2011 Fall Conference Program
Thursday, October 13 (Hale House building - Everest Lounge)
2:00–5:00 p.m. Board meeting for NERALLT board members only (Hale House building - Everest Lounge)
6:30 p.m. Pre-conference dinner:
Location:
237 Union Street
Schenectady, NY 12305
Friday, October 14
8:30–9:30: Registration & Breakfast (Hale House building - Everest Lounge)
(Welcoming remarks and presentations will be held in Hale House Building in the Dining Hall room)
9:30–9:45: Welcome
Audrey Sartiaux, NERALLT President and NERALLT conference host
Cheikh Ndiaye, Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Union College
10:00–10:45: Presentation
John Graves, Yale University, Center for Language Study
Chrissy Hosea, Yale University, Lector in Dutch
Going the Distance: Planning and Implementing a Synchronous Distance
Language Course
For fall 2011, the Yale University Center for Language Study, in collaboration with the Cornell University Language Resource Center, is offering an intermediate Dutch course using synchronous distance learning technologies. The methods employed by the instructor include viewing a web-based resource, writing on a digital slate, and conducting class sessions via videoconferencing. The degree of cooperation required among the instructor, learners, administrators, and academic technologists at each participating institution cannot be overstated.
11:00–11:45: KEYNOTE
Thomas Sauer, World Language Specialist, Jefferson County Public Schools, Louisville, KY
WITH, THROUGH and DESPITE Technology - Making Language Learning an Essential 21st Century Skill
12:00–1:15: Lunch and Business Meeting
1:15–1:45: Presentation
Christiane Métral, Smith College
Skyping the French: A Weekly Intercultural Conversation with a School in
Paris
This session will present the on-going annual Cross-Cultural Connections project between students at Smith College in Massachusetts and students at Télécom ParisTech (ENST), a leading French engineering Grande Ecole in Paris. In this intercultural exchange almost every Friday students either chat on skype in small groups or with the help of videoconferencing technology, 2 or 3 times during the semester, meet as a whole class. Outside of class time, meetings and discussions also take place on a web platform. Along with the now more traditional forums (discussion boards), they explore and discover the foreign culture with a series of asynchronous activities such as the MIT Cultura questionnaires, web autobiographies, “images cadeaux”, and the study of a French film and its American remake. With the help of synchronous and asynchronous technology, students work on an array of activities that helps to foster their sensitivity to intercultural questions, teach them about socio-cultural and political aspects of their partners’ culture and increase their linguistic competence.
2:00–2:30: Lightning Round
Charlie Long, Choate Rosemary Hall
Using Real Language with Real People—A Progress Report
This fall my third year (high school) honors class will be using Skype® and Verbling to communicate with native speakers in Spain and Uruguay. They will start with group interviews of two or three language professionals in order to become accustomed to asking and answering questions using video conference technology. They will then advance to one-to-one conversations on directed topics and finally create a joint presentation.
2:45–3:30: Presentation
Eduardo Lage-Otero, Trinity College
Culture Podcasting: Globalizing the Local
Audio podcasts are simple yet powerful ways to reach out to a large number of people in a variety of ways (RSS readers, iTunes, MP3 players). Their production simplicity thanks to tools like Garageband creates a low threshold for participants’ needed time commitment. Also, the development process is considerably shorter than more complex multimedia podcasts. At the same time, these audio files can be easily embedded within a Language Center website to provide additional contextual information (e.g. maps, videos, transcripts) for any given podcast. This combination sets the stage for potentially fruitful collaborations among faculty, students, and Language Center staff. The sharing of tasks (i.e., topic selection, audio editing, web publishing) achieves several important goals: promoting the Center’s resources, generating interest in the various languages and cultures on campus, and bringing faculty and students together, to name a few. In this presentation, I will discuss one such project initiated by the Blume Center at Trinity College that highlights the importance of culture podcasts in building community while helping achieve the Center’s central mission: the promotion of language and culture.
3:45–4:15: Lightning Round
Denis Samburskiy, Suny at Albany
Projection of Identity in Introductory Posts: Successful Strategies of Self-
Presentation
This paper reports on a study of identity-presentational strategies that were employed by instructors in introductory posts in a collaborative ESL project between SUNY at Albany and European Humanities University in Lithuania. The content of introductory posts in Moodle is analyzed by register, focus on self or others, use of media, etc. Some strategies of successful introductory posts are discussed in the paper.
4:15–4:30: Concluding Remarks
Audrey Sartiaux, NERALLT President and conference host
4:30–5:00: Tour of the Union College Language Center