President's Message
President’s Message - Fall 2024
Dear FLANC Members,
On behalf of the entire Foreign Language Association of Northern California (FLANC) Executive Board, I would like to start by wishing you a fantastic 2024-2025 academic year. You are part of a greater FLANC community, whether you are a seasoned language professional or just starting your journey.
We are thrilled to inform you that we are planning our first in-person conference after four years. As a technology enthusiast and a leader with a demonstrated history of working in e-learning education, I firmly believe that connections formed in person are everlasting. Moreover, I recognize the immense contribution you make to fostering language learning, cultural understanding, and global communication.
Your dedication to language learning opens doors for students, strengthens our communities, and connects us to a wider world. We are excited to provide a platform for you to share your expertise, learn new strategies, and celebrate the power of languages!
This year's theme is Language Teaching Methodologies: Utopian Classroom Environments vs. Our Reality with our keynote speaker, Dr. Julio Rodriguez, the director of the Center for Language & Technology at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
Thank to our kind friend and board member, Ms. America Salazar, we are hosting this year's conference on Saturday, 2 November 2024, at The Harker Middle School, in San Jose. We are confident that you will leave this conference feeling reenergized, equipped with new strategies, and connected to a supportive community of colleagues.
Please visit our website https://www.flanc.net for more information.
Last, but not least, Henri-Simon Blanc-Hoàng, City College of San Francisco, assumed the position of FLANC VP.
I hope you join us this November! Looking forward to meeting you at our conference!
Your new FLANC president,
Branka Sarac
President’s Page, Fall 2020
President’s Page, Fall 2020
Dear FLANC Members,
Wendy Tu, FLANC President
At the time of writing, Covid-19 and systemic injustice are both on the global front. FLANC is rising to the challenges ahead. A mini virtual conference will take place on Saturday, October 3, 2020. “Diversity and Languages” is the conference theme. Dr. Betty Lou Leaver and Dr. Christine Campbell are the Keynote Speakers. FLANC will collaborate with AATSP-NorCal and Stanford University through Alice A. Miano and Citlalli Del Carpio. The event will be free to FLANC members. Your and your colleagues’ participation is key to the event’s success.
FLANC was founded by Cecilia Ross at UC Berkeley in 1951. During the Board meeting on June 13, 2020, Sandra Sanborn was honored with the Life Membership Award for her selfless and countless contributions to FLANC in the past decades as Secretary and President, serving two full terms. America Salazar, Derrick Leonard and I have accepted the duties and responsibilities as your new VP, Secretary and President. Hanan Khaled, Henri Simon Blanc and Valerie Mendoza have joined the Executive Council. There are traditions to carry on and to progress further. For the many weekends in the coming next two years, I’ll be working with individuals, project teams and committees on the following organizational priorities. Thank you, volunteers, for giving your time and gifts!
Faculty SupportFLANC Virtual Conference 2020
Newsletter (Francisco C. Zermeno)
Website (Branka Sarac)
Affiliated Organizations
Connections
Grants and Awards
The Cecilia Ross Teacher of the Year Award
The Gisele Hart New Membership Award
The Alexandra C. Wallace Grant
Norm’s Page
Technology Integration
Shared Governance
Stewardship
Together we learn to foster greater student success in foreign languages. Stay tuned and stay thriving at home. Thank you!
Wendy Tu
Your FLANC President
President's Message
President's Message, Fall 2019
President's messages
Dear FLANC Members,
Sandra García Sanborn
Happy school year to everyone in the language teaching community! On behalf of FLANC, I want to start by thanking all language educators, exhibitors, affiliates, and presenters who made our last fall conference a terrific success. Thank you for making it such a fun and productive day!
Please, keep in mind that our Fall 2019 FLANC Conference is taking place a month ahead than usual. This year, we hope to see you all again on Saturday, September 21st at Salesian College Preparatory, in the City of Richmond, where conference presenters will share the latest pedagogical trends, best practices on technology-mediated tasks, and activities to integrate the intercultural dimension in language learning. Moreover, FLANC is honored to have Ms. Ying Jin, 2018 ACTFL Teacher of the Year, as the conference Keynote Speaker. We are excited and grateful for her participation and are looking forward to an outstanding, inspiring presentation.
