2020 COFLT Spring Workshops

The 2020 annual COFLT Spring Conference will take place at Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR on March 7, 2020 and is a workshops only format.  When you register you will choose one of the following four full-day workshop tracks:

  1. Increasing Student Target Language Use in the Upper Level and Immersion Spanish (for Spanish language teachers only) Workshop presenter: Brad Francis
  2. Design Meaningful Lessons in Interculturality for the French Classroom (for French language teachers only) Workshop presenters: Kristen Nugent and Natalie Stamper
  3. Experiencing Compelling Comprehensible Input Workshop presenter: Fredrick Stamps
  4. Power Up! Getting Students to Higher Levels of Proficiency Workshop presenter: Kyle Ennis
  5. Fostering learning engagement in online language teaching Workshop presenters: Stéphanie Roulon, Ines Warnock, and Sarah Schoettler

All workshops run from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a one hour break for lunch (included in registration fee).

Discounted Workshop Registration Prices!

  • $80 COFLT or WAFLT members
  • $20 COFLT student members
  • $40 COFLT retired teacher members
  • $160 non-members
Register before March 2nd for lunch to be included

COFLT 2020-21 Membership (Sept 1-Aug 31): 
  • $50 regular, $25 student/retired


    Address

    "Scott Hall"

    2043 College Way, Forest Grove, OR 97116


    Parking
    Parking Available in any "Open Permit" lot, and lot P is both available and the closest parking to Scott Hall where we are meeting

    Pacific University: Campus Map

    Conference Schedule at a Glance

    • 8:00 – 8:30 a.m. Registration and Light Breakfast
    • 8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Welcome and COFLT updates
    • 9:00 – 12:00 p.m Workshop Morning Session
    • 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. Lunch
    • 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. Workshops Afternoon Session

    Interested in graduate level credit for attending your workshop?

    You can earn 1 graduate level credit from Portland State University for attending the workshop for $265.  If you are interested, please contact our graduate credit coordinator, Bernd Ferner, for more details at "FernerB@pdx.edu"

    Workshop 1: Increasing Student Target Language Use in the Upper Level and Immersion Spanish

    While most language teaching professionals can agree that it’s not reasonable to expect novice level World Language learners to be able to fully communicate all of their ideas in the target language immediately upon entering the classroom, nothing is more frustrating for teachers of higher intermediate, advanced, and Dual Immersion programs, than to hear students who are quite capable of using the target language choosing to speak English in class!

    Most students willingly read, write, and share out in the target language when prompted to, (or when the teacher is standing right next to them!), but once the teacher is away, many will revert to English for peer to peer interactions, discussions, writing, etc. Wall posters that say, Solo se habla español en este aula or class mantras like ¡Español o nada! are well-intentioned, but ineffective if not backed up by meaningful incentives. If you've found this to be a challenge in your classroom, you are invited to learn about systems that can help motivate students to stay very close to the 100% target language use we all strive for in our programs.


    Learning outcomes:

    This workshop will take a dive deep into using dedicated, daily group roles in the language classroom. While there will always be a handful of intrinsically motivated students who will stay on task (including staying in the target language) no matter what, the majority struggle to do so. Grouping students with daily roles can help solve this problem. For many teachers, assigning specific roles to specific tasks is a common and effective practice. Assigning them as a constant, daily role, however, can help to transform the language classroom into a student-led, student-centered, target language rich environment. Tasks as simple as rearranging tables and gathering supplies, or as complex as sharing a group’s analysis of a text or hypotheses about an essential question, become student-guided activities, full of conversationally and academically rich use of the target language. Students become more autonomous learners, taking charge of their learning, with the teacher serving less as the center of instruction and more as a learning guide and aid in troubleshooting. Daily roles also require students to step forward in their areas of weakness on some days, and to step back in their areas of strength on others, allowing others to practice their skills as well.

    Another focus area of the workshop is establishing the essential components of student-managed target language monitoring and motivating rewards systems. Since increasing target language use is incumbent upon students maximizing their limited class time, every second counts. Unfortunately, until teachers become omniscient and omnipresent, students will have to take ownership of this process and hold each other accountable as a community of language learners. While every group of learners is different and there is no perfect, one-size-fits-all system for self-monitoring, working with students to find out what will motivate them to use the target language, even when no one is looking, will reap rewards far beyond the initial time invested in setting up the practice.

    During the morning session of this workshop, we will practice using some examples of the systems, with the afternoon dedicated to a supported work session, where you can make them your own, refine your current practice, and share knowledge and experience with colleagues in the field.

