March 21, 2024 • 41 mins
This episode of the EdCuration Podcast is brought to you by Sanako Connect at Multimedia Solutions Inc.
Guest Stephanie Knight from the Center for Applied Second Language Studies, explores the paradigm shift in world language learning catalyzed by technology integration, the significance of starting foreign language study early, and how global economy shines a spotlight on the shifting educational landscape.
We also discuss the ingenious iAgents 21st Century Global Competence Curriculum, a CASLS initiative aimed at solving 'resource scarcity' with creative approaches. This curriculum makes language learning an interconnected endeavor by introducing 18 different languages to elementary learners intersecting with fundamental subjects like math and English.
The episode also uncovers crucial insights into the rising demand for bilingual skills in the job market due to increasing globalization, cognitive boosters derived from learning a foreign language, the role of AI technologies in facilitating multilingual transactions, and the transformative potential of the Intercultural Pragmatic and Interactional Competence Framework.
We scrutinize the effectiveness of language learning strategies in the modern digital age and the use of mixed reality for enhancing language learning experiences. Further, we discuss opportunities provided by the Center for Applied Second Language Studies to diverse learners, teachers, and leaders, and how to select high-quality language instruction programs that aligns with defined learning objectives.
This episode gifts you with practical strategies and tools to amplify your language-learning experience in the digital era.
Resources:
Sanako Language Lab from Multimedia Solutions is an agile, easy to use full-featured live online language lab. Teach any language in classrooms and remotely at the same time. No additional workload. Web-based. Runs on all browsers using PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones & Chromebooks. Teach synchronously or asynchronously.
Connects speaking pronunciation and listening activities develop students' fluency and confidence in any language. Developed following highest standards in accessibility guidelines to be accessible also for students including with disabilities such as deaf and visual impairments
Explore the resources of University of Oregon's Center for Applied Second Language Study
Learn more about Stephanie Knight here, or reach out at knights@uoregon.edu
Check out the Radio Ambulante podcast, with Spanish study and educational resources!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This episode of the Ed Curation Podcast is sponsored by Multimedia Solutions,
Inc., representing Soneco Language Labs that includes online language learning
solutions and Soneco Connect,
an easy-to-use, full-featured, synchronous online language lab that offers classroom
and remote teaching simultaneously without any additional workload.
(00:23):
Soneco Connect can be accessed from any classroom or any location simultaneously.
Use any device. All that is required is an internet connection,
no need to install apps, servers, no maintenance, or yearly upgrade fees.
With customers in 120 countries and over 80,000 plus classrooms globally,
(00:44):
Seneca is the global leader in language labs and language teaching software.
Seneca has become the industry standard tool for professional language teachers
in high high schools, and universities.
Multimedia Solutions is currently offering a 60-day free trial of Sanico Connect,
which includes training at no charge.
(01:06):
Inquire at edcuration.com or through the links in the episode notes.
You're listening to the Ed Curation Podcast.
We're bringing you stories from educational leaders about the instructional
resources, practices, and movements that are reshaping learning.
Our guest today, Stephanie Knight, likes to say that a career in education found
(01:28):
her rather than the other way around.
After studying Spanish, mass
communications, and international business at Western Kentucky University,
she was searching for a career that would allow her to use Spanish in a meaningful
way, which of course landed her in a middle school classroom.
She later did graduate work in second language acquisition,
(01:49):
which armed her with all kinds of new strategies that she took into her next
teaching role at an international high school and eventually wound up at the University of Oregon,
where she currently works as the assistant director at the Center for Applied
Second Language Studies.
One of only 16 national foreign language resource centers in the United States.
(02:14):
We look a lot at intercultural and pragmatic competence in our center.
I'm really excited to talk to you about the intersection of the integration
of technology with world language
specifically, because that's kind of changing the landscape, I think.
I'd love to take a step back before we jump into that and just talk about world
(02:37):
language in general, because typically and historically,
the United States has not put a high emphasis on the acquisition of a second
language and world language studies.
And also we do it a little bit backwards because what we know from research
is that children are at their best language learning years young,
(02:59):
even in their preschool age years, right?
And then it goes down, I think, starting like in third or fifth grade.
I'm sure you know this better than I do. And we don't typically start those
classes until secondary, middle school, and mostly high school,
after we've already passed our primary language learning years.
(03:20):
And so can you, for our listeners' sake, just kind of make the case for the
importance of starting world language and foreign language study and starting it early? Sure.
Certainly. I think anytime we have a narrative, and just to summarize the narrative
that you have articulated here,
(03:42):
that language learning is not necessarily very important, or it's certainly
not as important as other subject areas,
which I think is an easy one to corroborate if we look at the fact that,
for example, like you mentioned, language study doesn't typically start for
many learners until secondary.
Also in terms of the number of
credits students are required to achieve when they graduate sometimes
(04:04):
they don't have to get any credits in a world language depending on
state and local requirements other times it's one
or two years as opposed to you know four years as we see is typical in mathematics
and english language arts and those areas and even in the sciences we typically
see three years so we do see i think this less emphasis curricularly speaking
(04:26):
than we we do in other subject areas.
What I think, though, anytime we see a narrative like this is that we have to
ask ourselves, who is saying the narrative and why?
And as I've gotten to work at the Center for Applied Second Language Studies,
and I'll use our acronym the rest of this interview, probably CASELS,
is how we refer to ourselves.
(04:47):
But as in my work at CASELS, I've found these beautiful, incredible,
rich pockets of language learning throughout the country, the state of Utah
and And their dual language immersion program comes to mind.
Delaware has incredible services. And there are also pockets in a lot of states
throughout the country.
And they have huge infrastructures for world language learning,
(05:09):
starting at kindergarten, all the way through 12th grade, in place already.
So we see it. It exists. There are people who believe that language learning is important.
Where I think we fall back onto that narrative of the lack of importance is
really an issue you about resource scarcity.
It takes an incredible amount of time.
(05:32):
To develop educators. It takes an incredible amount of expertise to teach perhaps
a subject area in addition to world languages, as well as world languages.
Because of that resource scarcity, along with issues like funding and only so
many hours in the day, we have student-teacher ratios.
For example, my son, his elementary school, they wanted world language teachers.
(05:56):
There wasn't a a space given the teacher to student ratio within the school
that they could hire another teacher because they were already maxed out.
And so the PTA actually raised all the money to fund a complete extra teacher
so that the students could have access to world language,
which obviously brings into mind huge issues related to equity and access and
(06:20):
learners who are at schools that that don't have PTAs, that can't fund this
teacher to be there, and all of those things.
So if we boil it down to this issue of resource scarcity, we really have to
start thinking about, well, what are better and more creative ways that we can
address this resource scarcity,
other than just saying, well, we need more teachers, and we don't have the right
(06:42):
ratio, we can't hire them, and that's the end of it.
Better and more creative solutions are a requirement since in 2017,
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences established the aspirational goal
that all, as in every single U.S.
Learner, would receive world language instruction.
(07:02):
So in response to the very targeted problem of resource scarcity,
CASELS is working on a partial solution called the iAgents 21st Century Global
Competence Curriculum.
What this curriculum does is it introduces elementary learners.
K through six to 18 different languages.
And while certainly that introduction is not enough to establish proficiency
(07:26):
at any high level at any of those languages, it does expose them,
we've been very intentional in making this curriculum cross-curricular.
So we look at common core standards in math and in English language arts,
and we try to embed those within the curriculum in addition to the world language study.
We look at different science standards. We look at different social studies standards.
