Penobscot School Methods Matter, 2008
A Practical Seminar on Teaching K-8 Foreign Language
July 28 - 31, 2008
8 a.m. to 1 p.m. daily
in Rockland, Maine

Presenters:

Julie von Kamecke: B.A. Russian, SUNY Oswego, founded the Spanish program at Rockport, (Maine) Elementary School in 1998, and has been actively engaged in curriculum planning, assessments, alignment with the Maine State Learning Results and in teaching for 14 years.

Margot Stiassni-Sieracki: B.A. Williams College, M.A. French, Stanford University, with 12 years of teaching French and Spanish to grades K-8, believes that music is a powerful (and fun!) teaching tool for language acquisition.

Course material will be meaningful for teachers of any language at any level.

Topics will include:

. How to build your curriculum
. Creating themes and prioritizing subject matter
. Learning K-12 "classroom ready" songs, chants, and musical activities
. Games and activities to motivate your students

Examples will be given in French and Spanish.

Tuition: $235, includes 2.0 CEU
(FLAME members: $195)
Accommodation extra; limited home-stays via Penobscot School

For more information, contact: Penobscot School
www.languagelearning.org
info@anguagelearning.org

Friends: there is a logistics position to be filled for this workshop—a  trade of free tuition for helping with paperwork, refreshments and clean-up. Candidate must attend the four days, and arrive midday Sunday. We can provide a free room. Inquiries to patti@languagelearning.org . Thank you for spreading the word!

Gisela Hoecherl Alden has put together a marvelous brochure describing reasons for learning languages. It is suitable for students, parents, school board members--anyone thinking about language learning. Please feel free to download it and to distribute it as you see fit.

Eric Buisson
Coordonnateur
École de langues
Formation non créditée / en entreprise - Écoles d'été
Université du Québec à Montréal - UQAM
Case postale 8888, succursale Centre-ville
Montréal (Québec) - H3C 3P8 - Canada

Tél.: +1 514-987-3000, poste 6736
Fax: +1 514-987-4349
Courriel: buisson.eric@uqam.ca
Page Web: www.langues.uqam.ca

Le lancement du livre Voyages A Maine Franco-American Reader de Nelson Madore et Barry Rodrigue a eu lieu samedi. C’est vraiment un très beau livre !

Book Description:
Dozens of voices celebrate--in essays, stories, plays, poetry, songs, and art--the Franco-American and Acadian experience in Maine. They explore subjects as diverse as Quebec-Maine frontier history, immigrant drama, work, genealogy, discrimination, women, community affairs, religion, archeology, politics, literature, language, and humor. The voices, themselves, are equally diverse, including Norman Beaupré, Michael Michaud, Ross and Judy Paradis, Susann Pelletier, John Martin, Béatrice Craig, Michael Parent, Linda Pervier, Alaric Faulkner, Ray Levasseur, Yves Frenette, Paul Paré, Yvon Labbé, Rev. Clement Thibodeau, Bob Chenard, Denis Ledoux, Josée Vachon, Greg Chabot, Jean-Paul Poulain, Stewart Doty, Rhea Côté Robbins, and many others. This is a rich resource and an engaging read, one that will resonate with many.

 If you buy it through Amazon.com, it’s $10 cheaper than the list price!

 Are you an educator looking to travel abroad during the summer?  Would you like to earn graduate school credit and professional development credit while seeing the world?  GEEO is a 501c3 non-profit organization that has been created to help and encourage educators to travel abroad in order to bring their experiences back into the classroom and create a more outward-looking next generation of Americans.

Click here for more information.

                          RUTGERS AT THE LOUVRE 2008

Un programme de deux semaines à Paris pour enseignants de français (3 crédits)
15 au 29 juillet 2008

Résultat d'une collaboration entre Rutgers University et les services pédagogiques du plus grand musée français, ce stage de deux semaines est centré sur un cours de niveau Master's composé de conférences, de visites guidées et d'ateliers animés par des spécialistes et des enseignants de lycée français. Il représente une occasion absolument unique de découvrir ce magnifique musée et ses coulisses "fermées" aux touristes, mais aussi d'approfondir votre connaissance de l'art dans un rapport direct avec les chefs d'ouvre et leurs conservateurs. 
 

Le but du cours est la création d'un portfolio de leçons à utiliser dans vos classes à la rentrée.

Le programme est ouvert à tous / toutes les enseignant(e)s de français. Aucune connaissance formelle de l'histoire de l'art n'est requise.

Prenez le temps de visiter notre site, où vous trouverez de plus amples détails sur le cours, la vie à Paris, ainsi que des formulaires d'inscription:

http://french.rutgers.edu/Louvre/


Pour toute question supplémentaire, n'hésitez pas à me contacter par e-mail.

Bien cordialement à vous,

Prof. Carole Allamand                                                          
French Department
Rutgers University                                                     
allamand@rci.rutgers.edu

On October 10, 2007, the State Board of Education unanimously approved Maine Department of Education Regulation 132 - Learning Results: Parameters for Essential Instruction. The routine technical rule has been approved by the Attorney General and filed with the Secretary of State, with an effective date of October 22, 2007. The filing of this rule completes the final step in the comprehensive review of the Maine Learning Results.

Please see Informational Letter #32 for additional information:  http://www.maine.gov/education/edletrs/ilethome.shtml

The Peace  Corps' Coverdell World Wise Schools has hundreds of Peace Corps volunteers  in 73 countries who are signed up for the Correspondence Match program, seeking to be connected with a US teacher for a two-year letter  writing exchange (once a month).  If you might be interested in participating, please go to our website and click Educators to sign up:

http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/correspond/

The U.S. Department of Education's International Education Programs Service (IEPS) offers funding to promote expertise and competence in foreign languages and area and international studies. Click here for more information.

