Teaching and Learning with Scholarly Digital Storytelling
Date: February 2, 2023
Time: 3:30-5PM
Presenter: Kelly Schrum, George Mason University
Abstract
Digital storytelling can be many things: narrative . . . interactive . . . linear . . . nonlinear . . . immersive . . . ethnographic. . . artistic. It can also be scholarly. Scholarly digital storytelling presents a compelling approach to reimagining academic research, intended audiences, and scholarly communication across disciplines, including world languages. It provides opportunities to promote multimodal learning while teaching practical digital skills. What happens when we use digital storytelling to communicate in multilingual classrooms? When we use it to teach digital skills as well as language comprehension? When we teach our students to present their work to broader audiences? This workshop will explore these questions and more, including practical strategies for integrating scholarly digital storytelling into world language classrooms.
Bio
Kelly Schrum is a professor in the Higher Education Program (College of Humanities and Social Sciences) at George Mason University. Her research and teaching focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning and on teaching and learning in the digital age, including online learning, scholarly digital storytelling(link is external), and digital humanities. She is the co-editor of Teaching and Learning Inquiry(link is external), the journal for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL). Schrum has published widely, including recent articles on scholarly digital storytelling and teaching historical thinking in hybrid and online settings, and presents her work nationally and internationally. Schrum received her B.A. in history and anthropology from U.C. Berkeley and her M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University.
Sustainability Education as a critical area in the Advanced Foreign language (FL) curriculum: a problem-based approach to teaching and learning
Date: Thursday, March 23, 2023
Time: 3:30-5PM
Presenter: Maria de la Fuente, George Washington University
Abstract
In 2020, UNESCO released a call for the worldwide implementation of its Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) framework, or ESD for 2030, with the goal of reorienting higher learning institutions to integrate education and learning in all activities that promote sustainable development. Grounded on inclusion, equity, human rights, social justice, and cultural and linguistic diversity principles, ESD can be integrated into FL education thought courses and curricula that provide students with sustainability awareness, literacy, and competencies for action. In particular, the Content-Based Instruction (CBI) framework and the many learner-centered approaches used in L2 instruction provide an ideal context for reimaging college L2 teaching and learning. This presentation posits that the integration of ESD is a significant contribution we can make to language education.
After briefly reviewing the current literature in the field, this presentation will offer one promising approach to integrating ED in advanced language courses. Using problem-based language pedagogy, this instructional approach promotes multicompetent language users who acquire sustainability knowledge and develop sustainability-specific competencies, including L2 competencies (de la Fuente, 2021). It will describe UNESCO's ESD framework and how it can help rethink courses and materials around sustainability principles. Then, it will show how language- and sustainability-specific learning outcomes (Wiek, Withycombe & Redman, 2011) can be combined to develop content-based, pedagogical units for advanced, content-based L2 instruction that ensures continuous language development.
Bio
María-José de la Fuente is a Spanish and Applied Linguistics professor at George Washington University. Her general area of research is Instructed (Classroom) Second Language Acquisition (ISLA), in particular, the role of active learning pedagogies (such as task- and problem-based learning) in fostering multicompetent language users. She has also published research on the role of the first language in developing multilingualism. The results of her research in these areas have appeared in several refereed journals. She is the author of Education for Sustainable Development in Foreign Language Learning(link is external): Content-Based Instruction in College-Level Curricula, Routledge. She has also authored two Spanish textbooks: Gente (Pearson), a widely used textbook in college Spanish language programs, and Puntos de Encuentro: a cross-cultural approach to Advanced Spanish (Cognella Publishers). She was the recipient of a GWU Bender Teaching Award and a founding member of the GW Academy of Distinguished Teachers.
Interaction, Feedback and Task Research in Second Language Learning
Date: Thursday, April 13, 2023
Time: 3:30-5PM
Presenter: Alison Mackey, Georgetown UniversityAbstract
In the field of applied linguistics, cognitive approaches to communicative interaction, corrective feedback and task-based L2 learning have developed and shifted dramatically over the last two decades. This talk begins with a brief review of the theoretical and empirical foundations of cognitively oriented interaction, feedback and task-based L2 research, including how these constructs are related. I will provide examples of how interaction, feedback and communicative tasks can drive second language learning, suggesting that the new tools and constructs that are emerging in research promise an even more productive time lies ahead.
I will highlight these important methodological developments that can further our understanding of how interaction, feedback and tasks drive L2 learning in the lab and in the classroom. These include psychology-based measures like working memory tests (in L1 and L2), the eye-tracking paradigm, and education and sociology-derived approaches like verbal introspections.
Finally, I will I turn to emergent constructs, focusing on one under-studied but promising new area: whether and how individual differences in cognitive creativity are related to interaction, feedback, tasks and L2 learning. I will consider how creativity is measured in varied fields as part of this discussion.
Bio
Alison Mackey is Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her interests include interaction-driven L2 learning, L2 research methodology and the applications of interaction and feedback through task-based language teaching, as well as L2 dialects and identities. She has published 75+ journal articles/book chapters, and 19 books in total, including the Mildenberger prize-winning Handbook of SLA (co-edited with Susan M. Gass). Mackey is Editor-in-Chief of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, published by CUP, #1 of 181 Linguistics Journals for 2017 Impact factor. She is co-founder of the Instruments for Research into Second Languages (IRIS) database project (funded by ESRC and the British Academy) and co-editor of the Taylor and Francis Second Language Acquisition series. She has lived and taught applied linguistics and ESL/EFL in the U.K., Japan, Australia, and the U.S. Google scholar regular places her amongst the top scholars in the world in areas like applied linguistics, second language acquisition and research methodology.