(07:49):
We want each unit within the curriculum to be modular. So a teacher who's teaching
science and maybe wants to pull in a little little bit of German,
could pull our German recycling unit and use part or all of it in their classroom
instruction to give the students more exposure to those languages.
Can you talk a little bit about just the advantages to students?
(08:12):
We've become a global economy, and we know that more and more jobs are preferring, if not demanding,
that students have language skills, second language skills, because we're We're
working on a global scale now.
So can you just talk about the opportunities and the shifting landscape in terms
(08:33):
of being bilingual? I would love to.
I taught Spanish, but I am highly qualified in economics as well.
And we oftentimes talk about the size of the United States is what allows for
these degrees of isolationism.
We are at a size that the United States within the country can create a lot
(08:55):
that is self-sustaining.
So I think that relates back to this idea of language learning being less important.
The more and more we have these international and globalized networks of communication,
the more we see that language learning...
Is not an option. And I think you highlighted some of, or alluded to some of
(09:20):
those economic benefits already.
Certainly you're more marketable on a job market. If you can speak more than
one language, you open up the audience, you can more directly communicate with.
And certainly there are a lot of cognitive benefits.
We see a lot of benefits in bilingual brains.
For example, improved concentration has been reported, faster and more accurate
(09:40):
thinking and different cognitive tests have been reported.
And so we see this mental plasticity that is not necessarily as present in a
monolingual brain. So we have all of these benefits.
What we have right now, in addition to this increasingly globalized world,
are these shrinking barriers, which are becoming less and less relevant because of AI technologies.
(10:05):
I mean, certainly, I think we used to think a lot lot about language learning and transactionally.
So if I travel abroad, how am I going to rent my apartment?
I'm going to have to know these words. I have to engage in this service encounter with the landlord.
That's what's going to have to happen. Or I need to change my hotel reservation.
So how do I call? Who do I talk to? How do I know how to phrase those things?
(10:27):
All of those things. We thought about these transactions.
The reality is, is a lot of AI can help us engage in these transactions already.
So we have this very complex environment that we as language educators are facing.
In one way, the surface level knowledge of our language learning,
that just content specific, what words mean what, in which languages,
(10:51):
can be handled by language.
AI, which is increasingly accessible by most people. We also have this idea
that there's more collaboration needed around the world.
There are more ways that our barriers are really being lowered.
So we're communicating more rapidly and more efficiently with people from other backgrounds.
So I say all this to say what I care most about in terms of the benefits and
(11:17):
the opportunities for language learners is I think, and this is something that
AI can't replicate at this point.
This is something that doesn't go away, because I think about the effective possibilities.
I firmly believe that exposure to languages improves one's ability to be empathetic,
to understand or at least see life from someone else's point of view,
(11:39):
someone else's experience.
And even if it doesn't change your own beliefs, because I would not advocate
that somebody has to change in order to be a language learner,
it allows you to see where someone
else is coming from, which is always a ground for more conversation.
Another tool they've developed at the Center for Applied Second Language Studies
(12:00):
is called the Intercultural Pragmatic and Interactional Competence Framework.
But don't panic because Stephanie's going to explain what that very wordy title entails.
What our former research director, Dr. Linda Forrest, and then our director, Dr.
Julie Sykes did, along with some colleagues at Georgetown and a few other experts
in the field, as they looked at all of these ontologies for intercultural and pragmatic competence.
(12:25):
There are over 50 published ontologies. They're incredibly heterogeneous.
And what they said was, well, what do we see in all of them?
For someone to be interculturally and pragmatically competent,
what are the skills that they all have in common?
And they were able to isolate four skills.
One is knowledge. This is what AI is good at. This is what textbooks are really good at.
(12:47):
And that is grammar and vocab. this is how I make a coherent sentence in the
target language to do something with.
But then the other three areas and connect the head and the heart a little bit more.
One of the other skill areas is analysis.
So here I, maybe I know there are eight different ways to greet someone in a target language.
(13:09):
And I pick the greeting that I think is most likely to establish a good relationship with somebody,
or maybe I am in a rush and I know that in the target language,
it's expected that I stop and
talk to somebody when they say hi to me on the street, but I have to go.
And so I make the choice to explain, well, I have to go and I can't talk right
(13:30):
now, even though that is outside of the presumed expectations.
So this is where I start thinking about what I want to cause,
what we call it the illocutionary force, but the intended meaning of what I
want to say and how I want to convey it.
The third area I'll talk about is subjectivity.
That's this idea that we don't want learners to leave their identity at the door.
(13:52):
I think it's easy to think about language learning and when we think about cultural
norms and intercultural norms
as a space where we have to appropriate what the target group is doing.
But in reality, our learners are themselves and they will build their own identities
within the language that they're studying.
There's a beautiful study on subjectivity from 2019.
(14:16):
Ishihara and Teron are the authors there. and what they discovered as they looked
at different learners and how they chose to engage or not engage in certain cultural norms.
And what one learner's experience documented was that he or she,
I cannot remember the pronoun that was utilized, originally didn't use honorifics
(14:38):
in Japanese because they're so hierarchical.
And that did not jive with that person's concept of how we should treat people.
They prefer to flatter hierarchy.
And so they chose not to use honorifics. And then that person really wanted
to participate in some business communities and realize that in order to effectively
participate, they would have to start using honorifics in their normal communications.
(15:02):
And so that person actually chose to originally flout a norm for a very intentional
reason, and then to appropriate the norm in order to achieve their goals.
And so we see this dynamism at place for learners. And we want to honor that,
but we need them to be able to articulate it.
We don't want it to be an accident that they conformed or flouted the norms.
They really need to understand what's at stake, what's at play in those decisions.
(15:24):
And then the last piece is related, it's awareness. And the awareness piece
means essentially that I can read the room.
I can see that whatever choice I made, what impact it created and decide if
I want to repair it, or maybe it was the exact impact that I intended and I
don't need to repair, pair, but it's that ability right there.
And that to me is the actual real benefit of learning a language.
(15:48):
Yes, cognitive, yes, economic, but we're building, I think, humans that have
this adaptability to a variety of contexts that they might encounter.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I'm really wanting to
focus for a minute on what you said about your area of passion and feeling like
(16:10):
one of the huge benefits and primary benefits for language learning is just
this idea of being able to connect and feel empathy and have understanding for other people.
I speak French and I lived in France for a while and each language has certain
ideas and concepts that may not translate well into another language or maybe any other language.
(16:37):
And even still, I've been living back in the United States now for, gosh, 20 years.
There are still phrases that only come to me in French because they don't exist in English.
That idea, that exact idea or way of thinking about something or way of describing
something just doesn't exist in English.
(16:58):
So it only comes to my mind in French and there's no way to say it.
Can you talk about examples of that?
Language is incredibly complex. Communication is an inherently advanced endeavor.
If we think even this conversation right now, there's a lot going on that could
impact our understanding of one another.
(17:19):
Certainly we have environmental factors like the audio could cut in or out or
the volume could get wonky and And we couldn't understand each other because
of that. Or the screen could go off.
And so one of us feels like we're talking essentially to a blank screen.
And we have no idea if what we're saying is making sense or if the person is
understanding where we're coming from.
So we have all of these factors that we're constantly adapting to when we're
(17:41):
communicating with someone.
Layer that on on these cultural expectations that are diverse across groups, subcultures.
And this is also a bit related to subjectivity. the idea that there are individual preferences.
So I might be able, for example, to apologize to a friend who speaks the target language really well.
(18:03):
In one context. And then I try the same exact strategies. Like for example,
explaining what happened, you know, I'm so sorry. I tore your sweater.
