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Posted 30 March 2009
(from my email of 27 March 2009:) Thanks for signing up for Content-Based Instruction. The un-bad news is that it appears the course will indeed happen: I checked with Sandra Freels about it earlier this week, and so far neither the slender enrollment nor any general budget cuts have threatened it. As some of you know, I try my best to make my courses attract attention and support (friends, grant money, prizes). I like to think that makes them more difficult to cut. CBI this quarter will aim to do the same.
I'm revising the course website. Some of what you'll see for a while is left over from last year's course, and some is pure chaos. So let me give you an overview here.
This is the second year I've taught the course, and I've improved it considerably from last year. We found then that it really does take some rethinking to conceptualize and then implement CBI. In some cases people have to move still further away from EGI (Explicit Grammar Instruction), or maybe from some other pedagogy that is inconsistent with CBI. For example, it's also too easy to tilt too much to just a communicative / contextualized approach and not really go fully to CBI.
There were also some things to improve merely in organizing the activities. In one case people last year thought that they had to do a far bigger, fully-implemented course design when I was just asking them to explore a Big Idea. There's so much to learn and talk about, and ten weeks is such a short time!
The first week we have to establish the basics of CBI, and also find out where people are in their knowledge of second-language pedagogy. I know four of you more than just by casual acquaintance, but four of you are totally (or almost) new to me. There are some major features of the course that have to be presented early so that you can explore them in advance and we can start outlining long-term activities, and also maybe some field trips to local schools and establishing contact with some people and schools further away.
The most important of these are two of my long-term projects, SpeakEasy and the Humboldt Project (see links on the course website's splash screen). SpeakEasy is a PSU German business simulation course which is expanding in two ways: adding more languages, and becoming a real student-run business (while remaining a course that, I hope, will eventually finance its own instructors - perhaps some of you! - with the profits of the business). The Humboldt Project is an outreach effort to K-12 schools nationwide, and has direct application to ESL, Spanish, French, and German.
While I want to use SpeakEasy and the HP as both case studies and opportunities for your participation (during and even after the course), I don't want to straitjacket people. Therefore there will be an option for you to develop a major CBI project of your own. We'll have to start talking about that early, but also have to make sure you understand the important concepts and also the still limited dimensions of what you'll be taking along.
Aside from that major project and, of course, CBI readings, your main course assignments will include some short reflection pieces; a detailed plan for a single hour of CBI-based language classroom teaching/ learning; a longer instructional module, say for two weeks of a ten-week course; and an outline (NOT a detailed syllabus) for an entire course.
About reading: I didn't order the two main books (one more for ESL, one more for FL people), since I wasn't sure either about enrollment or even the survival of the course. I don't like to burden the bookstore with a supply of books it may well not be able to sell, and we all know that going through the bookstore can add unnecessary expense. One way or the other, you should gain access (buy, share, whatever) one or both of two books, depending on your particular language interests: Stryker et all, Content-Based Instruction in FL Education; Kasper et al, Content-Based ESL Instruction. Details are provided on the flyer that was attached to the 27 March email. The library has both, Powell's may well have copies, and they are available through the usual internet suppliers. You shouldn't have to spend more than $25 per book on them. Some of you may want to share ordering and shipping, or even share the books themselves.
Other reading: From my giant database of texts related to language teaching I've compiled a list of shorter texts, mostly journal articles, but also institutional documents and even work samples illustrating CBI. I'll be adding that list to the course website, but to avoid problems of copyright and intellectual property I won't be linking directly to the electronic files. Instead, you'll get from me a CD with the files. Even that is a little questionable, but I really do want to avoid hard copy of such sources, and I don't want to make you waste time tracking down your own copies of article. Many of the articles will be from Foreign Language Annals, the ACTFL journal. While you could go to the ACTFL site and purchase downloads, if you are going to be a FLL professional you should be a member of ACTFL anyway (student rate is very modest), and then you can download the PDFs for free. ESL people: I'm still learning your field, so there won't be as many readings that are specifically ESL. But: 1) I've chosen readings that can speak to ESL interests. 2) Maybe you can help me fill in my gaps of knowledge and bibliography
under construction!! below is from an email to the people in the course last year (Spring 2008)
On the schedule for first meeting: Obviously we'll do the customary introductions, but I also want to establish an atmosphere of group-work and an emphasis on doing things that really promote teaching, rather than just "academic" tasks and arbitrary standards. An important characteristic of language teaching (perhaps as contrasted to literary scholarship) is how teachers work together, and across language boundaries. So I intend for there to be regular activities such as shared note-taking, reports about secondary reading, and - this is much more important - team projects. But, yes, early on I want us to help each other out even on the daily stuff.
