This spring brought a new initiative supported by the Berkeley Language Center. From March 10 to 14th, instructors representing 14 languages opened their classrooms to welcome more than 25 graduate students and fellow language instructors interested in expanding their pedagogical toolboxes. The brainchild of Daniel Hoffmann, a lecturer and First-Year Language Coordinator in French who received a UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award in 2023, the Open Classroom Week aimed to facilitate creative exchange and community among both current and prospective language instructors.
For Dakota Robinson, a graduate student in linguistics, the week offered a valuable chance to prepare for future teaching and to get a better idea of how language instruction at Berkeley happens. “It was a unique experience,” she said, “to be in the students' shoes while also seeing the class through the eyes of an instructor. I was able to see what teaching a language class can look like, and gained some new ideas for my future teaching.”
It was a unique experience to be in the students' shoes while also seeing the class through the eyes of an instructor.
French graduate student Kévin Drif expressed appreciation for Open Classroom Week as a way to directly benefit from the depth of instructional experience on campus while teaching his own classes as a Graduate Student Instructor. “As I am still refining and getting to know my teaching style and philosophy, being able to witness the way seasoned professors and lecturers engage with their students in the classroom expanded my vision of what pedagogy could and should look like,” he said. “To be a fly on the wall in a language classroom with a language you don't know yourself is an humbling experience and made me appreciate even more my students' constant efforts in my classroom."
Being able to witness the way seasoned professors and lecturers engage with their students in the classroom expanded my vision of what pedagogy could and should look like.
Reflecting on the week’s events as an act of community, Hoffmann said that it exceeded his expectations in terms of the new connections it fostered and the breadth of participation it drew. He is eager to see the initiative grow in coming years: “Now that faculty and graduate students are familiar with the concept, I’m hoping that future years will bring even more instructors to the table. This is just the beginning!”
