After waaaaaaay too many months on hiatus (yes, that would be MY fault), we are finally podcasting again!
This past week, our dear friend and colleague Pete Smith from UT-Arlington invited Barbara and me to take part in his university’s Digital Institute. For two days we caused trouble, asked as many questions as we answered, and had many wonderful discussions with a range of folks, from faculty to campus IT. One of those discussions we recorded and now present to you as Language Lab Unleashed #24. Access the downloadable file, or stream this episode using the built-in player:
[02:30] What should language learning and culture learning look like in 2009 and beyond?[09:45] Promoting Authentic Cultural Understanding
[17:25] Lots and Lots of Work: Digital Literacy
[29:20] Generational Difference, Discomfort, Revolution, and Complexity
[38:20] Informational Technology vs. Educational Technology
[41:35] Tenure and Technology Use by Faculty
[44:15] Linear Learning, Lederhosen, and Creating More Informed Thinkers and Scholars
[54:00] Living with Assessment: Barbara’s 12-Step Approach
[57:20] Formal vs. Informal Standards, Voice, and Register
[72:15] A-ha Moments, and Preparing Students to be Promoted
Thanks again to the wonderful folks at UT-Arlington for participating, and to Pete Smith and his team for being such gracious hosts to a pair of troublemakers! 🙂
I appreciated the discussion about how to help students recognize registers and use appropriate language. The majority of my background is in linguistics and not in language education so I lean very heavily towards descriptive (vs. prescriptive) language teaching. Not exposing learners to (and not encouraging them to practice) different registers is crippling to communicative competence.
Thanks for the comment, Mike. Indeed, I am a big believer in making the classroom experience as helpful, useful and challenging as possible so the out-of -the-classroom (dare I say it? real world) experience is less of a shock. Classroom language needs to stop being so hermetically sealed and packaged for our students.
The more we can do to explore the language (in a variety of contexts, registers, accents, realities etc) the better.