News > German
Cori Crane, German Section Head
University of Texas at Austin
ccrane@austin.utexas.edu
Upcoming Events and News
Now inviting abstract submissions for ...
German AAUSC at ACTFL/AATG 2013 in Orlando, FL
"Literacy-Based Instruction in Language Teacher Education" (German AAUSC Session)
For over ten years now, literacy-based instruction has been advocated by collegiate FL educators (e.g., Kern, 2000; Byrnes, 2001; Swaffar & Arens, 2005) as a means for fostering deeper engagement with the target language and its culture than the predominant model of communicative language teaching, and as an organizing principle in curricular design to deal with the outdated bifurcation model of lower- and upper-division courses, as noted in recent professional dialogues (e.g., 2007 MLA Report).
Building on core principles of communicative language teaching (e.g., learning occurs through participation in particular situational contexts) and content-based instruction (e.g., language and content are intricately intertwined), literacy-based approaches serve to deepen students’ knowledge of and ability to use the target language in a number of key ways: viewing language as a system from which to make meaningful choices, seeing the development of a “voice” as an important language learning and teaching goal, and striving to provide students with opportunities to learn about, participate in, and reflect critically on authentic and meaningful literacy events. Given the increased attention to literacy-based approaches in foreign language teaching and curriculum design in recent years, it is crucial that students preparing to teachundefinedwhether for secondary or for collegiate learning environmentsundefinedbecome familiar with the construct of literacy (or multiple literacies), understand how meaning is prototypically created across particular genres and registers, and consider how textual knowledge can best be imparted to FL learners in a meaningful way.
With these goals in mind, this session seeks presentations that can show and elaborate on how to help learning teachers (i.e., graduate student instructors and/or B.A.T. candidates) develop sophisticated and useful understandings of language in text and context that can be used to inform best pedagogical practices for the language classroom at any instructional level. Position papers, reports on best practices, and empirical studies are all welcome.
Send an abstract (250 words) by December 15, 2012 to the session chair Cori Crane (AAUSC German Section Head), University of Texas at Austin: ccrane@austin.utexas.edu.
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Recent German AAUSC Survey:
Thanks so much to those of you who participated in the recent German section AAUSC survey. 37 individuals participated in the questionnaire, which was open from October 7 to November 1, 2012.
Below is an abbreviated recap of the results. The full results can be downloaded here.
1. Membership Status: 75% of the respondents (28 of 37) identified themselves as current members of the AAUSC.
2. Work Rank: Approximately half the respondents (18 of 37) identified themselves as non-tenure track faculty; while the other half (18 of 37) identified themselves as tenure-track or tenured faculty. One graduate student also participated in the survey.
3. Previous Meetings Attended: Approximately two-thirds of the respondents noted that they had attended a previous German AAUSC meeting.
4. Reasons for Attending Past Meetings: Respondents attended past German AAUSC meetings for the following top 6 reasons (ranked in preference):
1. I wanted the opportunity to talk and exchange ideas with fellow coordinators of German programs.
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69.2%
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18
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2. I wanted to meet other German language program coordinators.
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65.4%
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17
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3. I was already going to the CIC meeting for my institution.
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57.7%
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15
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4. I wanted to become more involved in AAUSC.
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42.3%
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11
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5. I was asked to attend.
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38.5%
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10
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6. I wanted to give a talk on coordination-related issues.
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34.6%
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9
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Idea-sharing and networking appear as the most important reasons respondents attended past German AAUSC meetings, followed by CIC institutional participation.
5. Reasons for Not Attending Past Meetings: Respondents cited lack of financial resources (9 of 16), travel distance (8 of 16), and time issues (5 of 16) as the greatest barriers in attending previous German AAUSC meetings. Some respondents noted not knowing about the program in advance or about the AAUSC organization as additional reasons.
6. Most Desirable Activities for Future Meetings: Open discussion (1.26) and exchange of best practices (1.43) were ranked as most important activities for future German AAUSC meetings, followed by panel discussions (1.94), research presentations (2.00), and workshops (2.09). Reading groups (2.54) and the creation of white papers (2.62) were regarded as somewhat important.
7. Future Meeting Venues: Respondents ranked meeting at ACTFL (1.32) as most desirable for future German AAUSC meetings. Holding a meeting at a larger AAUSC event (1.76), at a German AAUSC “retreat” (1.84), and at an AATG conference on curricula (2.03) were also rated as strong possibilities. Meeting at other conferences (e.g., the MLA, AAAL, LTE) were deemed less desirable.
8. Future Meeting Times: Preferences for a German AAUSC meeting were rated in the following order of preference: fall (1.73), spring (2.27), winter (2.48), and summer (3.52).
9. Funding the German AAUSC Section: Most suggestions to use the $250 allocated funds for our German AAUSC section related to funding future meetings (e.g., with food, speakers/presenters).
