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Dr. Robert Blake

Hybrid: the New Normal for L2 Teaching

Lessons Learned during COVID

11:00-12:00 PDT on Saturday, July 24, 2021

Session Chair: Dr. Gaye Walton-Price

Click this link to join the session. https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/94236082121

Raffle: Brave New Digital Classroom—Technology and Foreign Language Learning by Dr. Robert J. Blake and Dr. Gabriel Guillén

Conference Program

(subject to change)

08:00-08:10 PDT All Welcome and Registration

Click this link to join the session. https://flanc-net.zoom.us/my/all.welcome

08:10-08:50 PDT Acknowledgments and Announcements

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09:00-09:50 PDT Concurrent Presentations 1

Presentation 1A

Teamwork, Blending F2F and Virtual Practices for the New Normal by Dr. Kara A. McDonald, Ms. Mirna Khater, and Dr. Viktoriya Shevchenko from DLIFLC

DESCRIPTION: The COVID-19 imposed online teaching entailed overcoming the challenges of teamwork in the virtual environment. The presentation examines what fostered a team in the virtual context and shares insights on faculty connections and team development from the literature with recommendations for transitioning to the hybrid and f2f settings.

Session Chairs: Dr. Gaye Walton-Price and Dr. Branka Sarac

Click this link to join the session: https://flanc-net.zoom.us/my/one.a?pwd=VkdCZUVtTURUWHZ6Tit4ZnBkNnd0dz09

Presentation 1B

Mini-Immersion Classroom Activities as a Major Motivational Tool in Foreign Language Learning by Ms. Svetlana Davidek from DLIFLC

DESCRIPTION: Thematic mini-immersions in the Classroom have not yet been thoroughly researched or adapted to a virtual setting. They also have proven to be the most strenuous for teachers in the online environment. The presentation will start with a brief overview of the immersive instructional approach. The presenter will then describe the structure of mini-immersions and share samples of successful activities for mini-immersions based on the FLO topics and ILR levels. Next, the presenter will highlight the significant differences between face-to-face and virtual mini-immersion approaches. Finally, the presentation will discuss the applicability of suggested activities to different classroom environments.

Session Chair: Mrs. Sandra Garcia Sanborn

Click this link to join the session. https://csustan.zoom.us/j/82351001392?pwd=SkNJaFFrNmJpeWlZR2lKSUZob1JPdz09

Presentation 1C

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Socratic Seminar: Reading and Critical Thinking by Dr. Amy Waddell from the University of South Carolina

DESCRIPTION: The presenter will discuss the importance of implementing culturally relevant pedagogy and Socratic Seminar in the Classroom. She will share two instructional intervention strategies that demonstrated how critical thinking could improve reading among African American students. The strategy helped develop more substantial discussion and metacognitive skills. In addition, the presenter will go over the culturally relevant literature used that built a connection with the students.

Session Chair: Dr. Hanan Khaled

Click this link to join the session. https://flanc-net.zoom.us/my/culturally.relevant.pedagogy

Presentation 1D

Critical Approaches to Language Teaching and Learning: Past, Present, and Future Directions by Dr. Ali Miano from Stanford University

DESCRIPTION: Critical approaches in language pedagogy have been around for decades. Yet, some of the scholarships on which they are based, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), have recently come under fire. This presentation will trace the history of critical approaches in language teaching, discuss practical applications in the present-day world language class, and speculate on future directions of essential approaches to world language teaching and learning.

Session Chair: Dr. Ali Miano

Click this link to join the session. https://stanford.zoom.us/j/98279856021?pwd=ZUhQU1laT042dUx3ek1BWEJUelRJdz09

10:00-10:50 PDT Concurrent Presentations 2

Presentation 2A

SEL (Social Emotional Learning) in the World Language Classroom by Ms. Jennifer Schwester from Brick Memorial High School

DESCRIPTION: This interactive workshop will help teachers understand what SEL is and is not and practice ways to help students work on their social-emotional learning skills. By assisting students in identifying their emotions, acknowledging them, and working on ways to deal with them, teachers give students valuable life skills to be more effective and productive learners and strengthen the classroom community.

Attendees will be provided with opportunities to participate in SEL activities and share ways to use them in the Classroom and in target languages. While encouraging students to use "their words," teachers help them to become aware of their own emotions, which encourages an increase in self-esteem and self-regulation. When students are able to acknowledge and have tools to deal with their emotions, they are also being provided with a safe space in which they can lower their affective-filter and be even more receptive to learning and participation.

