ACTFL+Conference,+Boston+2010

The workshops that I attended at the ACTFL conference in Boston in November 2010 can be divided into Spanish as a second language, Spanish for heritage speakers, and French. In reference to Spanish as a second language, research has demonstrated that is far more productive to stress reading, listening, writing, and speaking from the beginning of the learning process. Taking this into consideration, some publishing companies are offering textbooks that provide exercises and activities that allow students to develop the necessary skills to master the language and be fluent by the time they reach their AP level course. Many of the activities that are being offered can be used in a variety of ways. For example, a video can be used as a listening comprehension exercise, a song can be used to review grammar, and pictures can be used to teach and review adjectives. Many of these series have web exercises and digital textbooks that provide extra practice and automatic correction online. Internet itself provides a great variety of sources that can be used based on students' abilities and levels. In reference to heritage speakers, placements have become a big issue due to the fact that many students, both at school and college levels, are second or third generation and their linguistic mastery varies considerably. Therefore, placement tests should be linked to the goals of a particular program. At the University of Illinois at Chicago, a placement test has been designed to determine whether students belong to the heritage program or not by choosing, among other questions, a vocabulary section based on the Hispanic population that they serve. Since most of their students are either of Puerto Rico or Mexican descent, they use vocabulary widely used by these two groups. As the tests are graded, one can see the level of familiarity that the student in question has with the language. Another issue that came up at some of the workshops has to do with textbooks. Some of them have, at times, negative connotations that can be offensive to some Hispanic groups. Some expressions and words may not be used in some Latin countries and can be perfectly acceptable in others. The use of "vos" as opposed to "tu" is also an issue since is hardly mentioned in textbooks. The AP French Language workshop addressed the changes that the exam will have effective 2012. The exam will be divided in listening, reading, formal and informal writing, and formal and informal speaking. New textbooks addressing these changes will be available in March 2011 and copies of these books have already been requested for Mrs. McKenna's use. Mrs. McKenna and I will be meeting to go over such changes in detail. The conference also had a great variety of Chinese materials and workshops. Mrs. Li attended workshops and got valuable materials for her Chinese classes at the Middle School. Guillermo Urbina November 23rd, 2010

At the ACTFL conference I attended multiple workshops. The two that I found the most beneficial were Seven Techniques to Encourage Oral Communication in the Classroom and the second one was Strategies for Keeping the Class in the Target Language. All of presenters came to the same conclusion that teacher should speak in the target Language at least 90% of the time. Here are the websites where you can find techniques to encourgage oral communication between the students. [] []

Mari Carmen Naranjo November 25, 2010