Spring was a season full of wonderful surprises and experiences for me in the realm of languages and cultures. In April, I was once again kindly invited by CLTAC President Li and its Executive Board to participate in their yearly Mandarin Chinese Speech Contest --this one being their 44th!!-- and, just like last year, I was delighted by an engaging, diverse artistic program filled with music, dance, poetry, and the always magical Dragon Dance performance. Upon arrival, I got a warm welcome by my colleagues Hsin-Yun Liu and Wendy Tu, who made sure I had a terrific time all along and did not miss any detail. Needless to say, my very favorite moment was participating on stage, giving out diplomas and trophies to the many brilliant students who passed their tests with flying colors. It is such a beautiful ceremony brimming with excitement and joy from students and parents alike!
April was a very special month because I was also invited to the 6th Ocha Zanmai: 2019 San Francisco International Conference on Chanoyu and Tea Cultures, organized by Dr. Midori McKeon, professor of Japanese at California State University San Francisco. This year theme, International Commerce and the Development of Tea Cultures: Silk Road and the Age of Discovery, gathered local, national, and international presenters who focused on a diversity of cultures -Persian, Tibetan, Korean, Chinese, Japanese- and their relationship to tea cultures and textiles production as well as the disseminations of these traditions. Through enthusiastic and enlightening lectures about a diversity of related topics, attendees were mesmerized by a wealth of information about fields rarely explored and discussed in such depth in our region. Along the conference, Dr. McKeon was the most gracious hostess and, with outmost generosity, even arranged my participation in a tea ceremony attended by the presenters during lunchtime. This was a great honor and a special memory to keep. As a closing conference event, we were all invited to a tea testing of a variety of teas from Asia and to learn first hand, through a lecture and display of fabrics by Mr. Kazuhiro Suzuki, about ancient imported textiles and their relationship to Japanese tea culture. As Director of the Suzuki Research Institute of Ancient Textiles, Mr. Suzuki brought many exquisite samples from his personal collection and surprised each if us with a gift set of four different styles of textiles. Hats off to Dr. McKeon for offering such an impeccable event that was a rich, revealing experience for every one of us attending. I am certainly looking forward to the 7th Ocha Zanmai: San Francisco International Conference on Chanoyu and Tea Cultures next year.
Of course, I am also looking forward to participating in other cultural events and conferences organized by our affiliates and FLANC members so as to continue exploring, learning, and developing my own intercultural competence by becoming acquainted with the traditions of the culture behind each of the languages often represented at our conference.
Finally, I would like to remind our members to consider the various grants and awards offered by FLANC, which are announced in our website. Please, remember that each fall you can have your students send a video clip to the FLANC Digital Art Contest. This year the deadline is September 15th. Please, find more details in this fall Newsletter and keep in mind that entries will be broadcasted throughout the day during the conference.
I hope you join us this September 21st!!
Looking forward to meeting you at Salesian College Preparatory,
Sandra García Sanborn
FLANC President
President's Message
President's Message, Fall 2018
Dear FLANC Members,
Happy school year to everyone in the language teaching community! I hope this summer break provided you with many chances to relax and re-energize for the new year. I am honored to be serving as FLANC president and, together with the always supporting members of our Executive Board, I want to thank all language educators, exhibitors, affiliates, and presenters who made our last fall conference a great success!
Just like last year, this October conference combines a diversity of sessions on theoretical concepts and practical ideas offered by passionate, knowledgeable, and inspiring speakers and presenters. We are excited to have our conference in the City of Moraga and are deeply grateful and proud for Saint Mary’s College hosting the event. In this regard, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Frances Sweeney, Vice President for Mission and Professor of Spanish at Saint Mary’s College, for her professionalism, caring, and respect for FLANC as we organize this fall conference.
We strive to offer our members a professional event that places as much emphasis on classroom techniques as on online learning opportunities. Thus, we are delighted to have Dr. Julie Sykes, professor at the University of Oregon, as our Keynote Speaker. Needless to say her presentation, titled L2 Pragmatics and Digitally-Mediated Communication: Innovation in World Language Education, will be the highlight of the conference and a fantastic opportunity to learn about the current issues in language learning.
Finally, I would like to also remind our members to consider the various grants and awards offered by FLANC and, especially, to congratulate the winners of the 2018 Alexandra C. Wallace Essay Contest:
First Place: Leon Chou, from Albany High School - Pam Lim-McAlister (teacher)
Second Place: Jay Francisco, from Salesian College Preparatory - William Heidenfeldt (teacher)
Congratulations to Leon and to Jay, and to the many students from diverse schools who also participated with interesting and creative essays! All participating students were honored with the Alexandra C. Wallace Essay Contest Certificate. Consider encouraging your students to take part in an activity that can enhance motivation and linguistic competence.
