10m Tech Talks, Faculty Bulldog Days Edition: Technology use in the language classroom

On Tuesday, October 27, the CLS will host its second 10-minute Tech Talks of the year, at a fantastic time for reflecting on how and why technology can be used for language teaching and learning: Tuesday is the second day of a week of peer teaching observations coordinated by the Center for Teaching and Learning, dubbed Faculty Bulldog Days. Along with colleagues in many other disciplines, Yale instructors of Arabic, Czech, French, Hebrew, Korean, Polish, and Spanish will be opening their doors to visitors and inviting conversations about teaching contexts, methods, techniques and outcomes.

With this open-door event in the backdrop, we’d like to invite members of the language community at Yale — language instructors, students, and anyone with an interest in second, foreign, and heritage language teaching and learning — to consider sharing their observations, best practices, and concerns regarding technology use in the language classroom (that is, specifically, during class time and not outside of class).

We’ll address questions such as:

  • Based on what you’ve observed or heard about others’ classrooms, what uses of technology are you most excited about? What technologies are you most apprehensive about?
  • Are learning goals for the activity, lesson, or course visible, audible, or otherwise present in any way in the classroom? How are they represented?
  • What technologies do you use to conduct or enable live, peer-to-peer or instructor-to-student assessment during class time?
  • Do you allow or encourage the use of laptops or other mobile devices (tablets, phones) in class time? For what purpose(s)? Why?
  • How about Google Translate or other online translation or dictionary tools? 
  • And what about social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)?
  • What role does handwriting, and handwriting instruction, play in your language classroom?
  • How are written texts presented to students in your classroom? How do the textbook, readers, handouts, blackboard/whiteboard, and screen projection (PowerPoint, etc.) complement each other? Do students interact with written texts in your classroom? How?
  • Do students watch or listen to video and/or audio in class time? What tools do they use to respond to, interact with or otherwise manipulate audio and video shown in class?

These are, of course, just a few of the possibilities! Please bring your thoughts to the tech talks on Tuesday, from 12:30 – 1:30 in the CLS library at 370 Temple Street for informal discussion.

Also, if you’d like to share your observations or your own classroom practices in some detail, there is still room for a few informal 10-minute presentations. Please contact Dave (david.malinowski@yale.edu) to make arrangements.

In the meantime, we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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