Author: Mark Kaiser

Over the past several years the BLC has seen a sharp reduction in its media duplication operations. What was once a $66,000 per year operation, last year shriveled to less that $6,000. With the retirement of Charles Derden from the BLC last fall, we have limited our duplication operations to a very small operation, to…

As of December 20th, the BLC welcomed Keith Hernandez as a permanent employee. Keith first came to the BLC two years ago as a student worker in the Recording Studio. For two years he worked under Gina’s tutelage, learning BLC operations. Prior to that, Keith had worked at various LA television stations, focusing on audio…

After final exams and through the break, I was engaged in writing a grant proposal to the Department of Education under the IRS program for the development of pedagogic materials to support language instruction in the least commonly taught languages. Our proposal calls for the further development of the Library of Foreign Language Film Clips,…

The BLC with sadness and deep regret announces the passing of Gina Hotta, BLC recording technician, in the early hours on Tuesday, September 29th, of a heart attack. Gina began her work at the BLC on June 11, 2001. She was taking over from Alex Prisadsky, who had been with the BLC for 20+ years.…

My research starts from the recognition of the importance of teaching media literacy in Korean—a form of literacy which is becoming an essential part of language education today, since knowing how to “read” sophisticated layers of multimodal communication in the written mode of technology-mediated communication is becoming more and more a necessary skill for reading…

Featuring Mark Kaiser (MK), Claire Kramsch (CK), and Sirpa Tuomainen (ST) MK: Both of you are back from sojourns in Europe. Can you tell us about what you were engaged in there? CK: I had a semester sabbatical and I spent it in Paris, where I grew up. It gave me the opportunity to go…

The 2007 MLA report calls for a reevaluation of our curricula, approaches, and methodologies with the goal of fostering translingual and transcultural competence (TL/TC). Comparing an instrumental view of language learning to a constitutive view, the report outlines specific goals and analytical skills for students. In addition to acquiring functional language abilities, students “are taught…

Filmmaking is a powerful tool for literacy-based language instruction. Elaborating on the New London Group’s findings, Rick Kern shows that a well-rounded literacy-based program should incorporate four basic curricular components: Situated Practice, Overt Instruction, Critical Framing, and Transformed Practice. Situated Practice involves spontaneous communication without metalanguage. Overt Instruction develops metalanguage by introducing linguistic or social…

Using Assessment for Understanding and Improving Language Education by John Norris, Professor of Second Language Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa. Along with curriculum and instruction, assessment plays a fundamental role in shaping the value and effectiveness of language education programs.  Assessment can and should be used for illuminating learners’ needs, monitoring progress, determining outcomes,…

NB: accompanying lecture slides and audio are forthcoming. Language Ecology Course Information, Syllabus, Reading Psychology/CS 124 and Psychology 290G – Spring 2004 Faculty Dan Slobin - Psychology, Linguistics (coordinator ) Patricia Baquedano-López - Education Andrew Garrett - Linguistics William Hanks - Anthropology, Linguistics Leanne Hinton - Linguistics Claire Kramsch - German, Education Johanna Nichols -…