At our first meeting we'll need to explore the basic concept of "CBI" (including where we think we've encountered it before). I'll have a handout about that, and will run the class from a laptop/ projector, using the course website:
http://web.pdx.edu/~fischerw/courses/advanced/408_508_CBI/html/default.html
(Or start at my faculty website
http://web.pdx.edu/~fischerw/
and go from the obvious link.)
I do have in mind a basic structure for the course, and the topics, and the assignments, but I want it to emerge as well in group deliberation. Still, we have only ten weeks, and there are some external factors that I think you will find inspiring rather than stressful.
Let me explain a little. Sure, there is an "academic" ingredient to the learning here - some books and articles to read, some core knowledge and concepts to be acquired. But much of what we do will be aimed at projects where CBI could/can be implemented. Some of those projects already exist, because of course I do CBI, not just talk and teach about it; and because other people to whom I have access are also doing it. Other projects can emerge from your own ideas - I'll try to balance encouraging you to get involved with my projects with encouraging you to think up your own projects. Since showing an existing project can be done faster than thinking up a new one, tomorrow I'll show a couple of mine: the German business simulation / emerging student corporation; the "Humboldt Project" (too complex to summarize here); and a drama-staging/ performance course.
I'll have some reading set up to start in on tomorrow (core printed text but also many on-line sources) - including an article about various simulations, and another about staging a play in a beginning college Italian class, and maybe even another about "Big Books" in middle school FLES programs.
Some bits and pieces: We'll need to collect contact and schedule info, not just so people can do team activities in general, but so that we can also schedule at least two fields trips: to the PPS Japanese Magnet Program, and to Humboldt School in NE PDX. We'll try to make those trips during regular class-meeting times.
Got to get back to the grant proposal. Here are the Federal Register RFP (request for proposals) and my working abstract:
29 March
The website for this course is in its earliest stages. Many links lead to content that has not yet been updated. Please be patient.
CBI will meet TR 1640-1830 in NH 343
On 27 March I ordered, on my own credit card, 7 copies of Stryker/Leaver Content-Based Instruction in Foreign Language Education, for delivery in a week or so. Cost per copy, including S & H, will be $30. After we see who's in the course for sure, we'll order Kasper, Content-Based ESL Instruction. During the first week of classes we'll use temporary photocopies / PDFs of a chapter of Stryker/Leaver, while we also investigate other secondary literature.
The course will be largely project-based. That is, we will create sample materials for CBI. There will be a range of options for such projects:
1) individual independent modules and outlines for courses (examples: art for FLES; drama production for second-year college language course)
2) group projects, closely coordinated (examples: partnerships with local / regional museums to add multilingual signage; compilation of multilingual pedagogical vocabulary for CBI)
3) individual and group participation in some of my on-going CBI projects ("SpeakEasy" business simulation and emerging student-run company; the "Humboldt Project", primarily Spanish, French, German, ESL, for essentially all core subject areas of K-12)
Many of these activities involve outreach to and partnering with other learning communities, via both conventional communication (email, etc.) and distance-learning technology (two-way video). Early in the quarter we will initiate contact with various programs and institutions (PSU School of Business, "Humboldt" schools in PDX, Canada, Latin America, Germany) to explore collaboration.
The projects will also involve efforts to secure outside funding. Early on we'll start looking for grants, for development of projects and for their presentation at conferences. The grants we target will range from small-amount short-terms ones (ca. $1000, decisions within the quarter) to much larger ones ($20K) that will be decide only after several months, and which could provide support for their applicants after the end of the course.
We have only TEN weeks. As usual, there has to be a quick learn about the topic right at the start. This is especially important in our course because the projects will require much innovation and followup. Early on I'll also be presenting SpeakEasy and the Humboldt Project, both so that people can see concrete examples of CBI and also can decide whether they want to do projects there, or as standalones (or both). Then we'll get busy on the various projects while advancing our knowledge of the secondary literature.
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