Session Chair: Dr. Henri-Simon Blanc

Click this link to join the session. https://flanc-net.zoom.us/my/social.emotional.learning

Presentation 2B

The Complexity of Semantic-Phonetic Characters and Some Pedagogical Concerns by Dr. Xinhua Zha from DLIFLC

DESCRIPTION: The non-alphabetic writing system is, most discernibly, the unique feature of the Chinese language. However, this uniqueness is precisely the most challenging aspect for non-native learners. The complexity of the graphic configuration of Chinese characters makes it a unique language because it is morph-syllabic and does not have cognates that correspond to words and phrases in English (Everson, 1998).

Chinese characters (e.g., simple ideographs, compound ideographs, sematic-phonetic compounds, etc.) originated from pictographs. A common practice of teaching characters starts from pictographs, showing their configurations corresponding to natural or artificial objects and some ideas. Many learners are fascinated by and attracted to these beautiful features of characters. Many of us, as teachers, are also complacent to see the satisfaction of students at the initial learning stage. However, such complacency and satisfaction are soon discovered to be just illusions, as this type of "pictograph-based" characters only accounts for about 10% of the characters. Fascinations disappear, and frustrations materialize when students see the vast majority of sematic-phonetic-based characters, which, they find, have no relatively straightforward meaning clues like those "pictograph-based" characters do. The real challenge for the acquisition of visual literacy of the Chinese language starts from this moment.

This presentation cultivates Chinese phonological and orthographic awareness. It unpacks the complexity of the sematic-phonetic-based characters, including sound components, meaning components, the graphic configurations of these components, and the relationships among the radicals, meanings, and pronunciations of sematic-phonetic-based characters. Also, it analyzes the basic principles of the composition of sematic-phonetic-based characters. Finally, it raises some pedagogical concerns about teaching approaches of sematic-phonetic compound characters.

Session Chairs: Dr. Zhiqiang Li and Dr. Hsin-Yun Liu

Click this link to join the session. https://usfca.zoom.us/j/86751710180?pwd=RXBrWlljc3lBVnlERjh6OHh5NHAvZz09

Presentation 2C

Deep Work for the New Normal by Dr. Ivanisa Ferrer and Ms. Tatyana Neronova from DLIFLC

DESCRIPTION: The Covid-19 Pandemic has changed how we approach work, and productive work habits need to be revisited. Examining necessary changes in daily routines and acquiring new habits to perform "deep work" will attune us to what is required to stay focused and become more valuable in implementing our mission and objectives. Specifically, this interactive presentation will discuss four arguments that constitute guidance for adjusting work habits to higher productivity and fulfillment.

Session Chair: Mrs. Citlalli Del Carpio

Click this link to join the session. https://stanford.zoom.us/j/94829756221?pwd=YTIwSy82NC91UkRBUllpaGJZeDRNQT09

Presentation 2D

Generation Z: Build Confidence with Exceptional Results by Dr. Tanya de Hoyos from DLIFLC (to be presented in Spanish)

DESCRIPTION: Research shows that building confidence in students can motivate them, embrace participation, and improve academic performance. This presentation explores various aspects that can help teachers appreciate Generation Z and improve students' capability:

  1. Stop the self-serving bias process.

  2. Teach problem-solving skills.

  3. Set and track goals.

  4. Reflect on the learning process.

This session offers concrete examples based on the literature review of designing a roadmap to improve students' self-efficacy and maximize their learning.

Session Chair: Dr. Ali Miano

Click this link to join the session. https://stanford.zoom.us/j/98279856021?pwd=ZUhQU1laT042dUx3ek1BWEJUelRJdz09

11:00-12:00 PDT Keynote Address and Raffle

Hybrid: the New Normal for L2 Teaching (Lessons Learned during COVID) by Dr. Robert J. Blake from UC Davis

Click this link to join the session. https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/94236082121

Dr. Robert Blake is a Distinguished Professor of Spanish (emeritus), the current UC Davis Language Center director, and a member of the North American Academic of the Spanish Language since 2004. He developed online courses for first- and second-year Spanish taught across the UC system, co-designed Arabic Without Walls and Punjabi Without Walls, co-authored Brave New Digital Classroom, 3rd edition (2020, GUP), and co-authored El español y la lingüística aplicada (2016, GUP).

