In a perfect New England Fall weather, the Center of Language Study at Yale hosted the annual conference of The New England Regional Association for Language Learning Technology (NERALLT) on Yale Campus.
Language Education and Globalization; The Evolving Role of Language Centers was the title of the keynote speech by the Center’s own director Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl. Her speech highlighted the importance of looking at the functions that Language Centers in a new lens which is more suitable for the needs of language educators and learners in today’s world and age.
Presentations covered a variety of language-teaching perspectives, and included topics such as; using Tellecolaboration to enhance students’ intercultural competence, developing digital podcasts learners, creating video letters, using The Triple E Framework for teaching with technology, project-Based teaching, distant language learning, blended learning and much more.
A workshop that focused on a multilateral approach to teaching listening, gave the attendees hands on opportunity to developing their own listening activities using H5P platform.
And a round-table that discussed using technology for assessment ended the two-day conference.
Presenters and attendees were also given opportunities to network focusing on issues related to their needs and/or the languages they teach. Opportunities such as these, language educators say, are valuable, effective and hard to come by. Therefore, an occasion such as the conference is much appreciated.