To listen click here: It was the first wedding anniversary and queen Jasmin wanted to prepare an extra special surprise for now king Alaa Deen. They had been married for a year and he had been ruling for a…
The great powers of the blue genie.
Category: Faculty Perspectives
Dear Educator: Are you taking care of yourself? No! Really! Are you?
If like me you teach in a post-secondary educational Institution, then the Spring semester for the Academic Year 2021 has just started for you. This means that up to this moment we have spent weeks of preparing materials, days of…
On ACTFL First Virtual Convention; Highlighting Success.
For the first time, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held its annual convention virtually in November of 2020. As with most professional conferences this year, the convention was held virtually due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.…
Inclusion; the Heart of Language Teaching.
Equality, social justice and inclusion; three essential and powerful values in any community. They are so powerful that the need for them was recently, despite a global pandemic, able to mobilize masses around the world in joint demands for equal…
Considerations For Remote Teaching
Reflecting on Distant Teaching
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Teachable Opportunities with COVID-19
Many – if not all – educational institutions in the world are dealing with an unpredictable situation where they need to take various measures to help prevent any chances of the spread of COVID-19. Many have decided to cancel events…
Using Art in Teaching World Languages.
The problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of the image, according to cultural theorist W.J.T. Mitchell (1995). The power of the visual, he states, is greater than ever before, and the “pictorial turn” replaced the “linguistic turn” in…
Teacher leadership; opening new horizons for better instruction.
There comes a time when every instructor finds that for her/him to advance their role in the pedagogical process, they need horizons that are wider than the four walls of their classroom. Expanding horizons is of course but a metaphor…
Proficiency Based Curriculum Design
The Connecticut Council for Language Teachers (CT COLT) ran and organized a two-day summer institute in June 2019. Hostesses Lea Graner Kennedy, Kathleen Archibald and language education expert Greg Duncan led one hundred and some world language educators on a…
Distance Language Teaching Program at Yale CLS
In Fall of 2018 and Spring of 2019 and in eight-three-hour sessions, myself and a group of graduate students, language lectors, and Foreign Language Teaching Assistants completed the Distance Language Teaching Program offered by the Center for Language Study at…
Looking Back at 2018; Growing and Learning.
When asking Google what a word cloud is, this definition appeared: A word could is an image composed of words used in a particular text or subject, in which the size of each word indicates its frequency or importance. I…
Back in the Groove; day one after the break.
https://www.facebook.com/nelc.yale.edu/posts/342293412844926
CLS Fellowship Fall 2017. Three Projects; Three opportunities to learn.
I applied for the CLS Fellowship in Fall of 2016 with hopes of getting a one course release and using the time to focus on my project. With complete focus on using online resources to enhance the teaching of Levantine…
Students reflect on visit to the Beinecke Library
During Summer Session B, class of Arabic 120 (Summer 2017) visited the Beinecke Library to get a close look and a detailed account of a variety of Arabic manuscripts amongst the collection available in the library. After the class visit…
Training online: to do or not to do!
The Center for Language Study at Yale has the crucial role of supporting language teaching faculty in ways that promote pedagogically sound as well as most relevant manners of language teaching/learning here at Yale. And in that effort the center…
When left to their own devices, students dig culture.
As part of their final Oral Project, I asked my Students of Beginner Arabic II to create a video guided by an arm’s length list of criteria (linguistic and nonlinguistic). Incorporating a cultural element was one of the items on that list…
2014 Chicago Language Symposium
Attending the 2014 Chicago Language Symposium has been a great opportunity for me especially because it made me realize how much depth there is in teaching languages in current times. In addition to the past approaches and techniques used by…
“I am 2 meter 15 and weigh 60 kilograms.” European versus American measurements in the classroom
When I heard that a colleague had bought an apartment of 900 square feet, I hear what he was saying, I understand the English words but yet I do not know exactly what they mean. In my classes we never…
Poll Everywhere
Has it ever happened to anyone to receive some information and think: “I could use that!”? Well, that has happened to me. I was introduced by a group of colleagues to www.polleverywhere.com. I was part of an exercise where the…
Second International Conference on Heritage/Community Languages
The 2nd International Heritage/Community Languages Conference held at UCLA on March 7 and 8 was a great way to start spring break. With up to 9 panels at a given time it was difficult to choose which to attend. The…
North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics
Thanks to the generous support of the Center for Language Study, I was able to attend the annual meeting of the North American Conference on Afroasiatic Linguistics (NACAL 42), Leiden, the Netherlands, February 14-16, 2014. The North American Conference on…
Advancing writing skills in the foreign language classroom
In the context of my research on the effects of telecollaboration (CMC between native and non-native speakers) on L2 learners’ language skills, I have recently begun analyzing factors impacting students’ involvement and success in cross-cultural virtual projects. This involvement can,…
Gradebook=Peace of Mind
At the January 16th CLS workshop, Gloria Hardman, with the assistance of Alina Nevins, explained how to use the online ClassesV2 Gradebook. Judging from the multiple and audible “Ah-hah!” moments, many found the information useful. During my teaching career I…