ACTFL 2007 VI: Day 3

Sunday was a half-day, and a number of people were already gone. But I still went to three very useful presentations.

First up was An-nyong! and Aloha!: Secrets to Successful Vocabulary Learning--and Teaching!! by Jennifer Hoover (Opelika City Schools) on "word knowledge, lexical memory, and practical research-based steps to help your students acquire the vocabulary they need". Among the techniques she showed us were doing crosswords and word searches with the clues in the target language, and having students do word maps for important verbs:

The key is David Wilkins' notion:

Without grammar, very little can be conveyed.
Without words, nothing can be conveyed.

Next, I had wanted to attend Reading Assessment Strategies: Theoretical and Practical Issues by Stanford's Kenric K. Tsethlikai [In light of research in the field of reading in a second language and the National Standards for Foreign Language Education Project, this session will examine classroom implications for reading instruction and assessment in college language instruction. Starting with the notion of assessment in the area of reading, the presenter will consider pedagogical practices and parameters for developing reading instruction and assessments.], but he had to cancel.

So instead I picked Maximizing Learner Strategies to Enhance Pragmatic Development: An Online Illustration, by Julie Sykes (University of Minnesota)and Andrew Cohen (University of Minnesota). It turned out to be sort of a sequel to one I went to at the LTE conference at CARLA back in June. The abstract read "This presentation demonstrates how language instructors can optimize their learners' online experience with pragmatics curricula by reinforcing the learners' use of strategies. Participants will receive guidelines for maximizing their students' knowledge of strategies for improving their learning and performance of pragmatics as well as specific ideas for implementation." This program uses a virtual immersion, with natives and empirical research, in order to teach pragmatics in a non-threatening but realistic and interactive environment. Very cool.

And I finished off the day - and the conference - with another by Andrew Cohen, this time co-authored by Noriko Ishihara (Meiji University), Teaching and Learning Pragmatics: Where Language and Culture Meet. This one's abstract read: "a new guide for the teaching and learning of pragmatics is described and illustrated through sample activities. Benefits and challenges associated with the teaching of pragmatics are discussed." Workshops for teaching teachers to teach pragmatics were discussed. I would love to go to one - I'll have to see if I can get it funded!

And so ended the conference. I had another day in San Antonio. I'll post once more with a few thoughts about various things and some pictures of miscellanea. I enjoyed this conference a lot - it was fun and educational. And you don't get to say that about much in this life, at least not sincerely.