Lectures by BLC Fellows (Rosenfield, Zhang, Nelson, Somoff, Perelmutter)

Fall 2004 BLC Fellows Instructional Development Research Projects

 

University Classroom Language for IGSI’s
Ellen Rosenfield, Lecturer, GSI Teaching and Resource Center
International Graduate Student instructors (IGSIs) need authentic practice materials to prepare themselves for the daunting task of teaching introductory level courses in their disciplines in English.  In addition to learning the appropriate discourse markers in English to perform teacher tasks such as emphasizing a point.  IGSIs need to understand something about the informal, interactive nature of the typical American university classroom.  I have videotaped discussion sections at UC, then transcribed segments of these tapes to use as models for IGSIs and as a springboard for discussion.  We will view a few of these clips and talk about their pedagogical uses.

Teaching Mandarin Chinese as a Second Dialect
Lihua Zhang,, Lecturer, East Asian Languages & Cultures
Teaching Mandarin Chinese as a second dialect to Chinese dialect heritage learners is a special area in language education.  My research project shows important characteristics of Chinese dialect heritage learners and their needs, and then makes recommendations for designing a Mandarin couse for them.

Lost (and Found) in Transformation (and Transduction): Synaesthesia and Multimodal Text Creation
Mark Nelson,, GSR, School of Education
As Gunther Kress (2003) explains, any new theory of meaning must centrally feature the complementary processes of transformation and transduction, the purposive reshaping of semiotic resources within and across modes, respectively.  These processes, Kress also asserts, are in concert, the engine that drives the psychological machinery of synaesthesia, referring here to the production of emergent meaning in multimodal communication contexts.  In this paper I will attempt to articulate and evaluate instances of synaesthesia at work in the “multimedia writing’ processes of several undergraduate L2 writers.  I will suggest that synesthetically derived meaning is naturally attendant to the process of multimedia text creation, which potentially entails both limiting and amplifying effects as regards the project of authorial intentionality and voice.

Ünder the Textual Mask: Toward Alternative Strategies in Teaching Writing to Heritage Speakers
Victoria Somoff, GSR, Slavic Lang. & Lit.
My research project consists of researching a theoretical framework to analyze my experience teaching writing to heritage speakers of Russian in the fall of 2003.  I will demonstrate the conflict that heritage learners face when required to write in their first language and suggest that the heritage learner has a need and a potential to acquire writing skills in their heritage language according to the rules of first language acquisition.  I will explain why traditional writing assignments in foreign language classes do not work for heritage speakers.

Web Logging to Enhance the Second Language Classroom
Renee Perelmutter, GSR, Slavic Lang. & Lit.
The last four years have seen the emergence and rapid groth of personal online publishing.  Personal websites with dynamically updated content, i.e., web logs, were originally used for alternative journalism and technology discussions.  Now that web logging has grown as a technological and sociological phenomenon, it embraces a wide variety of online publishing based on the principle of community participation.  Web logs can be used as a powerful teaching tool, expanding the educational experience beyond the classroom.  My project uses the tools and concepts of web logging to create an online communal writing experience for second language learners.

Friday, December 10, 2004
3:00 – 5:00 pm
B-4 Dwinelle Hall

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