ACTFL wants to hear from YOU!

 ACTFL invites educators to air their views on topics we will cover in our "So You Say" feature in each issue of The Language Educator.

 October:  <http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=4185 What aspect of technology do you find most useful in language teaching?

 November:   <http://www.actfl.org/i4a/pages/Index.cfm?pageID=4185 If you could help only one person understand the importance of language learning, who would it be and why?

 Each issue of The Language Educator includes a "So You Say" feature, an area where our readers offer their opinions on topics relevant to language education. The Editor will select representative statements and they will be published in the magazine. To offer your views on a topic, please go to http://www.actfl.org  . You will be taken to a form where you may enter a message of no more than 150 words. When finished, click submit and your message will reach the Editor.

Thanks in advance for contributing to a more representative content for The Language Educator!

The American Association of Teachers of French now has a Commission on Advocacy to defend your French program, whether you are a member or not.

We have a national web site to explain our goals and objectives:
Ideas for French Language & Culture Advocacy in the US: http://www.utm.edu/staff/globeg/advofr.shtml with a number of state-specific web sites and     informational databases linked to it (see Tennessee Bob's AATF Advocacy Pack for Maine).

What do we do?  We work with you to develop a group of local and state allies (at school, in business, in the local and state political scene, among parents, etc.). We help you develop a corpus of local-specific knowledge and give you state specific reasons why French is important. Among these allies, in most cases we can put you in contact with a chapter advocacy team.

What kind of knowledge do we offer? Recent economic, demographic, historical knowledge about your state that can be openers with power brokers or part of a winning argument in a debate. We offer the addresses of valuable contacts from consulates, state supervisors, your state's AATF chapters, regional chapters of the Alliance Française, and many more.

What else will we do? We will help you create a game plan, and then play an appropriate role in its execution.

Though we cannot guarantee to thwart the bad guys, we can be your best chance to save a good program, provided you let us know early enough.  Of course, AATF members receive regular news of what we are doing through our paper publications: http://www.frenchteachers.org .


TennesseeBob Peckham

Email: bobp@utm.edu

I might add that we have been active in a number of states promoting the general good of taking languages.


 Robert D. Peckham, Ph.D.

 Chair, AATF Commission on Advocacy
 Professor of French
 University of Tennessee at Martin
 Professor of French
 Director, Muriel Tomlinson Language Resource Center
 University of Tennessee at Martin
 Vice President, American Association of Teachers of French
 Director, Globegate Intercultural Web Project
 Editor, Société François Villon Bulletin
 bobp@utm.edu

CARLA, the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (www.carla.umn.edu ), announces the establishment of a new email list, FL-ASSESSMENTS.

FL-ASSESSMENTS is jointly sponsored by CARLA, CASLS (Center for Applied Second Language Studies-University of Oregon, http://casls.uoregon.edu), and CAL (Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC, http://www.cal.org). The list is co-managed by Louis Janus <lctl@umn.edu> <mailto:lctl@umn.edu> and Ursula Lentz <lentz003@umn.edu> <mailto:lentz003@umn.edu> , both at CARLA.

The purposes of this list are:
1) to provide a forum for practitioners to discuss current issues in developing assessments
2) to share information and resources among professionals in the field
3) to encourage collaboration in the area of language
assessments.

You can subscribe by sending an email to: LISTSERV@LISTS.UMN.EDU
With the message: SUBSCRIBE FL-ASSESSMENTS <your names> -- -- removing the brackets and typing in your first and last names.

If you have trouble subscribing, please email Louis Janus <LCTL@umn.edu> <mailto:LCTL@umn.edu>

Subscriptions to this list are open to everyone who has an interest in foreign language assessments. Feel free to announce this list to colleagues. The list will be unmoderated. We invite discussions on assessments of all languages and levels, including K-12 and post secondary settings

As in the past two years, CASLS is looking for classrooms and schools
around the country to participate in this last year of piloting and
field testing. This is the third and last year of the FLAP grant
funding NOELLA, so everything is going at full speed.

Specifically, they are looking for Spanish, Japanese, French, Chinese
and Korean students in any kind of program in grades 3-6. They
especially need the non-European language students and immersion school students in all languages.

If teachers ask you what they will learn from participating in the
piloting process, you can tell them the following:
The NOELLA development team is trying their best to reward teachers as
much as possible for their participation in this process. Hence, they
are trying to provide them as much feedback as is reasonable and
possible. You can understand that they are anxious not to overpromise,
nor to provide information that isn't statistically reliable in the
middle of a pilot process.

As such, it is still too early in the development process to provide
feedback on individual students. CASLS will, however, provide
classroom-level feedback for all languages except Korean. (which is in
its first year and just beginning the piloting process.)

The exact format of the feedback may vary with the language, as the
data for Chinese and Japanese is rather low. So they will be more
cautious with the feedback they give in those two languages. However,
they will do their best to provide as much information as they can
while still being confident about what they say. (These are
statisticians...)

The feedback will probably be of the format: Your class took X items at
Level 1 and got Y% correct, and so on. For Spanish and French, they
hope to be able to report how the range of all classes in the
database did on the pilots, but that will not
be available immediately.

Schools that are willing to participate in the fall pilots are urged
to contact CASLS according to the language of the pilot sites. The
following are the language-specific email addresses:

Spanish: spnoella@uoregon.edu
French: frnoella@uoregon.edu
Chinese: chnoella@uoregon.edu
Japanese: jpnoella@uoregon.edu
Korean: krnoella@uoregon.edu

Once a school or program contacts them they will receive in
informational packet about the process.

To contact your webmaster, email Ann Sullivan at mmesorciere@msn.com

Last update: July 14, 2008

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