If you do not want to wait till spring. . . You can have your students send a video clip to the FLANC Digital Art Contest. The deadline is October 15. Please, find more details in this fall Newsletter and keep in mind that entries will be broadcasted through the day during the conference.
I hope you join us this October!
Looking forward to meeting you at our conference,
Sandra García Sanborn
FLANC President
President’s message, Fall 2017
President’s message, Fall 2017
Dear FLANC Members,
Happy school year to everyone in the language teaching community! I hope you had a terrific summer. I am excited to welcome our FLANC members as we start this new year and certain that you are all re-energized to continue working on making linguistic diversity more visible, valued, and vibrant than ever.
Please, allow me to start with a big and heartfelt “Thank you!” to all language educators, exhibitors, and presenters who participated in our language conference last fall. You made it a huge success! It is always invigorating to witness the commitment and passion for languages in our region and a source of great pride to know that we join forces in advocating for inspiring language learners to embrace one very important goal: Empowering our community through the promotion and support of multilingual identities.
With this idea in mind, and just as we do every summer, the FLANC Board had a meeting in June and another one in August in order to finalize details related to our upcoming Fall 2017 FLANC Conference at Chabot College on October 21st. As usual, our language conference will offer a rich program with presentations that integrate theoretical knowledge with practical examples. Assessment, Inter-Language Diversity, and Visual Thinking Strategies are only some of the topics.
Technology through digital tools that strengthen meaningful learning while motivating students will be strongly represented with a variety of innovative activities that can be easily implemented in the language classroom.
Always interested in building and maintaining solid ties with our affiliate organizations as well as with our colleagues, last year, our FLANC conference was honored with the collaboration of NCJTA through a set of presentations organized by Dr. Masahiko Minami, Professor of Japanese at the Modern Languages and Literatures Department at San Francisco State University and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Japanese Linguistics. This year, we are just as excited and honored to have the participation of CLTAC and the Chinese teaching community as they join FLANC offering their Fall Workshops at Chabot College this October 21st. During the past few weeks, I have been in contact with Professor Le Tang, CLTAC Vice President and faculty at the Dept. of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Stanford University, as we work on the final details for the workshops and conference.
I had the pleasure to meet Vice President Le Tang at this past spring Mandarin Speech Contest held at Lowell High School, in San Francisco. This was my first time attending such a wonderful event, and I am deeply grateful for President Liwei Gao’s invitation. I would like to express my gratitude to the CLTAC Executive Board as well as to my colleagues in the Chinese teaching community for their cordiality and kindness, as everyone at CLTAC made sure I felt at home while enjoying the events. I was amazed by the number of students participating (almost 600!) and captivated by the many cultural performances presented. Please, see the picture with my colleagues Frederik Green, Wendy Tu, and Christina Yee.
Always with our members in mind, our FLANC Fall Conference at Chabot College is organized around a diversity of languages and teaching pedagogies. . . I hope you join us this October!
Looking forward to meeting you at our conference,
Sandra García Sanborn
President’s messages – Fall 2016
President’s messages – Fall 2016
Dear FLANC Members,
Happy school year to everyone in the language teaching community!
On behalf of the Executive Council, I welcome our returning and new members and invite them to join me in thanking Dr. Fabián Banga, our 2014-2016 FLANC president, for his splendid job at guiding our association through two very productive and exciting years. It is certainly an honor and a privilege for me to follow on someone who has been an outstanding leader and colleague. I am especially grateful to know that I will be able to rely on his support and advice along my term.
Reflective of his dynamism as a professional, not only did Dr. Banga diligently fulfilled his duties as president but he has been also our association Webmaster for many years now. As such, this summer, he took on the responsibility to update our site and turn it into a sophisticated, yet very user friendly and resourceful tool for our members. Please, take a few minutes to visit our revamp website <www.fla-nc.com> and you will learn of the range of opportunities offered to the diverse language teaching communities in the region. While in our site, explore the various grants and awards available to instructors as well as their students, such as the Gisèle Hart Membership Award, for new teachers, and the Alexandra C. Wallace Essay Contest, for students interested in conveying their experience in learning a second language. Embracing our fall conference motto “GoGlobal@FLANC”, we are starting a “Digital Art Contest” and inviting students to create a clip related to the advantages of becoming proficient in another language and culture. The video clip awarded the first place will be featured in our FLANC website!
