Results in BLC Posts
Posted by Victoria Williams on February 7, 2013
This presentation describes a semester-length sequence of lessons structured around closely-watched film clips for fourth-semester Spanish. Based on the implementation of these lessons this semester, and of an analogous application in Italian 4, straightforward guidelines will be presented for the design of sequences of lessons that guide students from a passive to a critical and…
Posted by Victoria Williams on February 7, 2013
Languages such as Czech, with complex grammatical marking and a vocabulary very different from English, are challenging to teach at the elementary level. My project starts from the premise that using a broad range of authentic cultural material, including excerpts from articles, ads, menus, film clips, and songs as the basis for grammatical exposition, drills,…
Posted by Mark Kaiser on January 28, 2013
Invitation to participate in BLC/ETS Language Teaching and Technology Seminar. The Berkeley Language Center and Educational Technology Services welcome your participation in their Spring 2013 seminar on using technology and new media for language teaching. Registration form: http://bit.ly/113fnuO The seminar will meet weekly on Thursdays from 3:30 - 5:00pm in Dwinelle 127, the active learning…
Posted by Victoria Williams on September 12, 2012
Silent cinema represents a useful tool for foreign language instruction precisely because of its lack of verbalized dialogue. Cinematic silence can be used to demonstrate the connections between visual and verbal meaning, provide unique material for a variety of writing projects and in-class exercises, and facilitate discussion about the function of language in genre and…
Posted by Victoria Williams on August 16, 2012
How can the language classroom account for the ecologies of language that generate bilingual and multilingual practices, attitudes, and cultural products? Using texts and media that incorporate French and Arabic, this project develops lesson plans to engage students in the critical appraisal of the values, agencies, and registers that shape language use in francophone cultures. …
Posted by Orlando Garcia on March 3, 2012
The Place of Translation in Higher Education by Mairi McLaughlin, Department of French, University of California, Berkeley The Observer’s Robert McCrum declared 2011 a “boom year” for translation. It saw the anniversary of the King James’ Bible, the flourishing of literature in translation (Stieg Larsson, Haruki Murakami) and a new English version of the Roman…
Posted by Orlando Garcia on February 18, 2012
Language in Film and the Language of Film: Two Semiotic Systems Engaged by Mark Kaiser and Rossella Carbotti, University of California, Berkeley This presentation addresses the use of film clips in the foreign language classroom. Our main focus will be on film as text and how language use in film works in tandem with cinematic…
Posted by Victoria Williams on January 15, 2012
Sensing the opportunity to provide a pedagogical model for the use of music in foreign language teaching, I have created activities that uncover and highlight themes of intertextuality, recontextualization, recognizability, and (re)appropriation through close readings of songs and other cultural texts to which they are linked. My activities are designed to show students how texts…
Posted by Victoria Williams on September 15, 2011
In spring 2009, a 25-minute documentary, Il corpo delle donne (The Body of Women), composed of images selected from 400 hours of television programs, exerted an unexpected impact on an Italian public which over the years had become uncomplainingly accustomed to seeing women made objects of the most explicit forms of degradation, humiliation, and misogyny.…
Posted by Mark Kaiser on September 15, 2011
In all 1st- through 3rd-year Japanese courses at UC Berkeley, students are expected to write several skits over the course of the semester. Each skit is submitted to the instructor for corrections, after which students perform the skit in class. Students appear to enjoy these oral quizzes. While checking 3rd-year Japanese students’ scripts, I have…