    Brad Francis

    Brad Francis was a late-arriver to language learning. Having grown up in a very monolingual midwest town, after getting a couple of A’s in his high school Spanish classes by being good at creating verb charts and completing crossword-puzzle quizzes, he assumed he had Spanish pretty well figured out. That bubble was soon burst when he arrived at college and met many native Spanish speakers on his freshman soccer team. He quickly realized that his multilingual friends had an ability and experience that he desperately wanted and by the following year, was off to a study abroad program in Argentina.

    After graduating from the University of Nebraska at Kearney with dual majors in English and Spanish, he spent the better part of the next three years working, traveling, and studying in Mexico, Costa Rica, and El Salvador, with stops everywhere in between. His love of working with youth at summer camps in high school and college, combined with his passion for language and culture, led him to return to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for his master’s degree in education. After teaching high school Spanish for a year in Nebraska, he moved to Portland, where he taught Spanish World Language, ESOL, Journalism, Drama, and Technology at Parkrose Middle School from 2003 until moving to West Sylvan Middle School in 2015, beginning his current role as a 7th Grade Spanish Immersion and ELA teacher. As a current parent of both a high school and a pre-school language immersion student, he firmly believes that language and cultural immersion are among the best gifts we can give to this generation of young people, and he’s proud to be a part of a community of educators that is dedicated to the same belief.

    Workshop 3: Experiencing Compelling Comprehensible Input

    "Come and see" is my invitation to you. Come and see for yourself demonstrations with explication of Comprehensible Input, the model for language acquisition developed by Dr. Stephen Krashen. What does Comprehensible Input look like in the classroom? How can we take Krashen's research and apply it to our teaching?


    We will explore activities that capitalize on the basic tenants of Krashen's hypotheses, specifically focusing on:

    1. How to make input comprehensible in the target language

    2. The importance of a low-anxiety environment and how to engender it

    3. How to find messages that students find compellingly interesting

    Come and experience these strategies such as Story Listening, as developed by Dr. Beniko Mason of Shitennoji University, the One-word Image activity developed by Ben Slavic, and classroom games using Comprehensible Input. You can then get your questions answered about applying these strategies in your classroom and then try out the activities yourself with the opportunity to receive feedback.

    This workshop is designed for teachers of any language and will feature demonstrations in American Sign Language and Japanese with accompanying pedagogical instruction in English.

    Learning outcomes:

    Upon completion of this workshop, attendees will be able to:

    • Explain key components of Comprehensible Input

    • Demonstrate some techniques for making instruction comprehensible to students

    • Use Story Listening in their classrooms to teach their target language

    • Use One-word Image activities in their classrooms to teach their target language

    • Apply a variety of games in their instruction using Comprehensible Input

    Fred Stamps

    I wasted nearly a decade using traditional, rote methods of teaching language that were more effective at sucking the life out of me and my students than at helping them acquire fluency in a second language. Now using Comprehensible Input for the past five years has breathed new life into my teaching career and has dramatically improved both the proficiency of my students in the target language and our mutual enjoyment of our time together in the classroom. I am in my fifth year of teaching American Sign Language at Pacific University and my 14th year of teaching at Edison High School. I have also taught English in Japan, ASL at Portland State University, and have tutored American students in Japanese. After being born at a young age in Colorado and spending a couple years in Japan, I attended Brigham Young University-Hawaii for my Bachelor’s degree in English and earned a Master’s in Education at Portland State University. I have been in the Deaf community for the past 17 years. When not in the classroom, I am a very dull person. My interests include travel, making new friends, chocolate donut eating, and Samoan fire knife dancing.

    Workshop 5: Fostering learning engagement in online language teaching

    Our panel of presenters for this workshop will explore the tools and methods used in developing online language courses for Portland State University’s German, French, and Spanish programs. We present our courses and how we fostered an environment of engagement between students, course materials, and faculty. Topics include best practices when onboarding students with an example timeline, grading written assignments with possible technologies/apps, and engaging students using VoiceThread and Flipgrid. We will walk you through how to grade, provide feedback, and set up accounts, as well as discuss some issues with solutions we encountered when teaching online language courses.

    Fostering Student Engagement in Online Language Learning

    Learn about online language course design at PSU. Language Coordinators and Instructors will share strategies and techniques they have implemented in online language courses. Each instructor will share their unique perspective and experience, including reflection on how well the various approaches seemed to work. Participants will hear about strategies for student success and engagement in online courses and will have the opportunity to exchange ideas about how other approaches might work. Four presenters will cover four main topics:

    Onboarding (Jenny Ceciliano): How can we set students up for success? This session explores several strategies for beginning an online language course. We consider the unique needs of adult students taking online language courses, and look at what instructors and programs can do in order to ensure a successful start to the course. Strategies range from communication tips to the overall course organization through a Learning Management System.