DESCRIPTION: Out of the necessities imposed by COVID this last year, everyone did their best at delivering online language instruction, often forcing traditional classroom techniques into the digital mold, whether or not they were a good fit. Most of us, students included, got zoomed out of our minds and now wish to get back to the in-person learning. But we all learned new digital tricks from this experience that will move language education in the future to some type of hybrid mix of digital and in-person modes. We will distill what some of the good that should be maintained from the online experience and show how these techniques fit with what we know about the inherent traits of our students as speakers of tongues, analyzers, tool-users, socially motivated beings, game players and, above all else, storytellers. We will demonstrate good digital practices that support interactive and student-centered learning with both synchronous and asynchronous activities—the new normal for L2 teaching.

SYNCHRONOUS TRICKS:

BREAKOUT ROOMS:

Raffle: Brave New Digital Classroom—Technology and Foreign Language Learning by Dr. Robert J. Blake and Dr. Gabriel Guillén

Session Chair: Dr. Gaye Walton-Price

Click this link to join the session. https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/94236082121

https://www.flanc.net/keynote-speaker-dr-blake

13:00-13:50 PDT Concurrent Presentations 3

Presentation 3A

Creating and Piloting Flexible Language Basic Course by Mr. Tarek Elgendy from DLIFLC

DESCRIPTION: Curriculum development is a "non-ending" process. By the time course writers complete creating a basic course, there will be a need to use more current authentic material and incorporate emerging techniques to help students learn more effectively and efficiently. The pilot is redesigning a basic language course using an adaptable platform that accommodates teachers' and students' needs. Redeveloping it to fill in the gaps in outdated courses will produce a quickly updatable course with multiple numbers of various activities. Students can do many activities outside of the class. Piloting this course using the Flipped Classroom approach will help learners become more autonomous and assigning tasks for out-of-class, non-mediated in class. In-class teacher mediation will save the class time for discussions, debates, and dynamic assessment to check what students learned independently. Flipped Classroom will improve students speaking skills which will enhance other skills, esp. listening skills.

Session Chair: Mrs. Citlalli Del Carpio

Click this link to join the session. https://stanford.zoom.us/j/97713369641?pwd=dFdza3lmSmc5S29mTFgzUlBqcG12Zz09

Presentation 3B

Mindfulness for Hybrid and Virtual Classroom by Ms. Jennifer Schwester from Brick Memorial High School

DESCRIPTION: Attendees will be provided with opportunities and links to practice different mindfulness skills and techniques that can be used personally or with their students.  Activities can also be modified and adapted for all ages and language levels, help increase students' language input and production, and use these mindful minutes to help create a kinder classroom community, in-person or virtually. Mindfulness also helps to lower students' affective-filter and be more receptive to learning and participation.

Session Chair: Mrs. Sandra Garcia Sanborn

Click this link to join the session. https://csustan.zoom.us/j/82351001392?pwd=SkNJaFFrNmJpeWlZR2lKSUZob1JPdz09

Presentation 3C

Open Architecture Approach during the Pandemic by Ms. Yerie Han & Ms. Jeongsun Kim from DLIFLC

DESCRIPTION: How can a seismic shift from face-to-face instruction to various new learning environments be managed after the pandemic? What learner-centered activities should be delivered to maximize learner engagement, synchronously or asynchronously in online and hybrid environments? These seasoned teachers from the Korean Language Course in the Defense Language Institute, Foreign Language Center, will propose empirically tested solutions based on the survey result of 22 learners in their classrooms.

The presenters will provide this session participants a complete roadmap to implementing an open architecture approach, related activity materials, and an in-depth discussion of pedagogical implications.

Session Chairs: Dr. Masahiko Minami and Mr. Derrick Leonard

Click this link to join the session. https://zoom.us/j/93315850606?pwd=TjhIWENIMVFzUFM1ZjBXRUJsb2ZtQT09

14:00-14:20 PDT Closing Circle

FLANC 2021 Post-Conference Survey (Dr. Hanan Khaled and FLANC 2021 Organizing Committee)

https://forms.gle/eJFaqaSLaTSRjAHu7

Raffle: Wheel of Names and Amazon gift cards (Mr. Derrick Leonard and Dr. Masahiko Minami)

https://wheelofnames.com/

Click this link to join the session. https://sfsu.zoom.us/j/85109320008?pwd=Vno2bGhwQVFBZ09zZWpENnU0emQrZz09

14:20-15:00 PDT AATSP-NorCal Recap

AATSP-NorCal President Dr. Ali Miano

Click this link to join the session. https://stanford.zoom.us/j/98279856021?pwd=ZUhQU1laT042dUx3ek1BWEJUelRJdz09

Conference Registration and Membership Dues