http://blc.berkeley.edu en mkaiser@berkeley.edu Copyright 2013 2013-05-15T06:13:27+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/arts_and_humanities_lecturers_honored/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/arts_and_humanities_lecturers_honored/#When:05:13:27Z At a festive reception on May 14, 2013, Dean Anthony Cascardi and Associate Dean Sue Schweik celebrated the distinguished accomplishments of 25 lecturers in the college, all of whom have been teaching at Berkeley for 20 or more years. Among the honorees were Rutie Adler (Hebrew), Ayla Algar (Turkish), Yakuko Konno Baker (Japanese), Danielle Boucher (French), Seda Chavdarian (French), Sally Goldman (Sanskrit), John Hayes (Arabic), Maria Kotzamanidou (Modern Greek), I-Hao Li (Chinese), Ninik Lunde (Indonesian), Karen Møller (Danish), Jaleh Pirnazar (Persian), Annalee Rejhon (Welsh), Chika Shibahara (Japanese), and Bac Tran (Vietnamese). BLC News 2013-05-15T05:13:27+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/in_blc_travel_grant_report/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/in_blc_travel_grant_report/#When:21:06:40Z This past December, I participated in The 2012 International Conference of Teaching Chinese as a Second Language Conference. In this conference, there were several topics covered. The ones that stood out exceptionally were: Teaching Methodology, Language Analysis, Research, and Material and Grammatical Analysis and Presentation. I found these topics to be very helpful to my current teaching methods. For Teaching Methodology, I learned answers to questions like if less time is used to teach pinyin would it adversely affect the quality of instruction or student retention? We also touched on teaching Chinese through Chinese media, for example, dramas and TV shows. Multimedia learning courses provide a broad range of materials for engaged and meaningful learning of both language and culture. Research has shown that having meaningful language input and providing opportunities for negotiated interactions play crucial roles in optimal language learning. As for Language Analysis, we reviewed and differentiated certain critical concepts in teaching advanced Chinese, e.g., semantic vs. pragmatic knowledge of vocabulary, formal vs. official language, or context vs. text in teaching vocabulary, to reveal what is particular about an advanced Chinese language teaching. We also covered the effects of task types on second language fluency and foreign accent by randomly selecting speech samples from four task types, namely, spontaneous speech in classroom settings, telling time, simple picture descriptions and complex picture descriptions. In the Research portion of the conference, we learned about teaching methods from various parts of the world, from Hong Kong to Korea to Texas.  We learned about tailoring courses to be Chinese-for-Specific Purposes, as in how language-learning should be designed for a specific reason based on the students’ needs, and also how to define need as well as types of students. We also learned about the Putonghua Public Examinations in Hong Kong, the unique post-colonial region in Asia and its struggle to find the correct formula to equally test the students. Lastly, the Material and Grammatical Analysis and Presentation touched on a broad range of topics like The Use of Attributes in Chinese and English, Referential Communications in Chinese As a Second Language, and a study about an advanced Chinese learner in the United States. Teaching and learning Chinese as a foreign/second language has recently drawn much attention in the fields of applied linguistics and second language education. The latter topic case study illustrates the effectiveness of Concept-Based Instruction (CBI), the Vygotskian sociocultural theory approach, to help teach Chinese rhetoric to L2 learners. Overall, the conference was a great success. I was able to meet instructors from all around the world, and it was a valuable learning experience to hear how we are all adapting to teach Chinese for the better with its growing popularity. We can only hope to continue to improve in times of advance technology, and with a conference like this each year, it makes it all the easier to catch up and learn. BLC News, Travel Grant Program 2013-05-08T21:06:40+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/blc_travel_grant_report13/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/blc_travel_grant_report13/#When:20:43:37Z I attended the AAAL (American Association for Applied Linguistics) Dallas 2013 in Dallas, Texas, March, 2013. I presented my research entitled “L2 accent transfer in L3 production: Evidence from L3 Korean”. This is my first participation in AAAL, which I’ve heard a lot from the Applied Linguistics people and yes, it was a valuable opportunity to look at the practical techniques and theories applied in real classroom settings. My research is about multilingual effects in the acquisition of foreign language. This research was simply motivated from some of my students who are English native speakers who learned Japanese before learning Korean. They showed very interesting patterns in that they had very strong Japanese accents in their Korean production even though their native language is English. Therefore, I tried to answer the question of whether the L2 overrides L1 in the L3 acquisition (especially for the accent) in my research, “The influence of the second language in third language acquisition”. As a means to assess the degree of influence of the L1 accent and L2 accent in L3 production, an experiment involving the perceptual judgment of a foreign accent was developed. Two groups of native English speakers [(i) five who had not learned any languages other than Korean, and (ii) five who had learned Japanese before learning Korean] produced Korean sentences, and 15 native Korean speakers ranked each production according to the speaker’s dominant accent, either English or Japanese. Based on the results of the quantitative analysis, it is argued that L2 exerts an influence on L3 accent; however, this interference is reduced with an increase in L3 proficiency. I’m always deeply grateful to the BLC for providing funding me to attend conferences. Thank you again for your financial support, BLC!      