Events
- Annual Convention
- Great Teaching Round-up
- Leading from the middle
- fall conference for faculty leaders
- The Texas Network
"I think there is something more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren't enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision."
Events: 2011 Foreign Language Schedule
Foreign Language Summary
Friday, 9:30 - 11:00 a.m.
"Teaching Grammar Yesterday and Today: The Round Peg in the Round Hole"
Speaker: Audrey Heining-Boynton, Professor of Education and Spanish, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Saturday, 10:30 - 11:45 a.m.
"Using Social Media to Guide Students toward Transcultural Competency"
Speaker: Ann Abbott, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Friday, January 28th, 9:30 - 11:00 a.m.
"Teaching Grammar Yesterday and Today: The Round Peg in the Round Hole"
Speaker: Audrey Heining-Boynton, Professor of Education and Spanish, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Teaching grammar has changed over the decades. The whys and hows of the evolution will be discussed as well as effective ways to present grammar in today's world.
Biography:
Audrey Heining-Boynton is a Professor of Education and Spanish at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she has taught Spanish and Education courses for many years. She has won many teaching awards including the prestigious ACTFL Anthony Papalia Award for Excellence in Teacher Education, the Foreign Language of North Carolina Teacher of the Year Award, and The UNC ACCESS Award for Excellence in Working with LD and ADHD Students. Dr. Heining-Boynton is a frequent presenter at national and international conferences, has published more than seventy articles, curricula, textbooks, and manuals, and has won nearly four million dollars in grants to help create language programs in North and South Carolina. Dr. Heining-Boynton has also held many important positions: President of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL 2005, The Year of Languages), President of the National Network for Early Language Learning, Vice President of Michigan Foreign Language Association, board member of the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina, committee chair for Foreign Language in the Elementary School (FLES) for the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP), and an elected Executive Council member of ACTFL.
Saturday, January 29th, 10:30 - 11:45 a.m.
"Using Social Media to Guide Students toward Transcultural Competency"
Speaker: Ann Abbott, Associate Professor of Spanish, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
“Students, please turn on your cell phones.” Faculty usually demand that students turn off their phones when the bell rings and class starts, but using them to access social media can enhance the classroom experience. Furthermore, through well-designed activities, students’ engagement in real give-and-take conversations over social media can shape their progress toward translingual and transcultural competencies. Following a brief overview of the research, I will present several activities that introduce social media to students, require them to use it to exchange information and then use that information to connect with Spanish-speaking communities.
Biography:
Ann Abbott is Associate Professor of Spanish at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on student learning outcomes in Spanish community service learning (CSL), and she teaches courses on social entrepreneurship and business Spanish. She is the author of "Comunidades: Más allá del aula," and she blogs at http://spanishandillinois.blogspot.com/. Ann is also a Plenary Speaker for the 2010 ACTFL Convention and will be presenting “The Lost ‘C’: The Communities Goal Area.”
Foreign Language Section Chair:
Janett Hillar, Houston Community College-Southwest