45 - 08:45 | Virtual Event
The Language Exchange began in the Fall of 2019 as a simple idea: to match members of the Harvard community, broadly conceived, who wanted to exchange language practice. Using a Google form and shared spreadsheet, the Harvard Language Center staff began to grow a modest list of users. When COVID forced Harvard to turn to remote instruction and then online teaching and learning, we recognized the importance of the Language Exchange as a community-building tool. With the design support and technical expertise of Harvard IT, they have recently launched a new purpose-built Language Exchange site, which currently has over 300 users.
In this presentation, the guest speakers will outline the needs case for informal language learning opportunities, describe the history of the project, show the site from user and administrator perspectives, and offer some thoughts on the potential impact of this platform for community-building across a widely varying population of users.

Instructional Innovation Workshop
2021-02-24 10:00 - 11:00, 2021-02-10 10:00 - 11:00, 2021-02-03 10:00 - 11:00, 2021-01-27 10:00 - 11:00 | Zoom Meeting 847 208 7081
Our Instructional Innovation Workshops on pedagogy and technology in the language classroom address the needs and interests of Columbia’s language community. This semester’s theme is “Visualizing the Distance Classroom” and it covers topics ranging from hosting virtual conversation hours via proximity chat platforms, through creating class projects by leveraging various video tools.

Transformative Language Learning and Teaching in the Language Classroom @ Yale CLS
2021-02-18 07:45 - 08:45 | NY
Transformative Language Learning and Teaching (TLLT), coming out of research and application of transformative education in general education beginning in 1990, can be seen as a paradigm shift from current and past teaching methods and philosophies in L2. This talk will focus briefly on the history as it may pertain to L2, discuss the principles and identifying characteristics of TLLT, and provide several wide-ranging examples of ways in which TLLT is being implemented in academic and government L2 programs nationally and internationally, sharing lessons learned. Followed by Q&A.
Betty Lou Leaver, PhD (Pushkin Institute, Moscow, Russia) recently retired as the Provost at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, where she previously held the role of Associate Provost of Continuing Education and Dean of the Schools of Slavic and Central European Languages. She has also directed L2 programs at NASA and the Foreign Service Institute, served as chief academic officer at the New York Institute of Technology in Amman (Jordan) and spent a decade providing consultation in general education to ministries of education in 24 countries.

LRC Instructional Innovation Grant - Project Presentations
2020-12-11 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 Fall 2020 semester:

Interactive Digital Resources for Learning and Teaching Grammar in a Medical Spanish Class (Part II) by Juan Pablo Cominguez
Integrating Heritage Language and Heritage Culture in the Teaching of Romanian – Continuation/Implementation by Mona Momescu

Instructional Innovation Workshop
2020-12-09 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-11-18 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-11-11 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-10-28 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

LRC Invited Speaker: Dr. Regine Hampel
2020-12-04 10:00 - 12:00 | NY
Please join us for a lecture and discussion by Professor Regine Hampel of the Open University UK titled, “Disruptive Technologies and the Language Classroom.”
The event will take place on December 4, 2020 in Zoom meeting 203 508 3989.
Abstract
New technologies have the potential to open up the classroom and to radically transform how we learn (Säljö 1999; Wertsch 2002). However, there is still a widespread assumption that their use is inconsequential, with many teachers and researchers treating them ‘as a digital simulacrum of earlier analog practices’ (Thorne 2003).
This talk brings together complex systems theory with sociocultural understandings of learning and a multimodal perspective on communication to explore the disruptive potential of the new media. Conceptualizing the language classroom (understood in the widest sense) as an ecosystem consisting of different interacting parts will allow us to focus on the changes that language education has undergone over the past decades as a result of the introduction of new technologies and of how learners shape the tools they use, thus effecting transformative change on individual and collective practices.
I will use the notion of ‘attractors’ to describe face-to-face communication as the original discourse in the language classroom (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron 2008), and then explore how computer mediation has impacted on these attractors. I will show how the new technologies support new interaction patterns and multimodal communication and position language learners differently in relation to the world where language is not just a set of rules but where it is used to make meaning.
To finish, we will discuss the implications of what has been called a ‘phase shift’ for language teachers, researchers and institutions, and how we can realize the potential that the online media offer, thus encouraging a new learning ecology – which has become even more pressing in the context of the current pandemic.

Reading Group
2020-12-02 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-11-04 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

Language Teaching Colloquium
2020-11-20 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-11-13 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-10-30 15:00 - 16:00, 2020-10-23 15:00 - 16:00 | 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.

LRC Invited Speaker: Dr. Marta González-Lloret
2020-11-06 15:00 - 17:00 | Zoom Meeting 203 508 3989
TBLT in the Distance Language Classroom
with Dr. Marta González-Lloret
University of Hawai’i at Manoa
As most teaching practitioners have had the chance to experience this year, technology can facilitate learning, including language learning. However, without a sound methodological base for the development of our curriculum and activities, technology is just a vehicle, and not the effective tool it can be. This talk advocates that a technology-mediated task-based curriculum is an effective organizing framework for online and hybrid language courses. I will first review key concepts such as task, technology-mediated tasks, and pedagogic tasks. Participants will then learn how to select tasks for an online curriculum and how to sequence them based on previous existing SLA research. Several technologies and activities will then be proposed as tasks that can be adopted and adapted for different languages and at different levels. Finally, the presentation will address some of the challenges of implementing TBLT in online environments and will suggest ways to overcome them.
Recommended reading:
González-Lloret, Marta. “Technology for task‐based language teaching.” The handbook of technology and second language teaching and learning (2017): 234-247.

Yale CLS Virtual Brown Bag Series: Dr. Erik Voss
2020-11-05 07:45 - 08:45 | NY
This week, the Center for Language Study is delighted to host Dr. Erik Voss of Columbia University Teachers College.
Technology for learning-oriented assessment in remote environments
Effective use of information technologies has become increasingly important as we shift to remote or hybrid language learning and assessment. Because of limited in-person interaction, selection and application of appropriate technologies for remote environments becomes critical. In a remote environment, language learning and language assessment tasks can share technologies for the purpose of assessing learning. For example, a learning-oriented language assessment approach can enable new forms of learning interaction and capturing new forms of evidence for learning (Saville, 2013). In addition, computers and mobile devices are capable of supporting collaborative or independent tasks, enhancing learner engagement, and providing appropriate, timely feedback.
This presentation will discuss ways in which technology can support basic principles of learning-oriented assessment such as developing assessment tasks as learning tasks, including student involvement in assessment processes, and producing forward-looking feedback (Keppell & Carless, 2006). Furthermore, the selection of appropriate tools and resources should take into consideration new language constructs and the impact of new assessment methods (Chapelle & Voss, 2016). The discussion will also highlight emerging information technologies that can be adapted for learning-oriented language assessment.
Presenter Bio
Erik Voss, Ph.D. is a Lecturer in the Applied Linguistics and TESOL program at Teachers College, Columbia University in New York City. His teaching and research interests include applications of natural language processing in applied linguistics, language assessment and technology, and language assessment validation research. He has served as secretary of the Midwest Association of Language Testers (MwALT) and is an active member-at-large on the board of the International Language Testing Association (ILTA). He is currently coordinating social media for ILTA as part of the communications sub-committee and exploring options for hosting virtual language testing events.

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.

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.