BLC News, Travel Grant Program 2013-05-08T20:43:37+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/blc_travel_grant_report12/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/blc_travel_grant_report12/#When:19:41:22Z This year the AAS (Association for Asian Studies) Annual Conference was held in San Diego, March 21-24. I myself took part in a roundtable titled “New Approaches to Teaching Advanced Level Vietnamese Language to Heritage and Non-Heritage Students.” A short abstract of our discussion can be found online, at http://www.asian-studies.org/conference, and conveniently included below for your perusal: This roundtable discussion attempts to introduce and discuss creative ways in which Vietnamese language teachers can incorporate teaching Vietnamese culture and society into the Vietnamese language curriculum for advanced level heritage students and non-heritage students. Incorporating culture into the Vietnamese language teaching classroom does not only facilitate language acquisition for language students, develop “grammatical” competency, enhance and enliven the classroom environment and activities, or serve as a therapy but also—borrowing Wittgenstein’s language—opens up a “multiplicity of the linguistic uses.” Discussants will introduce several performance-based and interactive approaches to language-learning process targeting advanced-level heritage and non-heritage students. In the end, the discussants will entertain the idea of a collaborative project to create an advanced level Vietnamese reader textbook in which Vietnamese customs, beliefs, rituals, symbols, norms, knowledge, practices, conventions, songs, proverbs, etc., can be appropriated into the Vietnamese language teaching. As one of the discussants, I presented a paper titled “Teaching Advanced Vietnamese at SEASSI.” (SEASSI is an acronym for the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute, currently housed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.) In case you are interested in the subject, here is a brief summary of my talk: At SEASSI we regularly offer 3 levels of Vietnamese. The first two levels have been using non-authentic materials for the most part. So far authentic materials that we use in addition to our non-authentic texts consist of proverbs and folk poetry. Nonetheless, at the advanced level, students are encouraged to choose their own authentic texts to introduce to the class on a daily basis. Over the years, students of Advanced Vietnamese at SEASSI have proved that they have quite a broad range of reading interests: folk tales, contemporary poetry, contemporary short stories, current events, historical figures, musicians and their works, etc. I also had the opportunity to attend the GUAVA (Group of Universities for the Advancement of Vietnamese in America) and COTSEAL (Council of Teachers of Southeast Asian Languages) business meetings, as well as a few of the 374 panel sessions covering an incredible number of interesting subjects. I particularly enjoyed the panel titled “Routes of Engagement: Vietnam and the Vietnamese Diaspora,” Parts A and B. Again, a short abstract of the papers presented can be found online, at http://www.asian-studies.org/conference/, and conveniently reprinted below: At a growing estimate of 3.5 million at the turn of the twenty-first century, overseas Vietnamese across the world have become an important focus for Vietnam for numerous reasons. This double panel grapples with the multivalent relations between a heterogeneous overseas Vietnamese population and Vietnam as an ‘ancestral land’ and a nation-state in the aftermath of war and Doi Moi. We ask the questions: how do the Vietnamese and Vietnamese diaspora imagine and approach the other in the past and the present? Through which routes and for what purposes does Vietnam engage its diverse overseas populations? How do overseas Vietnamese relate to Vietnam on personal, collective, historical, political, social, economic, and cultural terms? Crossing thematic, geographic, and temporal borders, this multi-disciplinary panel addresses these questions and raises others, as it aims to foreground the significance of Vietnam to overseas Vietnamese and vice versa, especially in the contexts of nation-building, capital flow, global migration, and community formations. As a group, the papers in this panel also cross-disciplinary boundaries by bringing the fields of Vietnamese Studies and Vietnamese Diaspora Studies into conversation. The AAS Annual Conference is always an unforgettable experience, even though it can also be overwhelming in terms of its numerous panels. Carefully choosing which sessions to attend well in advance of the event is a good idea, but once you are at the conference, you will still find yourself frantically running around trying to squeeze just one or two more panels into your already packed schedule, for missing out on a great paper will make you feel miserable for days afterwards. There is one solution to this predicament though: you can try to get a copy of the paper and digest its content on your flight back home.  