I was running through the store and it hooked on a nail and it ripped.
It was a complete accident.
I will take you shopping to buy a new one later. Maybe that's my apology.
And then the next friend I have a similar issue to, maybe I'm just bad at wearing
(18:25):
sweaters. I don't know, but I'm right.
I tell them the same story essentially, because it's the same thing has happened to me twice.
And that person really really prefers that it gets replaced faster.
So they don't want me to take them shopping. They want me to Venmo them $50
so they can buy themselves a new sweater.
What we start to see is that I, as a learner, might be completely confused. This worked before.
(18:48):
Apologizing this way absolutely worked before.
Where now apologizing this way is not working because of an individual preference.
Maybe one of them aligns with cultural norms that I realize,
or I don't even realize that that the norms exist. It could be a variety of issues.
All that to say, to be successful requires a lot of attention and time and training
(19:09):
our learners in those four areas, knowledge,
analysis, subjectivity, and awareness, and building those skills so that they
can start to adapt strategically.
So where I've seen my learners being most successful is when we are sparking
their minds in class, when we're having them start to be really inquiry oriented
and invite their own experiences to the table.
(19:33):
So they are learning and practicing.
And so in that way, my classroom always rewards risk-taking.
I was always so proud to see them be gutsy with what we were learning or doing in the class.
And I really wanted to make our environment that, that, which also meant that
I couldn't penalize their grades.
(19:54):
So something where we think of, I would call it a very old school pedagogical
approach to world language learning would be a student starts off with a 100
on a paper or whatever it is.
Maybe they wrote a news article or an email and they start.
And I, as a teacher tell them, you know, for every error, like every grammar
error or adjective, you know, verb agreement error, adjective error,
(20:17):
whatever it is, as I identify, minus one point.
Every missing accent mark is minus half a point. And I start at 100,
and then I just start chipping away at their grade.
You can't do that if you're celebrating risk-taking, because the students have
no incentive to do something hard or gutsy, because the likelihood is they're
going to make an error when they do it.
So you have to change how you grade and really establish trust for the learners
(20:41):
that when they engage in these nuanced, nuanced, complex responses to whatever the situation is.
That you will celebrate it and not demotivate that type of work.
Music.
If you, your school or district is looking for a creative, easily adaptable
(21:04):
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This is B. Cattell, President of Multimedia Solutions, Inc.,
representing Sanico Language Labs and Language Learning Solutions.
We are proud to sponsor this episode of the EdCuration podcast. podcast.
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(21:27):
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(22:16):
for your school's IT department.
I think that we all want instant, we all want quick fix, like we wish we could
take a pill and wake up speaking Russian the next day.
So these apps, these online apps, and these mobile apps have become super popular,
(22:37):
like Duolingo and Babbel and other online learning platforms.
What are your thoughts on those? Are they effective? I mean...
Yeah, I have very strong opinions.
I think some of it, I'll provide a little framing before I provide the opinion.
What you do in the classroom may not prepare you for what you do in the real world.
(23:01):
Whatever your real world is, your real world might be World of Warcraft on a
target language server and you're practicing there.
Your real world might be a trip to France.
Your real real world might be a social media or fan fiction,
whatever your real world is, we want what you do as a learner to translate to that space.
(23:21):
We call that having social and ecological validity, this idea that it's transferable
to the space I need it to work in.
When that doesn't happen, I think at least anecdotally, we see attrition.
People feel like I put in all this work in this environment and it didn't let
me get to where I wanted to be in my real world.
(23:46):
So what's the point? And they give up. And we understand that sentiment.
And I think with a lot of these language learning apps,
they create promises, but not necessarily an environment that will be socially
and ecologically valid for the learners who interact within them.
(24:09):
So if a learner is using these tools, which there are great reasons to use these
tools, Duolingo, I'll speak to for example, Duolingo has lots of research,
particularly on vocabulary acquisition of novice learners.
So that have really positive indications.
It seems like interacting on these
spaces consistently helps the learners acquire vocabulary quite well.
(24:32):
That's wonderful. That is something we don't want to impugn.
And if that is a space that's motivating the learner to study a language,
then by all means, they should study and use that space.
However, if their goal is.
Is to engage in face-to-face interactions, and they've done all this vocabulary
practice and grammar practice,
(24:52):
and they're not prepared for the face-to-face interaction, then they go to try
it because they think they are, we have a problem.
I believe that's why we see so much attrition, not only in world language coursework across the board.
I think the most recent census done by the Modern Language Association was 2016,
where I believe all languages but Korean and showed attrition in terms of enrollment.
(25:17):
And then if you look at some of the data for like a Duolingo,
you see pretty great attrition as well.
A small minority of learners interact and they have the little owl who does
all the great, all these great gamified elements really work,
like encouraging you to not lose your streak and all of these pieces.
So we do have learners that really buy in and they really do it,
(25:37):
but you see that the majority of people eventually stop using the tool.
School. And there's a variety of op-eds where people have written that the reason
they quit was because they went and they traveled abroad and they couldn't do
anything that they thought they'd be able to do when they got there.
And so we see this idea of less ecological validity than we'd like.
(25:57):
Babel is interesting because Babel is more conversational.
I did some research on Babel a few years back and I felt more like I was having
a conversation than in some of the other spaces.
And I recently saw some data that indicates that 50% of Babbel users renew their
subscription at the end of the year, which speaks to the idea that they do feel
(26:21):
like they're getting what they want out of the platform.
It all boils down to what the learners want to do with language.
I think in general, mobile apps have this wonderful benefit of connecting people.
A resource that Stephanie personally loves and endorses is NPR's Radio Ambulante,
a podcast in Spanish with an accompanying language app.
(26:44):
We've linked it in the episode notes for your convenience. convenience.
Some of it's pop culture, some of it's historical, very contemporary feel to this podcast.
I love it as someone who doesn't get to be around Spanish speakers all the time.
I love somebody who is an ongoing Spanish learner the rest of my life.
There's an app that accompanies the podcast called Jive World Español.
(27:07):
And it is a really nice app for listening comprehension, which you might guess
given the fact that it's associated with a podcast.
And so learners are are listening and seeing texts while they're listening.
And so we have these two modes of input to really support.
Listening comprehension. And so I think when we look at the features,
we want to think about what is the goal of the person using that tool and if
(27:33):
those features actually have the affordances to match those goals.
One thing that I think I know about language learning is that it's more effective
done in small chunks more often than bigger chunks less often.
So our typical like one hour a week Spanish class might be less effective than
(27:57):
the 10-minute-a-day app. Am I right about that?
So frequency is important. You bring up a great point.
It is one of my number one concerns with AB schedules for high school students
is learning a world language.
So some AB schedules, it's just every other day. They're in all their classes
for the whole school year.
(28:18):
Other AB schedules, you know, they're in Spanish or French or Latin or Japanese,
whatever their world language is, one semester for the school year.
And that's their whole year's credit.
Obviously, it's a learning loss, then skill loss, because you atrophy if it's not used.
So that frequency really does matter. I think additionally, the time on task matters.
(28:42):
The more More time learners spend in a target language, the better off they
would be in terms of acquisition.
But related to that is that it needs to be focused engagement.
So I think all of those things have to happen together.
I love digital tools because they are on demand for most of us.
(29:03):
Reached a point particularly after COVID I one
of the benefits I saw
across school districts is most students actually have
a device now that the school issues to
where if a student wants to make their own flashcards on Quizlet or Conjugamos
or one of the other thousands of app you know flashcard apps they can or there
(29:25):
is a Spanish language app that we worked on called Lingro to go along with Lingro learning.