As you navigate our site, you will also find information about our many language affiliates, varied regional job listings, and TUF: Teachers Unified for the Future –a committee specially created to support new teachers and instructors. Attuned to the pursue of professional development by our members, who are remarkably diverse in their interests and institutional situations (schools, community colleges, universities), our association also offers free access to our peer-reviewed digital journal focusing on the teaching of languages. In Connections: A Journal for Foreign Language Educators, members can find articles on current research and best practices for language instruction written by colleagues and experts from the Northern California region as well as other parts of the country. Besides being present in social media via Facebook, Tweeter, and LinkedIn, this fall, we are launching a podcast in our website that will be offering a variety of interviews, discussions, book reviews, and teaching tips to members.
Having been a member of the FLANC Executive Council for almost ten years, I am very aware that one of the strengths of our association is that, with each transition, it eagerly opens its doors to fresh energy, diversity in leadership styles, and the possibility for innovation. I want you to know it is a great honor for me to have the opportunity to serve as your president for the next two years and, with great pride, I am excited to introduce you to our new Executive Council members:
Dr. Deolinda Adao, Prof. of Portuguese and Director of the Center for European Studies, is our liaison with this vital and important center located at UC Berkeley.
Ms. Elizabeth Cisneros, Lecturer in Spanish at UC Merced, specializes in the use of technology in the language classroom. You can read her article about the use of apps in the classroom in this fall FLANC Newsletter.
Dr. Branka Sarac, Director of Technology Integration at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, is part of our Instructional Technology Committee.
Dr. Gaye Walton-Price, Prof. of Arabic at Berkeley City College, will be offering her expertise in the study and teaching of critical-need languages.
Please, join me in welcoming these new Council members, who will undoubtedly contribute to strengthening the heart and soul of our association and to enhance the growth and affirmation of our diverse language teaching communities.
I must admit this will be one challenging year for me, as I serve our association in a privileged, yet demanding position, while I am also focusing on finishing my dissertation. I feel confident, though, that I will be able to successfully handle such responsibilities because I know first hand of the generosity and understanding of my colleagues. Thus, I would like to take a moment to express my heartfelt thanks to every one of the members in the FLANC Executive Council, as well as to past-presidents Ed Stering and Masahiko Minami. I am grateful to all for their constant support and for the pleasure of working with such a wonderful, committed team always in search of new ways to make the Foreign Language Association of Northern California an exciting venue to make resources available to language educators in their pursue of professional development. Such strong commitment is reflected every year in the diversity of presentations, practical workshops, outstanding sponsors, and leading exhibitors, FLANC members can find in our conference.
I trust you are as excited as I am about the beginning of a new school year! Please, feel free to contact me or any member of the Council Board with any questions, comments, or concerns that you might have. You will find our contact information readily available in the association website.
Last, on behalf of the Executive Council, please, allow me to take this opportunity to extend our invitation to you to participate in this fall FLANC Conference, which will take place on Saturday, October 29th, at Berkeley City College. This year we are planning on ending the day with a complimentary reception that will include a light dinner and music for our members. I hope you can join us!
Looking forward to meeting you at our conference,
Sandra García Sanborn
President’s Message – Fall 2015
President’s Message – Fall 2015
I would like to start off by wishing all of you in our learning language community a fantastic 2015-2016 academic year. I not only wish you this in my name but also in the name of our FLANC executive council. We all know that, as language teachers, we often do not earn high salaries and furthermore, many of our non-tenured faculty make even less. I know how difficult it can be when we do not have access to all the resources we need to teach the way we would like. Languages are often not a priority on our campuses or elsewhere. In academia today the word “productivity” appears to be more often spoken than the word “humanities”. This is an uncomfortable reality. But, as we always say at the executive council, “we love what we do because we love languages”. We, the younger members of the council (and many of us are more than 40!) learned how to deeply love languages and our profession from those teachers who were part of the council before us. And new generation of teachers will come. We are working to leave them a strong and vibrant organization that will support them in the future.
I would also like to cordially invite you to our conference in November. Thanks to our kind friend, Francisco Zermeño, and his college, we will host our conference in Chabot College, Hayward this year. Because of their great hospitality, I know we will have another innovative and productive conference. Please visit our website fla-nc.org for more information.
All the best and I hope to see you in Hayward,
Dr. Fabián Banga
President
Berkeley, August 29, 2015