BLC News, Travel Grant Program 2013-05-08T19:41:22+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/lecture_may_3_2013_blc_fellows_c._byrnes_e._coyne_j._shin_m._vendetti/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/lecture_may_3_2013_blc_fellows_c._byrnes_e._coyne_j._shin_m._vendetti/#When:21:50:31Z Spring 2013 BLC Fellows’ Instructional Development Research Projects Ethnic and National Minorities of the Russian Federation: A Diversity-Based Curriculum for the Intermediate Russian Classroom Erin Coyne, GSR, Slavic Languages and Literatures This presentation will focus on the creation of a diversity-based curriculum comprised of a series of 6 lesson plans designed to introduce intermediate students of Russian to the ethnic and cultural diversity of the Russian-speaking world, as well as to some of the problematics of cultural contact in the context of contemporary Russia. The goal of the project is to give students a deeper sense of the varied identities of speakers of Russian and citizens of Russia, which will ultimately provide them with a more nuanced and informed understanding of Russian Federation culture, society, and politics. Download Coyne presentation as PDF Teaching Non-Hexagonal French Culture in the Language Classroom Maria Vendetti, GSR, French For my project, I have created and trialed cultural materials for use in second-year French classes that look at non-hexagonal (or Francophone) cultures on their own terms. By putting together cultural units that focus on specific geographical places and topics, I expand the idea of engaging with French culture beyond traditional ideas of Paris-centric themes and comparisons between French and the Francophone “other.” Current approaches and materials often focus only on differences between hexagonal culture and other French-speaking cultures, and often do this in terms of debates on negative issues like immigration and colonization, which leave little room for talking about non-hexagonal cultures as distinct sites of linguistic and cultural learning. These resources, made to be shared and collectively revised by instructors, will encourage students to think about French-speaking countries in terms of positive themes and ideas, adding another dimension to teaching culture in the language classroom. Download Vendetti presentation as PDF Teaching History and Memory in the English Language Development Classroom Jaran Shin, GSR, Graduate School of Education Traditionally, learning grammatical patterns, expanding vocabulary, and practicing conversational phrases have been emphasized in second/foreign language classrooms. With this narrow but prevalent way of conceptualizing the goals of language instruction, few teachers fully envisage themselves teaching culture. The current project focuses on a particular way of viewing culture in terms of history and memory. By analyzing empirical data collected at a public high school in Oakland in 2011-2012, I will discuss (a) how students in the ELD class interpreted the historical events described in the course materials vis-a-vis their prior knowledge, experiences, and memories and (b) whether reading historical fiction that reflects the students’ background equips them with an awareness of multiple perspectives. I then discuss some implications of providing students with history-related materials in a language class. Download Shin presentation as PDF Introducing Classical Chinese Corey Byrnes, GSR, East Asian Language & Cultures This talk will sketch the outlines of a future textbook that will introduce not only the rudiments of what is known as Classical Chinese—its grammar, syntax and vocabulary—through readings of primary language texts, but also the cultural, philosophical, religious and material contexts in which texts were created, read and circulated. Download Byrnes presentation as PDF Friday, May 3, 2013 3:00 - 5:00 pm B-4 Dwinelle Hall Curricular Development, Events, Lecture Series, BLC Fellowships 2013-05-04T21:50:31+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/june_2013_professional_development_courses/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/june_2013_professional_development_courses/#When:17:41:59Z Integrating 21st Century Technology to Enhance Communication June 17, 18, and 19, 2013 Cost*: $150 per participant Using technology tools for engagement, learning, and management • Learn how to use free web 2.0 tools to engage students in their own learning. • Be able to find and collect culturally authentic resources in the target language. • Design lessons that align with Common Core and World Language Standards. • Get tips on managing a 21st Century classroom. Bring your own wireless laptop or iPad.Technology applies to both Mac and PC. Leadership Skills Symposium: Developing Teacher Leaders June 20, 21, and 22, 2013 Cost*: $150 per participant Become an effective leader. Have an impact beyond your classroom! • Learn how to plan and lead effective meetings with colleagues. • Practice using facilitation protocols. • Prepare and deliver a professional learning presentation. • Understand how the Common Core and World Language Standards align. • Plan an advocacy event for world languages at your site. Targeted Audience: All teachers and interns of World Languages and English as a Second Language Time: 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m. (Participants will make their own arrangements for lunch from 12:00 – 1:00.) # of Participants: Technology: Minimum 8, Maximum 20. Leadership: Minimum 5, Maximum 15. Applications will be processed immediately until the maximum for the course is reached. If the minimum for the course is not reached by June 3, the course will be canceled and payment will be returned. Location: Berkeley Language Center, Dwinelle Hall, University of California, Berkeley. Applications due June 3, 2013. Payment must be received by June 7. (See application for details.) Cost*: $150 per course, for both courses, $250. Previous EBWLP participants: $125 per course, $225 for both courses. Because our programs are authorized by the State and Federal Government as