If they wanted to complete a unit where they look at different ways to form
requests, they could do that on the bus or at home.
And so I love that digital tools provide us these options.
(29:46):
Again, our learners need to know what to expect out of their digital tools.
One of the most pressing needs for educators is to really talk to learners about
how to use these these tools and to analyze them for what they are getting out of them.
I think ultimately, right, we have these small goals along the way with our
(30:06):
language learning, which is just to increase our vocabulary or help our listening
fluency and things like that.
But ultimately, we want to be able to speak the language, I think.
And you have done, you've designed and implemented what are called mixed reality
language learning experiences.
And I don't know what that is. And I'm assuming that a lot of my listeners probably
(30:28):
don't either. there. Can you unpack that for us?
Absolutely. Thank you so much for that question. To provide some context for
the learners, our mixed reality experiences fall under the umbrella of a larger project called VAULT.
VAULT stands for Virtual and Augmented Reality for Language Training.
What each mixed reality experience is, is an immersive play-oriented environment.
(30:52):
So what What these environments are designed to do, A,
is to provide a space for functional language learning, really learning something
about language or a language function for a target language in context and paying
attention to the different contextual factors that might impact language choices
(31:14):
within that environment.
They're also, in terms of feel for the participant, they're very much like an
escape game. They are an ambiguous environment with lots of layers of information
coming from lots of technologies.
So hyper-realistic analog technologies that you would use in your everyday life
navigating spaces like maps and postcards provide key information as well as digital spaces.
(31:39):
So it might be that we've adapted an Instagram account that the users have to
go to and there's information hidden throughout that account that they need to access.
Or it might be that we have utilized a 360 video that we've either manipulated or not.
So the learners can, we can simulate that they're in a space that they're not able to travel to.
(32:00):
Or it might be one of our favorite uses is actually augmented reality where
learners might arrive to, for example, a monument.
And when they scan it with their phone, new information that they need to complete
the game, complete their experience is overlaid on top of that monument.
So they have to use all of these modalities of information to create meaning within the space.
(32:24):
And we love this approach and using all of these technologies and whatever technology
we need to. We're very pragmatic in this sense.
We try to utilize the right technologies for the right outcomes.
So in, for example, there's a experience we built called Buscando a Guzman in
Spanish, where the narrative is that you are a secret agent.
(32:46):
One of your fellow agents has been lost somewhere in Latin America,
and it's up to you to figure out where she is and then to help her stop this art heist.
That's happening in, you figure out it's in Colombia.
So that's a spoiler alert for anyone who might want to play.
So you have to stop the art heist. So that is the narrative.
(33:06):
And that's the experience we want the learners to be participating and collaborating
with as they're doing it.
The learning outcomes though, are all related to forming suggestions in Spanish.
There's a lot of modeling. For example, one of your clues is this text message
log where you see all the different strategies for forming suggestions highlighted,
and you have to start figuring out, for example, that some are more appropriate
(33:28):
to use with peers versus supervisors and things along those lines to successfully complete your quest.
And so when we're selecting our media that we're going to utilize,
that we utilize in the experience, we think about, well, when would I be making a suggestion?
So our learners might be sending an email or sending a message to an account
(33:49):
that responds with suggestions to them, or they might be actually sending a
text message or they might be looking for it in a face-to-face encounter.
But we want to think about when we want to create the environment that they
would actually be using suggestions with all of these materials,
be they analog or digital.
So it's a super integrated approach. It's bringing the language into my life
(34:15):
as a learner versus I go to this isolated place and work on language.
And then I don't think about it.
That's our goal. We want it to be very immersive and for you to feel to the
extent, you know, suspension of disbelief where we want the participants to
feel like they're actually in the environment,
the game environment that we've created to the point that, for example,
(34:37):
there's one on intercultural communicative competence that we've built where
we have a fully digital version that we can deliver online and we have have
a mixed reality version that we deliver in person.
But if I'm there as mission control, as the game guide, essentially to help
the participants, I'm probably in a jumpsuit with goggles on.
(34:58):
Like I play the role of the facilitator as well as I can to help with that suspension of disbelief.
So it feels as immersive and to promote actualization and authentication of
the experience for learners.
And also to make it fun. Because we know that. And it's more fun,
more playful that way. More engaging. It is.
(35:19):
Is CASEL just Spanish? No, we serve all languages.
Certainly on our side, we have the most expertise in Spanish,
Mandarin, and Japanese, though we work with experts across all languages.
Our language learning portfolio, for example, serves, it's called Linguifolio Online.
It was developed in collaboration with the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages.
(35:44):
It serves over 120 languages. languages, as much as possible,
we collaborate with other centers who are experts in indigenous languages.
And we really reach out to experts when we don't have the expert on staff when
we need a language specific tool.
But a lot of our tools are language agnostic. I mentioned the language learning portfolio.
This intercultural communicative competence game we built under Vault is actually language agnostic.
(36:09):
It's all about central concepts that if you understand those,
you're a much more adaptable speaker or communicator interculturally.
Who should reach out to you? Should it be language teachers?
Can it be individual language learners who are listening and saying,
oh, I just want some resources for learning Italian because I want to go to Italy?
(36:31):
Or is it district level leaders who are making decisions about resources to
be used in their district or all of the above? I think it's really all of the above.
So we do a variety of learner facing tools.
Linguifilio online is our most popular of those tools in terms of how many students
have downloaded it, at least according to the numbers that we have.
(36:53):
But we also have, for example, a module for self-directed language learners,
where learners who want to learn a language, but they may or may not have a
formal institution to enroll in.
Our YouTube channel is almost exclusively for language learners.
That is where learners should go.
(37:14):
Educators and district personnel are the stakeholders with whom I have the most direct interaction.
A lot of our...
Is related to pedagogical training and outreach.
I have a group of educators who are all working on strategies for building more
intercultural communicative competence and pragmatic competence into their existing practices.
(37:39):
And so we meet monthly about different topics and work on those.
Is that digital? Can an educator from any part of the country be a part of that?
We actually have some educators from other countries that have joined us.
So we do a lot of training related to that for district leadership,
as well as practicing educators on different strategies to really bring the
(37:59):
learner to the forefront of the language learning classroom,
as well as programmed by the National Department of Defense a few years back.
But it is a professional social portfolio for teachers to go online,
find other language teachers, form groups, make connections,
set goals together, give each other feedback.
And so that's another space then. And that's also free of charge,
(38:22):
that Catalyst platform.
So any teacher can sign up at any time. So at EdCuration, we're a marketplace
and we currently represent 13 different language programs.
And I'm just curious if you have some tips for our users on how to to find projects
that are best suited for them and their students,
(38:42):
what should be their look-fors in finding a high-quality language instruction program?
It really goes back to what your goals are with the tool that you're using.
I think the easiest to design in terms and the most widely accessible tools
are tools that reinforce grammatical competence.
Now, if your goals are something else, be it collaboration, like look for a
(39:08):
tool that has a space for learners to collaborate in or for you at least to
collaborate with learners.
It might be something as simple as a way to leave voice comments on the learner's
work, or it might be something more in depth like Contraseña and that social
portfolio for learners at the end where they're actually sharing their work
with one another and giving each other feedback.
(39:28):
But you want to really highlight what that ultimate goal you have is in using
the tool and make sure the tool matches the goal instead of just being excited
that the tool exists and figuring out how to fit it into your practice.
It's much easier if you go goal first than find the tool that follows.
(39:48):
If you're looking for a secondary or post-secondary curriculum that supports
many of the goals and standards discussed on this episode, you'll want to learn
more about today's sponsor, Sanico Language Labs for Multimedia Solutions.