10. Additional Comments: A few concerns were raised in the “open comments” section about finding enough extended time for coordinators to talk with each other in whatever meeting venue the section decides upon, and the issue of talking with CIC institutions to support CIC coordinators’ participation in a German AAUSC event.
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AAUSC at ACTFL/AATG 2012:
"Graduate Teacher Education: Responding to Educating the Future FL Professoriate"
Saturday, November 17, 2012 from 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Pennsylvania Convention Center (Room 121 A)
At this year's ACTFL conference in Philadelphia, the German section of the AAUSC will be sponsoring an AATG-session devoted to the topic of graduate student teacher education. The current AAUSC volume, Educating the Future Foreign Language Professoriate for the 21st Century, edited by Allen & Maxim (2012), will serve as a springboard for discussion on current issues and trends. Three papers will respond to this important topic:
- Glenn Levine (University of California-Irvine): "A Survey of Graduate Student Beliefs about and Expectations for Pedagogical Training and Professional Development"
- Susanne Rott (University of Illinois at Chicago): "Interdisciplinary Initiatives for the Development of Professional Teaching Abilities of Advanced TAs"
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Per Urlaub (University of Texas at Austin): "Preparing Graduate Students for Developing Educational Outreach Initiatives in the Arts"
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AAUSC Business Meeting and Reception at ACTFL 2012:
Saturday, November 17, 2012
from 4:15-6:30 p.m. at the Marriot (Grand Ballroom Salon L)
The business meeting (open to all language sections) will involve a poster session highlighting work developed through the June 2012 AAUSC/CERCLL workshop, “Implementing literacy-based instruction in collegiate foreign language programs” hosted at the University of Arizona. Three of the five presenters come from our German AAUSC section:
- “Teaching advanced German: Workshop suggestions," Marion Gehlker (Yale University)
- “Using a multiliteracies approach to teach texts in a third-semester German course,” Felecia A. Lucht (Wayne State University)
- “Teaching FL teachers about grammatical metaphor as a key resource of literacy discourse,” Marianna Ryshina-Pankova (Georgetown University)
Please come and bring friends to this event!
Recent Events
Annual German AAUSC Section Meeting 2012:
The German AAUSC Section held its annual fall meeting this year at the University of Wisconsin at Madison on September 28, in conjunction with the annual CIC German Chairs and Coordinators meeting (September 28-29). Monika Chavez and Sabine Gross, representing the hosting CIC institution, put on a stimulating program that involved talks and conversation on topics related to the MLA report, the National Standards, advocacy on college campuses, and third-year German language courses. The following are highlights from the program:
- Reading discussion among coordinators on recent research on the National Standards: Magnan, S. et al. (2012). "Student goals, expectations, and the Standards for foreign language learning" Foreign Language Annals, 45(2): 170-92.
- Lecture by Michael Geisler (Middlebury College): "Revisiting the 2007 MLA Report five years later: Global thinking, local action?", followed by two responses (Sabine Gross, UW-Madison; Cori Crane, UT-Austin)
- Short presentations on advocacy of foreign languages on university campuses by Tom Lovik (Michigan State University), Carl Niekerk (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), and Junko Mori (the Language Institute, UW-Madison).
- Presentation by Monika Chavez and Jeanne Schueller (UW-Madison) on UW-Madison's third-year German course offerings: Speaking, reading, and writing.
- Research presentation by Sally Magnan, Dianna Murphy and Narek Sakhakyan (UW-Madison): "Research report: The National Standards and student goals"
Additionally, the coordinators discussed at length the future of the German AAUSC (and CIC) meetings. There was general consensus among those in attendance that the CIC venue is not an ideal meeting place for the wider German AAUSC group. (Please see the survey link above in this newsletter that allows German AAUSC members to respond to this topic.) Moreover, it was pointed out that the current structure of the CIC meetings (i.e., chairs and coordinators) may be perpetuating the very departmental divides addressed in the 2007 MLA Report. For these reasons, it was suggested that additional departmental members involved in undergraduate education from the CIC institutions be invited to attend future German CIC meetings.
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At last year's ACTFL convention in Denver (November 18-20, 2011), we had three fantastic papers for the German AAUSC session on the topic of developing oral language abilities in advanced German classes:
- Heidi Byrnes (Georgetown University): "From advanced oral 'skills' to advanced ways of meaning-making in academic speaking"
- Astrid Weigert (Georgetown University): "Public speech as an oral genre in advanced German courses"
- Rosmarie Morewedge (Binghamton University): "Consolidating, reinforcing and expanding oral skills at the advanced level"
Also at ACTFL 2011: The annual AAUSC business meeting and reception (for AAUSC members representing all foreign languages) included a panel discussion on “Dealing with misconceptions about the role of scholarship and creative production among language program directors and applied linguists in FL departments and in the humanities.” It was a very lively and productive conversation, with German AAUSC members Hiram Maxim (Emory University) and Glenn Levine (UC-Irvine) contributing as panelists.
last updated November 29, 2012