part of California’s effort to ensure that all schools are NCLB compliant, you may wish to use funds from Title I (Disadvantaged Learners), Title II - Part A (Professional Development), or Title III (English Learners). The flyer for the June 2013 Professional Development Courses is AVAILABLE HERE. Applications for the Technology course are AVAILABLE HERE. Applications for the Leadership course are AVAILABLE HERE. If you are registering for both courses, please complete both applications. Payment may be combined. Registration questions? Contact Victoria Williams at: ebworld@berkeley.edu. Phone: 510-877-4002 ext.19. Other questions? Contact Gail Hetler at: g-hetler@berkeley.edu or 510-877-4002 ext.15. TEACHER APPLICATION DUE: June 3, 2013 PAYMENT DUE: June 7, 2013 BLC News 2013-05-04T17:41:59+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/words_in_action_thursday_april_25_3-6_pm/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/words_in_action_thursday_april_25_3-6_pm/#When:19:31:11Z Don’t miss this celebration of linguistic diversity as UC Berkeley students perform scenes, songs, and poems in Arabic, Armenian, Bitonga, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Chinese, Danish, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Ronga, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, Telugu, Xangana, Xitswa. Directed by Annamaria Bellezza, Department of Italian Studies WORDS_IN_ACTION_FLYER_2013.pdf Events 2013-04-26T19:31:11+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/lecture_april_12_2013_steve_thorne/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/lecture_april_12_2013_steve_thorne/#When:19:38:30Z Languaging and Linguistic Exostructures: Aligning cultural-historical, ecological, and distributed approaches to L2 development by Steve Thorne, Portland State University & University of Groningen, The Netherlands Within a variety of language-related disciplines, there is growing commitment to more holistic and ecologically oriented frameworks that recognize cognition and communication as coordinated, embodied, relational, distributed, and arrayed across mutable patterns of activity that emerge at different time scales. To date, however, such efforts have been primarily oriented toward theoretical and/or research contexts. Applying principles expressed in cultural-historical and ecological approaches to development, extended and embodied cognition, and recent scholarship produced by distributed language theorists, this talk presents a design approach to language learning that is rooted in ecological understandings of cognition, language, and environment. A number of diverse projects and cases will be described: The first involves tracking the development of multi-word unit use among learners of Spanish in largely outside-of-class digital engagement. The second project outlines the intertextual dynamics of event-driven communication, as well as engagement with attendant discourses, that comprise the semiotic ecology of massively multiplayer online gaming environments. A third case study reports on an experimental and currently in progress plurilingual augmented reality game project, the primary objective of which is to semiotically remediate local places and embed language learning resources in phenomenologically rich and embodied experience in the world. These diverse empirical contexts reveal the complexities of languaging activity at the intersection of time, place, and space, and also suggest that the superordinate goals of language education are to catalyze anticipatory dispositions, build recipient-aware interactional capacities, and more broadly, to cultivate semiotic agility. Download presentation as PDF Friday, April 12, 2013 3:00 - 5:00 pm, B-4 Dwinelle Hall Events, Lecture Series 2013-04-13T19:38:30+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/in_memoriam_john_gumperz/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/in_memoriam_john_gumperz/#When:18:32:44Z With sadness, we report that the celebrated Berkeley sociolinguist John J. Gumperz has died at age 91. Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology, John Gumperz devoted his career to improving cross-cultural understanding and his work in ethnography of communication, interactional sociolinguistics, discourse strategies, code-switching, and urban anthropology was extremely influential. He shaped the thinking of many generations of Berkeley students and colleagues worldwide who are grateful for his insight and compassionate guidance. Click here to read the New York Times obituary for Professor Gumperz. BLC News 2013-04-02T18:32:44+00:00 http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/seminar_with_marnie_holborow_march_20_2013/ http://blc.berkeley.edu/index.php/site/seminar_with_marnie_holborow_march_20_2013/#When:18:22:43Z The Language of Neoliberalism; Metaphors and Ideology by Marnie Holborow, Dublin City University. The seminar discusses the impact of neoliberal ideology on language and language use. It will describe the symbolic and semantic mechanisms through which the ideology is articulated, focusing specifically on metaphorical processes surrounding the notion of the market and markets as they appear in public speech and texts. It will discuss cognitive interpretations of these metaphors and whether their validity is constructed on the basis of moral narratives/frames or on socio-ideological factors. It will examine how commodity fetishism informs the metaphorical process and presuppositions when applied to markets. It will identify the ideological effects of market metaphors and also highlight their contradictions and tensions, which, it is argued, are foregrounded in the real world effects of the current recession. Wednesday, March 20, 2013 1:00 - 3:00 pm, 130 Dwinelle Hall VIDEO Events 2013-03-21T18:22:43+00:00