Christopher Vazquez-Wright from Texas Tech University said, With Sanico,
we can observe each student's station.
(40:10):
We can observe what they're doing on their screens, and we can listen in on
what students are saying.
I'm able to have a class come in here every 30 minutes, then proctor an exam
and have another class come in the next 30 minutes. So it's really user-friendly.
You can learn more about Multimedia Solutions, Inc. at edcuration.com.
Simply click the Let's Talk button to learn more about their 60-day free trial
(40:34):
offer of Seneca Connect Live Online Language Lab.
A huge thank you to our guest, Stephanie Nye, from the Center for Applied Second
Language Studies at the University of Oregon.
You'll You'll find Stephanie and all the resources she discussed from CASEL in the episode notes.
And thanks to you for joining us for this episode of Reshaping Learning with
(40:56):
the Ed Curation Podcast.
Music.
This episode of the Ed Curation Podcast is sponsored by Multimedia Solutions,
Inc., representing Soneco Language Labs that includes online language learning
solutions and Soneco Connect,
an easy-to-use, full-featured, synchronous online language lab that offers classroom
and remote teaching simultaneously without any additional workload.
(00:23):
Soneco Connect can be accessed from any classroom or any location simultaneously.
Use any device. All that is required is an internet connection,
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Seneca is the global leader in language labs and language teaching software.
Seneca has become the industry standard tool for professional language teachers
in high high schools, and universities.
Multimedia Solutions is currently offering a 60-day free trial of Sanico Connect,
which includes training at no charge.
(01:06):
Inquire at edcuration.com or through the links in the episode notes.
You're listening to the Ed Curation Podcast.
We're bringing you stories from educational leaders about the instructional
resources, practices, and movements that are reshaping learning.
Our guest today, Stephanie Knight, likes to say that a career in education found
(01:28):
her rather than the other way around.
After studying Spanish, mass
communications, and international business at Western Kentucky University,
she was searching for a career that would allow her to use Spanish in a meaningful
way, which of course landed her in a middle school classroom.
She later did graduate work in second language acquisition,
(01:49):
which armed her with all kinds of new strategies that she took into her next
teaching role at an international high school and eventually wound up at the University of Oregon,
where she currently works as the assistant director at the Center for Applied
Second Language Studies.
One of only 16 national foreign language resource centers in the United States.
(02:14):
We look a lot at intercultural and pragmatic competence in our center.
I'm really excited to talk to you about the intersection of the integration
of technology with world language
specifically, because that's kind of changing the landscape, I think.
I'd love to take a step back before we jump into that and just talk about world
(02:37):
language in general, because typically and historically,
the United States has not put a high emphasis on the acquisition of a second
language and world language studies.
And also we do it a little bit backwards because what we know from research
is that children are at their best language learning years young,
(02:59):
even in their preschool age years, right?
And then it goes down, I think, starting like in third or fifth grade.
I'm sure you know this better than I do. And we don't typically start those
classes until secondary, middle school, and mostly high school,
after we've already passed our primary language learning years.
(03:20):
And so can you, for our listeners' sake, just kind of make the case for the
importance of starting world language and foreign language study and starting it early? Sure.
Certainly. I think anytime we have a narrative, and just to summarize the narrative
that you have articulated here,
(03:42):
that language learning is not necessarily very important, or it's certainly
not as important as other subject areas,
which I think is an easy one to corroborate if we look at the fact that,
for example, like you mentioned, language study doesn't typically start for
many learners until secondary.
Also in terms of the number of
credits students are required to achieve when they graduate sometimes
(04:04):
they don't have to get any credits in a world language depending on
state and local requirements other times it's one
or two years as opposed to you know four years as we see is typical in mathematics
and english language arts and those areas and even in the sciences we typically
see three years so we do see i think this less emphasis curricularly speaking
(04:26):
than we we do in other subject areas.
What I think, though, anytime we see a narrative like this is that we have to
ask ourselves, who is saying the narrative and why?
And as I've gotten to work at the Center for Applied Second Language Studies,
and I'll use our acronym the rest of this interview, probably CASELS,
is how we refer to ourselves.
(04:47):
But as in my work at CASELS, I've found these beautiful, incredible,
rich pockets of language learning throughout the country, the state of Utah
and And their dual language immersion program comes to mind.
Delaware has incredible services. And there are also pockets in a lot of states
throughout the country.
And they have huge infrastructures for world language learning,
(05:09):
starting at kindergarten, all the way through 12th grade, in place already.
So we see it. It exists. There are people who believe that language learning is important.
Where I think we fall back onto that narrative of the lack of importance is
really an issue you about resource scarcity.
It takes an incredible amount of time.
(05:32):
To develop educators. It takes an incredible amount of expertise to teach perhaps
a subject area in addition to world languages, as well as world languages.
Because of that resource scarcity, along with issues like funding and only so
many hours in the day, we have student-teacher ratios.
For example, my son, his elementary school, they wanted world language teachers.
(05:56):
There wasn't a a space given the teacher to student ratio within the school
that they could hire another teacher because they were already maxed out.
And so the PTA actually raised all the money to fund a complete extra teacher
so that the students could have access to world language,
which obviously brings into mind huge issues related to equity and access and
(06:20):
learners who are at schools that that don't have PTAs, that can't fund this
teacher to be there, and all of those things.
So if we boil it down to this issue of resource scarcity, we really have to
start thinking about, well, what are better and more creative ways that we can
address this resource scarcity,
other than just saying, well, we need more teachers, and we don't have the right
(06:42):
ratio, we can't hire them, and that's the end of it.
Better and more creative solutions are a requirement since in 2017,
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences established the aspirational goal
that all, as in every single U.S.
Learner, would receive world language instruction.
(07:02):
So in response to the very targeted problem of resource scarcity,
CASELS is working on a partial solution called the iAgents 21st Century Global
Competence Curriculum.
What this curriculum does is it introduces elementary learners.
K through six to 18 different languages.
And while certainly that introduction is not enough to establish proficiency
(07:26):
at any high level at any of those languages, it does expose them,
we've been very intentional in making this curriculum cross-curricular.
So we look at common core standards in math and in English language arts,
and we try to embed those within the curriculum in addition to the world language study.
We look at different science standards. We look at different social studies standards.
(07:49):
We want each unit within the curriculum to be modular. So a teacher who's teaching
science and maybe wants to pull in a little little bit of German,
could pull our German recycling unit and use part or all of it in their classroom
instruction to give the students more exposure to those languages.
Can you talk a little bit about just the advantages to students?
(08:12):
We've become a global economy, and we know that more and more jobs are preferring, if not demanding,
that students have language skills, second language skills, because we're We're
working on a global scale now.
So can you just talk about the opportunities and the shifting landscape in terms
(08:33):
of being bilingual? I would love to.
I taught Spanish, but I am highly qualified in economics as well.
And we oftentimes talk about the size of the United States is what allows for
these degrees of isolationism.
We are at a size that the United States within the country can create a lot
(08:55):
that is self-sustaining.
So I think that relates back to this idea of language learning being less important.
The more and more we have these international and globalized networks of communication,
the more we see that language learning...
Is not an option. And I think you highlighted some of, or alluded to some of
(09:20):
those economic benefits already.
Certainly you're more marketable on a job market. If you can speak more than
one language, you open up the audience, you can more directly communicate with.
And certainly there are a lot of cognitive benefits.
We see a lot of benefits in bilingual brains.
For example, improved concentration has been reported, faster and more accurate
(09:40):
thinking and different cognitive tests have been reported.