    Feedback on Written Assignments (Ines Warnock): This session will explore the current methods available for providing written feedback to online students. It will highlight the limitations of Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and PDF formats, and it will demonstrate the use of TurnItin software for written feedback. The session will cover the creation of feedback marks that can be tailored to specific assignment types and the use of oral feedback on written assignments. The session will explore the features available in TurnItin and help identify which ones are the most useful for language courses.

    Engaging Students Using VoiceThread (Stephanie Roulon): VoiceThread is one of many tools available for delivering content online. In this session, several features of VoiceThread will be discussed, including examples of how these work in practice in an actual online classroom. Instructor experience as well as student feedback will be shared.

    Using Flipgrid (Sarah Schoettler): This session will explore the application FlipGrid and best methods for engagement of both the instructor and learner. It will demonstrate the capabilities of the application in providing feedback, and potential for interaction within flexible timing. The session will explore both best practices and uses in both in-person and online courses.

    Stéphanie Roulon

    Stéphanie Roulon, originally from France, holds a Masters degree in Foreign Language and Literature and a Graduate Certificate in Translation from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She also completed graduate study in French Applied Linguistics at Pennsylvania State University. In France, she graduated from the Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II) where she earned a Maîtrise in droit des affaires. Her research interests lie in the use of new technologies for communication, language learning and teaching, multiliteracies, and French for specific purposes. As PSU’s language coordinator for First and Second Year French, she designed and implemented online courses for First and Second Year French beginning in 2019. She also teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate classes, including Creative Writing in French, Advanced Grammar through the Exploration of Genres, and, French for the professions.

    Inés Warnock

    Inés Warnock received her Masters Degree with Honors from Portland State University in 1999 and since that date, she has been teaching upper and lower division courses at Portland State. Inés is the coordinator of Second and Third-year Spanish. She is also the Challenge Program Coordinator for World Languages at Portland State University. Inés is currently developing a textbook and teaching materials for Second-year Spanish as part of an Open Educational Resources initiative from the PSU Library. A native of Barcelona, Spain, Inés has also developed a Study Abroad program for Third-year Spanish during the summer. Locations of the study abroad program include Barcelona and Oviedo, Spain. 

    She has also been a free-lance translator since 1996. Her interests include literature from Spain and translating/interpreting for community organizations.

    Sarah Schoettler

    Sarah Schoettler is the Senior Adjunct Instructor of German at Portland State University and the lead online German instructor for her department. Sarah studied abroad in Tübingen where she completed her undergraduate degree in German. She holds a master's degree in German through PSU and studied the integration of STEM Education in the L2 German classroom. Sarah brings experience working in k-12 and higher education, as well as coordinating a GAPP exchange with her former high school. Sarah is excited about the flexibility online coursework brings to students, while allowing them to pursue their linguistic interests!

    Workshop 2: Design Meaningful Lessons in Interculturality for the French Classroom

    Interculturality is the focus of the world language classroom when French teachers prepare students to engage in meaningful interactions with people from other cultures by addressing the attitudes, knowledge, and skills necessary for effective intercultural communication (Byram, 2003).  When teachers gain a basic understanding of theoretical frameworks that inform interculturality in the world language classroom, lesson design can powerfully impact the learning experience for language learners. Do you believe that teaching culture is a vital component of the language learning experience?  Would you like to revise some of your current culture lessons to incorporate self-reflection, exploration, and interpersonal communication? This session will introduce participants to Deardorff’s (2004) framework for Intercultural Competence as a springboard for adopting strategies that encourage cross-cultural understanding as students prepare to build reciprocal relationships with culturally diverse people.  During this session, we will share some lesson examples and you will have the opportunity to spend some time revising and drafting new lessons in interculturality for the French classroom. Please join us as we explore and participate actively in French lessons that blend language and culture instruction. Workshop will be in English & French. 

    Learning outcomes

    Participants will be able to:

    • Identify the three components of interculturality:  attitudes, knowledge, and skills
    • Revise current culture lessons to incorporate interculturality concepts
    • Design lessons in interculturality using a theoretical framework (Deardorff, 2004)
    • Create opportunities for students to engage with culture at a deep and meaningful level in the language classroom

    Kristen Nugent

    Kristen has had the pleasure to work in the teaching profession for over 20 years, both as a high school French teacher and as a teacher educator at the university level.  Her experience as a high school French teacher took her from the Chicago Public Schools to multiple public school sites in the state of Nebraska. She obtained her M.A. in French from Middlebury College and her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Educational Studies with an emphasis on world language teaching methods.  Kristen currently serves as the Director of Secondary Education at Concordia University Nebraska. 

