COFLT+2009+Posts

Here's the page for information from the Fall 2009 COFLT conference  I was only able to attend the conference on Friday but I went to some fairly interesting workshops (and also really benefited from the networking time). The first workshop I went to was called Teacher’s Survival Kit. We were given myriad tips and tricks to keep a class running smoothly and ways to balance instruction and classroom management. The presenter had a lot of great ideas concerning how to make absent students aware of what they missed without detracting from a teacher’s already limited time, such as posting an outline of what was covered each day on a blog or posting this information on a bulletin board. She also shared many strategies for encouraging students to do their homework and to only use the target language in class (feel free to ask me about these). I also attended a workshop on incorporating film into the French classroom through contextualizing segments of a film and incorporating associated activities and projects (for example, if there is a scene in a film that revolves around a meal, use that to build a lesson on food vocabulary). My CT recently ordered one of the films the presenter used as an example, so I am hoping to introduce some of her ideas into the advanced classes at Wilson. I was also able to go to a workshop on the potential role of the social networking site [|Ning] - which is like MySpace but not blocked by the school servers – in foreign language education. I am not sure if I am interested in using Ning as a classroom tool, but the workshop got me thinking about ways to implement Twitter and Facebook into my instruction.
 * Savanna:**

I attend the conference on both days and it gave me so many ideas for strategies and lesson plans. I learned a little bit about Spanish basketball and want to get the rest of the info in order to help me rope in those boys in my class. One workshop I attended was all about using the book __The House on Mango Street__. It seems like a great authentic text to use because the stories are short and you can get them in English and Spanish, making it great for all levels and differentiation. It can be modified depending on what sorts of questions you ask the students. Another workshop was on proficiency through film, reading easy literature, and writing. I saw part of a movie in French (which I hardly know any), and I was told to focus on the visuals and the emotions that I felt. After a 10-15 minute segment, I had to record as much as I could about what I saw and felt in the target language. The idea was to get me to use the language as much as possible with little pressure, and it was related to an authentic source! I have adapted this idea for a musical lesson plan about the song //Clandestino// by Manu Chao. Other workshops were about teaching through song and TPR, peer assessment, and some that I got suckered into that were promotional. Overall, I enjoyed the conference and got many new ideas for fun, creative lesson planning.
 * Tracy:**

The COFTL Conference was a great way to get a pulse on what other folks are doing—good or bad. I would imagine the workshops themselves were topics of high interest or were some of the more groundbreaking topics. However, if that were truly the case, if the Music in Japanese Classrooms workshop were either, it gave me great confidence to teach, to put it euphemistically. There were a few songs I starred for later adaptation, but for the most part, I was not enlightened or inspired. However, I did admire the joviality with which the Japanese teachers—my future colleagues—participated, lending one to believe they were actually learning or having fun. I respect people who are good sports and look forward to getting to know them more. And that, I would have to say, is one of the greatest perks of these conferences—the ease with which one can network. I accidentally met my Winter term CT this way! The next 2 presenters were stellar and shared practical information. One of the honored instructors at the conference (all of them Japanese, by the way) promoted an inductive approach to grammar instruction, which meant the instructor focused on providing plenty of input, while the student focused on getting across a message, while the grammar was later considered after some rudimentary fluency with the expressions. I appreciated her approach, activities, and lightness of spirit. Giving students enough input, enough repetition is one of the great challenges of language teaching and her method certainly will do it. I am a fan of the practical. A 20-year veteran of Japanese language teaching, recently retired, provided a multi-page listing of what she considered the most effective ways of teaching Japanese and speed-talked the whole way through, because she wanted to explain everything. Some winning language activities that were her mainstay of teaching included flash card activities, using magazine pictures for inspiring dialogues, Q & A and captions; fast-paced Q & A of 10 questions; having a motto of “no prep,” i.e., shifting the balance of preparation/work to the students; creating stories from pictures; and using graphic organizers. Hitomi Tamura was nothing short of amazing and I can’t wait for her to sit down and write a book of techniques and activities. 
 * Joelle:**