And so we see this mental plasticity that is not necessarily as present in a
monolingual brain. So we have all of these benefits.
What we have right now, in addition to this increasingly globalized world,
are these shrinking barriers, which are becoming less and less relevant because of AI technologies.
(10:05):
I mean, certainly, I think we used to think a lot lot about language learning and transactionally.
So if I travel abroad, how am I going to rent my apartment?
I'm going to have to know these words. I have to engage in this service encounter with the landlord.
That's what's going to have to happen. Or I need to change my hotel reservation.
So how do I call? Who do I talk to? How do I know how to phrase those things?
(10:27):
All of those things. We thought about these transactions.
The reality is, is a lot of AI can help us engage in these transactions already.
So we have this very complex environment that we as language educators are facing.
In one way, the surface level knowledge of our language learning,
that just content specific, what words mean what, in which languages,
(10:51):
can be handled by language.
AI, which is increasingly accessible by most people. We also have this idea
that there's more collaboration needed around the world.
There are more ways that our barriers are really being lowered.
So we're communicating more rapidly and more efficiently with people from other backgrounds.
So I say all this to say what I care most about in terms of the benefits and
(11:17):
the opportunities for language learners is I think, and this is something that
AI can't replicate at this point.
This is something that doesn't go away, because I think about the effective possibilities.
I firmly believe that exposure to languages improves one's ability to be empathetic,
to understand or at least see life from someone else's point of view,
(11:39):
someone else's experience.
And even if it doesn't change your own beliefs, because I would not advocate
that somebody has to change in order to be a language learner,
it allows you to see where someone
else is coming from, which is always a ground for more conversation.
Another tool they've developed at the Center for Applied Second Language Studies
(12:00):
is called the Intercultural Pragmatic and Interactional Competence Framework.
But don't panic because Stephanie's going to explain what that very wordy title entails.
What our former research director, Dr. Linda Forrest, and then our director, Dr.
Julie Sykes did, along with some colleagues at Georgetown and a few other experts
in the field, as they looked at all of these ontologies for intercultural and pragmatic competence.
(12:25):
There are over 50 published ontologies. They're incredibly heterogeneous.
And what they said was, well, what do we see in all of them?
For someone to be interculturally and pragmatically competent,
what are the skills that they all have in common?
And they were able to isolate four skills.
One is knowledge. This is what AI is good at. This is what textbooks are really good at.
(12:47):
And that is grammar and vocab. this is how I make a coherent sentence in the
target language to do something with.
But then the other three areas and connect the head and the heart a little bit more.
One of the other skill areas is analysis.
So here I, maybe I know there are eight different ways to greet someone in a target language.
(13:09):
And I pick the greeting that I think is most likely to establish a good relationship with somebody,
or maybe I am in a rush and I know that in the target language,
it's expected that I stop and
talk to somebody when they say hi to me on the street, but I have to go.
And so I make the choice to explain, well, I have to go and I can't talk right
(13:30):
now, even though that is outside of the presumed expectations.
So this is where I start thinking about what I want to cause,
what we call it the illocutionary force, but the intended meaning of what I
want to say and how I want to convey it.
The third area I'll talk about is subjectivity.
That's this idea that we don't want learners to leave their identity at the door.
(13:52):
I think it's easy to think about language learning and when we think about cultural
norms and intercultural norms
as a space where we have to appropriate what the target group is doing.
But in reality, our learners are themselves and they will build their own identities
within the language that they're studying.
There's a beautiful study on subjectivity from 2019.
(14:16):
Ishihara and Teron are the authors there. and what they discovered as they looked
at different learners and how they chose to engage or not engage in certain cultural norms.
And what one learner's experience documented was that he or she,
I cannot remember the pronoun that was utilized, originally didn't use honorifics
(14:38):
in Japanese because they're so hierarchical.
And that did not jive with that person's concept of how we should treat people.
They prefer to flatter hierarchy.
And so they chose not to use honorifics. And then that person really wanted
to participate in some business communities and realize that in order to effectively
participate, they would have to start using honorifics in their normal communications.
(15:02):
And so that person actually chose to originally flout a norm for a very intentional
reason, and then to appropriate the norm in order to achieve their goals.
And so we see this dynamism at place for learners. And we want to honor that,
but we need them to be able to articulate it.
We don't want it to be an accident that they conformed or flouted the norms.
They really need to understand what's at stake, what's at play in those decisions.
(15:24):
And then the last piece is related, it's awareness. And the awareness piece
means essentially that I can read the room.
I can see that whatever choice I made, what impact it created and decide if
I want to repair it, or maybe it was the exact impact that I intended and I
don't need to repair, pair, but it's that ability right there.
And that to me is the actual real benefit of learning a language.
(15:48):
Yes, cognitive, yes, economic, but we're building, I think, humans that have
this adaptability to a variety of contexts that they might encounter.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I'm really wanting to
focus for a minute on what you said about your area of passion and feeling like
(16:10):
one of the huge benefits and primary benefits for language learning is just
this idea of being able to connect and feel empathy and have understanding for other people.
I speak French and I lived in France for a while and each language has certain
ideas and concepts that may not translate well into another language or maybe any other language.
(16:37):
And even still, I've been living back in the United States now for, gosh, 20 years.
There are still phrases that only come to me in French because they don't exist in English.
That idea, that exact idea or way of thinking about something or way of describing
something just doesn't exist in English.
(16:58):
So it only comes to my mind in French and there's no way to say it.
Can you talk about examples of that?
Language is incredibly complex. Communication is an inherently advanced endeavor.
If we think even this conversation right now, there's a lot going on that could
impact our understanding of one another.
(17:19):
Certainly we have environmental factors like the audio could cut in or out or
the volume could get wonky and And we couldn't understand each other because
of that. Or the screen could go off.
And so one of us feels like we're talking essentially to a blank screen.
And we have no idea if what we're saying is making sense or if the person is
understanding where we're coming from.
So we have all of these factors that we're constantly adapting to when we're
(17:41):
communicating with someone.
Layer that on on these cultural expectations that are diverse across groups, subcultures.
And this is also a bit related to subjectivity. the idea that there are individual preferences.
So I might be able, for example, to apologize to a friend who speaks the target language really well.
(18:03):
In one context. And then I try the same exact strategies. Like for example,
explaining what happened, you know, I'm so sorry. I tore your sweater.
I was running through the store and it hooked on a nail and it ripped.
It was a complete accident.
I will take you shopping to buy a new one later. Maybe that's my apology.
And then the next friend I have a similar issue to, maybe I'm just bad at wearing
(18:25):
sweaters. I don't know, but I'm right.
I tell them the same story essentially, because it's the same thing has happened to me twice.
And that person really really prefers that it gets replaced faster.
So they don't want me to take them shopping. They want me to Venmo them $50
so they can buy themselves a new sweater.
What we start to see is that I, as a learner, might be completely confused. This worked before.
(18:48):
Apologizing this way absolutely worked before.
Where now apologizing this way is not working because of an individual preference.
Maybe one of them aligns with cultural norms that I realize,
or I don't even realize that that the norms exist. It could be a variety of issues.
All that to say, to be successful requires a lot of attention and time and training
(19:09):
our learners in those four areas, knowledge,
analysis, subjectivity, and awareness, and building those skills so that they
can start to adapt strategically.
So where I've seen my learners being most successful is when we are sparking
their minds in class, when we're having them start to be really inquiry oriented
and invite their own experiences to the table.
(19:33):
So they are learning and practicing.
And so in that way, my classroom always rewards risk-taking.