    Her passion has always been for the learner as she has tirelessly researched and implemented world language pedagogical approaches that keep the student at the center of instruction.  Furthermore, the majority of her teaching assignments have opened up opportunities to work with diverse students and families, which has enhanced her desire to deliver culturally responsive teaching in the foreign language classroom.  Her dissertation experience allowed her to work with practicing French teachers who were seeking research-based best practices for teaching interculturality in their classrooms. Kristen believes that students in world language classes can learn to become more open to communicating with those from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.  It is in the language classroom that teachers can truly encourage openness and respect for those from other cultures, and thereby positively impact the future for us all.

    Natalie Stamper

    Natalie is a dynamic educator who has been teaching for over 20 years.  She excels in reaching diverse learning styles having taught in a variety of educational settings throughout her career, including K12, immersion schools, and the college level.    

    Natalie is passionate about cultivating curiosity and creativity in the classroom. She focuses on an interdisciplinary approach so students can make connections with other content and follow their own personal inquiries...en français!  Natalie loves exploring Francophone cinema, music, history, and West African art.  When designing lessons, her goal is to allow space for authentic communication, empathy, and interculturality to flourish in the classroom.

    Natalie received her Masters in French Language and Literature from theUniversity of Nebraska in Lincoln where she also received Bachelor degrees in both French and English.  She currently teaches first and second year French at Lewis and Clark College. Her pursuit of lifelong learning was recognized by the French Embassy having been the recipient of two prestigious grants for professional development in France (SPCD, BELC).  Natalie also served on the COFLT board for many years and was president from 2015-2016. She believes firmly in the magic of professional development to re-evaluate and reignite how we teach.   

    Natalie enjoys collaborating with colleagues, spending time with her family and garden, and learning new things!

    Workshop 4: Power Up! Getting Students to Higher Levels of Proficiency

    Learning outcomes: Participants in this “hands on” workshop will gain a deeper understanding of proficiency by scoring student written responses and will further develop teaching strategies and tasks that are interactive and proficiency-based.

    The morning session will focus on foundations of assessing proficiency with some basic principles. Participants will then engage in special hands-on work (computers) using the Avant Advance tool that will allow the teachers to work in language specific groups of 3-4 and score student responses with discussion and then receive immediate feedback on their scoring. The system will also give them reasons why the response was scored the way that it was and what is needed to get it to the next level.

    The afternoon session will then spend a bit more time doing scoring at higher levels to help identify the specific criteria necessary to be at the Intermediate-Mid and High levels. The final portion of the afternoon session will be to focus on helpful strategies to get students to higher levels and allow some working time to produce several engaging writing and speaking tasks that can be used in the classroom to help build higher levels of ability for all students. We will then do sharing on these tasks so that participants will be able to leave the workshop ready to use these tasks and understand some specific strategies to get students to produce language at higher levels. All participants will leave the workshop with a better understanding of specific scoring criteria and strategies to help build higher levels of proficiency in their students across all levels.

    *All participants of this workshop should bring with them a computer and examples of writing and speaking tasks they have used in their classrooms.

    Kyle Ennis

    Kyle Ennis currently serves as the VP of Products and Technology at Avant Assessment, where he brings 30 years of education experience, including classroom instruction, building level technology management and student management and administration. Kyle is responsible for bridging these critical competencies and leading innovation that connects education best practice, assessment and technology in the real world of the classrooms of today and the future.

    Kyle coordinates teacher training and professional development activities that instruct world language supervisors and teachers how to use Avant’s language assessment tools and apply assessment results to their individual classrooms and programs. Kyle works directly with school administrators to identify assessment needs and then develops customized training sessions and workshops to help each program achieve their language instruction goals. Additionally, he oversees technology development initiatives, assisting sales and Assessment Development Teams with technology integration and support, applying his experience from the real world of the classroom to develop and direct meaningful technology solutions for Avant’s cutting-edge assessments and technologies.

    Kyle’s background includes serving as an EFL instructor in Japan for two years, and a Japanese language instructor and technology coordinator at a U.S. high school for over 12 years. He served as President of NCSTJ (The National Council of Secondary Teachers of Japanese) from 1996-1997. He is a member of ACTFL and has been recognized in Who’s Who Among American Teachers in 1995, 1997 and 1998.

    Kyle holds a bachelor of arts degree in English-Language Arts/Japanese from Utah State University and a master of science degree in educational leadership and administration from Portland State University.

    Contact COFLT:
    email us: cofltoregon at gmail com
    COFLT,  A-153, Pacific University, 2043 College Way, Forest Grove OR 97116
    COFLT is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. 

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