I was always so proud to see them be gutsy with what we were learning or doing in the class.
And I really wanted to make our environment that, that, which also meant that
I couldn't penalize their grades.
(19:54):
So something where we think of, I would call it a very old school pedagogical
approach to world language learning would be a student starts off with a 100
on a paper or whatever it is.
Maybe they wrote a news article or an email and they start.
And I, as a teacher tell them, you know, for every error, like every grammar
error or adjective, you know, verb agreement error, adjective error,
(20:17):
whatever it is, as I identify, minus one point.
Every missing accent mark is minus half a point. And I start at 100,
and then I just start chipping away at their grade.
You can't do that if you're celebrating risk-taking, because the students have
no incentive to do something hard or gutsy, because the likelihood is they're
going to make an error when they do it.
So you have to change how you grade and really establish trust for the learners
(20:41):
that when they engage in these nuanced, nuanced, complex responses to whatever the situation is.
That you will celebrate it and not demotivate that type of work.
Music.
If you, your school or district is looking for a creative, easily adaptable
(21:04):
resource for world language instruction, you'll want to learn more about today's
sponsor, Sanico Language Labs from Multimedia Solutions.
This is B. Cattell, President of Multimedia Solutions, Inc.,
representing Sanico Language Labs and Language Learning Solutions.
We are proud to sponsor this episode of the EdCuration podcast. podcast.
Seneca offers language learning solutions to help develop students' language
(21:27):
skills and fluency, both inside and outside of the classroom.
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Close relations with Seneca customers, their partners, and pedagogical approach
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(22:16):
for your school's IT department.
I think that we all want instant, we all want quick fix, like we wish we could
take a pill and wake up speaking Russian the next day.
So these apps, these online apps, and these mobile apps have become super popular,
(22:37):
like Duolingo and Babbel and other online learning platforms.
What are your thoughts on those? Are they effective? I mean...
Yeah, I have very strong opinions.
I think some of it, I'll provide a little framing before I provide the opinion.
What you do in the classroom may not prepare you for what you do in the real world.
(23:01):
Whatever your real world is, your real world might be World of Warcraft on a
target language server and you're practicing there.
Your real world might be a trip to France.
Your real real world might be a social media or fan fiction,
whatever your real world is, we want what you do as a learner to translate to that space.
(23:21):
We call that having social and ecological validity, this idea that it's transferable
to the space I need it to work in.
When that doesn't happen, I think at least anecdotally, we see attrition.
People feel like I put in all this work in this environment and it didn't let
me get to where I wanted to be in my real world.
(23:46):
So what's the point? And they give up. And we understand that sentiment.
And I think with a lot of these language learning apps,
they create promises, but not necessarily an environment that will be socially
and ecologically valid for the learners who interact within them.
(24:09):
So if a learner is using these tools, which there are great reasons to use these
tools, Duolingo, I'll speak to for example, Duolingo has lots of research,
particularly on vocabulary acquisition of novice learners.
So that have really positive indications.
It seems like interacting on these
spaces consistently helps the learners acquire vocabulary quite well.
(24:32):
That's wonderful. That is something we don't want to impugn.
And if that is a space that's motivating the learner to study a language,
then by all means, they should study and use that space.
However, if their goal is.
Is to engage in face-to-face interactions, and they've done all this vocabulary
practice and grammar practice,
(24:52):
and they're not prepared for the face-to-face interaction, then they go to try
it because they think they are, we have a problem.
I believe that's why we see so much attrition, not only in world language coursework across the board.
I think the most recent census done by the Modern Language Association was 2016,
where I believe all languages but Korean and showed attrition in terms of enrollment.
(25:17):
And then if you look at some of the data for like a Duolingo,
you see pretty great attrition as well.
A small minority of learners interact and they have the little owl who does
all the great, all these great gamified elements really work,
like encouraging you to not lose your streak and all of these pieces.
So we do have learners that really buy in and they really do it,
(25:37):
but you see that the majority of people eventually stop using the tool.
School. And there's a variety of op-eds where people have written that the reason
they quit was because they went and they traveled abroad and they couldn't do
anything that they thought they'd be able to do when they got there.
And so we see this idea of less ecological validity than we'd like.
(25:57):
Babel is interesting because Babel is more conversational.
I did some research on Babel a few years back and I felt more like I was having
a conversation than in some of the other spaces.
And I recently saw some data that indicates that 50% of Babbel users renew their
subscription at the end of the year, which speaks to the idea that they do feel
(26:21):
like they're getting what they want out of the platform.
It all boils down to what the learners want to do with language.
I think in general, mobile apps have this wonderful benefit of connecting people.
A resource that Stephanie personally loves and endorses is NPR's Radio Ambulante,
a podcast in Spanish with an accompanying language app.
(26:44):
We've linked it in the episode notes for your convenience. convenience.
Some of it's pop culture, some of it's historical, very contemporary feel to this podcast.
I love it as someone who doesn't get to be around Spanish speakers all the time.
I love somebody who is an ongoing Spanish learner the rest of my life.
There's an app that accompanies the podcast called Jive World Español.
(27:07):
And it is a really nice app for listening comprehension, which you might guess
given the fact that it's associated with a podcast.
And so learners are are listening and seeing texts while they're listening.
And so we have these two modes of input to really support.
Listening comprehension. And so I think when we look at the features,
we want to think about what is the goal of the person using that tool and if
(27:33):
those features actually have the affordances to match those goals.
One thing that I think I know about language learning is that it's more effective
done in small chunks more often than bigger chunks less often.
So our typical like one hour a week Spanish class might be less effective than
(27:57):
the 10-minute-a-day app. Am I right about that?
So frequency is important. You bring up a great point.
It is one of my number one concerns with AB schedules for high school students
is learning a world language.
So some AB schedules, it's just every other day. They're in all their classes
for the whole school year.
(28:18):
Other AB schedules, you know, they're in Spanish or French or Latin or Japanese,
whatever their world language is, one semester for the school year.
And that's their whole year's credit.
Obviously, it's a learning loss, then skill loss, because you atrophy if it's not used.
So that frequency really does matter. I think additionally, the time on task matters.
(28:42):
The more More time learners spend in a target language, the better off they
would be in terms of acquisition.
But related to that is that it needs to be focused engagement.
So I think all of those things have to happen together.
I love digital tools because they are on demand for most of us.
(29:03):
Reached a point particularly after COVID I one
of the benefits I saw
across school districts is most students actually have
a device now that the school issues to
where if a student wants to make their own flashcards on Quizlet or Conjugamos
or one of the other thousands of app you know flashcard apps they can or there
(29:25):
is a Spanish language app that we worked on called Lingro to go along with Lingro learning.
If they wanted to complete a unit where they look at different ways to form
requests, they could do that on the bus or at home.
And so I love that digital tools provide us these options.
(29:46):
Again, our learners need to know what to expect out of their digital tools.
One of the most pressing needs for educators is to really talk to learners about
how to use these these tools and to analyze them for what they are getting out of them.
I think ultimately, right, we have these small goals along the way with our
(30:06):
language learning, which is just to increase our vocabulary or help our listening
fluency and things like that.
But ultimately, we want to be able to speak the language, I think.
And you have done, you've designed and implemented what are called mixed reality
language learning experiences.
And I don't know what that is. And I'm assuming that a lot of my listeners probably
(30:28):
don't either. there. Can you unpack that for us?
Absolutely. Thank you so much for that question. To provide some context for
the learners, our mixed reality experiences fall under the umbrella of a larger project called VAULT.
VAULT stands for Virtual and Augmented Reality for Language Training.
What each mixed reality experience is, is an immersive play-oriented environment.
(30:52):
So what What these environments are designed to do, A,
is to provide a space for functional language learning, really learning something
about language or a language function for a target language in context and paying
attention to the different contextual factors that might impact language choices
(31:14):
within that environment.
They're also, in terms of feel for the participant, they're very much like an
escape game. They are an ambiguous environment with lots of layers of information
coming from lots of technologies.
So hyper-realistic analog technologies that you would use in your everyday life
navigating spaces like maps and postcards provide key information as well as digital spaces.
(31:39):
So it might be that we've adapted an Instagram account that the users have to
go to and there's information hidden throughout that account that they need to access.
Or it might be that we have utilized a 360 video that we've either manipulated or not.
So the learners can, we can simulate that they're in a space that they're not able to travel to.
(32:00):
Or it might be one of our favorite uses is actually augmented reality where
learners might arrive to, for example, a monument.
And when they scan it with their phone, new information that they need to complete
the game, complete their experience is overlaid on top of that monument.
So they have to use all of these modalities of information to create meaning within the space.
(32:24):
And we love this approach and using all of these technologies and whatever technology
we need to. We're very pragmatic in this sense.
We try to utilize the right technologies for the right outcomes.
So in, for example, there's a experience we built called Buscando a Guzman in
Spanish, where the narrative is that you are a secret agent.
(32:46):
One of your fellow agents has been lost somewhere in Latin America,
and it's up to you to figure out where she is and then to help her stop this art heist.
That's happening in, you figure out it's in Colombia.
So that's a spoiler alert for anyone who might want to play.
So you have to stop the art heist. So that is the narrative.
(33:06):
And that's the experience we want the learners to be participating and collaborating
with as they're doing it.
The learning outcomes though, are all related to forming suggestions in Spanish.
There's a lot of modeling. For example, one of your clues is this text message
log where you see all the different strategies for forming suggestions highlighted,
and you have to start figuring out, for example, that some are more appropriate
(33:28):
to use with peers versus supervisors and things along those lines to successfully complete your quest.
And so when we're selecting our media that we're going to utilize,
that we utilize in the experience, we think about, well, when would I be making a suggestion?
So our learners might be sending an email or sending a message to an account
(33:49):
that responds with suggestions to them, or they might be actually sending a
text message or they might be looking for it in a face-to-face encounter.
But we want to think about when we want to create the environment that they
would actually be using suggestions with all of these materials,
be they analog or digital.
So it's a super integrated approach. It's bringing the language into my life
(34:15):
as a learner versus I go to this isolated place and work on language.
And then I don't think about it.
That's our goal. We want it to be very immersive and for you to feel to the
extent, you know, suspension of disbelief where we want the participants to
feel like they're actually in the environment,
the game environment that we've created to the point that, for example,
(34:37):
there's one on intercultural communicative competence that we've built where
we have a fully digital version that we can deliver online and we have have
a mixed reality version that we deliver in person.
But if I'm there as mission control, as the game guide, essentially to help
the participants, I'm probably in a jumpsuit with goggles on.
(34:58):
Like I play the role of the facilitator as well as I can to help with that suspension of disbelief.
So it feels as immersive and to promote actualization and authentication of
the experience for learners.
And also to make it fun. Because we know that. And it's more fun,
more playful that way. More engaging. It is.
(35:19):
Is CASEL just Spanish? No, we serve all languages.
Certainly on our side, we have the most expertise in Spanish,
Mandarin, and Japanese, though we work with experts across all languages.
Our language learning portfolio, for example, serves, it's called Linguifolio Online.
It was developed in collaboration with the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages.
(35:44):
It serves over 120 languages. languages, as much as possible,
we collaborate with other centers who are experts in indigenous languages.
And we really reach out to experts when we don't have the expert on staff when
we need a language specific tool.
But a lot of our tools are language agnostic. I mentioned the language learning portfolio.
This intercultural communicative competence game we built under Vault is actually language agnostic.
(36:09):
It's all about central concepts that if you understand those,
you're a much more adaptable speaker or communicator interculturally.
Who should reach out to you? Should it be language teachers?
Can it be individual language learners who are listening and saying,
oh, I just want some resources for learning Italian because I want to go to Italy?
(36:31):
Or is it district level leaders who are making decisions about resources to
be used in their district or all of the above? I think it's really all of the above.
So we do a variety of learner facing tools.
Linguifilio online is our most popular of those tools in terms of how many students
have downloaded it, at least according to the numbers that we have.
(36:53):
But we also have, for example, a module for self-directed language learners,
where learners who want to learn a language, but they may or may not have a
formal institution to enroll in.
Our YouTube channel is almost exclusively for language learners.
That is where learners should go.
(37:14):
Educators and district personnel are the stakeholders with whom I have the most direct interaction.
A lot of our...
Is related to pedagogical training and outreach.
I have a group of educators who are all working on strategies for building more
intercultural communicative competence and pragmatic competence into their existing practices.
(37:39):
And so we meet monthly about different topics and work on those.
Is that digital? Can an educator from any part of the country be a part of that?
We actually have some educators from other countries that have joined us.
So we do a lot of training related to that for district leadership,
as well as practicing educators on different strategies to really bring the
(37:59):
learner to the forefront of the language learning classroom,
as well as programmed by the National Department of Defense a few years back.
But it is a professional social portfolio for teachers to go online,
find other language teachers, form groups, make connections,
set goals together, give each other feedback.
And so that's another space then. And that's also free of charge,
(38:22):
that Catalyst platform.
So any teacher can sign up at any time. So at EdCuration, we're a marketplace
and we currently represent 13 different language programs.
And I'm just curious if you have some tips for our users on how to to find projects
that are best suited for them and their students,
(38:42):
what should be their look-fors in finding a high-quality language instruction program?
It really goes back to what your goals are with the tool that you're using.
I think the easiest to design in terms and the most widely accessible tools
are tools that reinforce grammatical competence.
Now, if your goals are something else, be it collaboration, like look for a
(39:08):
tool that has a space for learners to collaborate in or for you at least to
collaborate with learners.
It might be something as simple as a way to leave voice comments on the learner's
work, or it might be something more in depth like Contraseña and that social
portfolio for learners at the end where they're actually sharing their work
with one another and giving each other feedback.
(39:28):
But you want to really highlight what that ultimate goal you have is in using
the tool and make sure the tool matches the goal instead of just being excited
that the tool exists and figuring out how to fit it into your practice.
It's much easier if you go goal first than find the tool that follows.
(39:48):
If you're looking for a secondary or post-secondary curriculum that supports
many of the goals and standards discussed on this episode, you'll want to learn
more about today's sponsor, Sanico Language Labs for Multimedia Solutions.
Christopher Vazquez-Wright from Texas Tech University said, With Sanico,
we can observe each student's station.
(40:10):
We can observe what they're doing on their screens, and we can listen in on
what students are saying.
I'm able to have a class come in here every 30 minutes, then proctor an exam
and have another class come in the next 30 minutes. So it's really user-friendly.
You can learn more about Multimedia Solutions, Inc. at edcuration.com.
Simply click the Let's Talk button to learn more about their 60-day free trial
(40:34):
offer of Seneca Connect Live Online Language Lab.
A huge thank you to our guest, Stephanie Nye, from the Center for Applied Second
Language Studies at the University of Oregon.
You'll You'll find Stephanie and all the resources she discussed from CASEL in the episode notes.
And thanks to you for joining us for this episode of Reshaping Learning with
(40:56):
the Ed Curation Podcast.
Music.
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