Tag: Cornell

S1E11 – María Luisa Parra – Art, Language, and Culture

What is the connection between art and language classes? Dick Feldman from the Cornell Language Resource Center talks to María Luisa Parra, Senior Preceptor in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University. They discuss how visual art can function as a link to culture that can build a deeper connection to, and fluency in, language.

“Considered as “windows” into other cultures’ perspectives and world views, visual arts allow for the use of languages to describe, retell, analyze and think critically about cultures. Students benefit from these pedagogical exercises as they build their translingual and transcultural competencies, along with a deeper understanding of the ‘Other’.”

For further information, view Dr. Parra’s paper, “Expanding Language and Cultural Competence In Advanced Heritage- and Foreign-Language Learners through Community Engagement and Work with the Arts” from the Heritage Language Journal, or watch her talk “Designing Magic Portals,” delivered at the Cornell Language Resource Center following the recording of this episode.

 

S1E8 – Adeolu Ademoyo – Storytelling Across Sites

Last week, Dick Feldman and Chris Kaiser talked about the benefits of a distance-learning program that can unite learners of a less-commonly taught language across locations. Today, Dick speaks with Adeolu Ademoyo, who is approaching fifteen years of teaching Yoruba at Cornell University, as well as to students at Columbia and Brown via videoconference. An experienced and adventurous instructor in the distance-learning environment, Adeolu discusses his creative methods for unifying his multi-site classes, as well as his philosophy on using storytelling and narrative to teach language.

Adeolu Ademoyo is a senior lecturer in Yoruba language and culture at Cornell. His research interests include: African Philosophy: Ethics, Epistemology and Aesthetics, the locus of African Languages in delineating met-ethical concepts in African moral discourse, gender issues, and family and social structures.

S1E7 – Christopher Kaiser – Distance Learning for Less Commonly Taught Languages

In this episode, Cornell LRC director Dick Feldman speaks with Christopher Kaiser of Columbia University. Chris is the Program Manager of the Shared Course Initiative, which connects less commonly taught language classrooms at Columbia, Cornell, and Yale using high-definition videoconferencing. The two discuss the challenges and advantages of offering these classes, and reflect on lessons learned over more than half a decade of building a collaborative distance-learning program for less-commonly taught languages.

The Shared Course Initiative (SCI) was established through the generous support of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The SCI is a collaborative framework that uses innovative technology to share academic resources across institutional boundaries, enabling strategic partners to enrich existing curricula while respecting local institutional cultures.

Chris Kaiser’s areas of interest include second language pedagogy, distance learning, presence in the distance environment, inter-institutional collaboration, and language-learning advocacy.

For more information on Chris and the SCI, visit sharedcourseinitiative.org.

S1E6 – Error Correction in Second Language Acquisition

In a perfect world, we would be corrected all the time, and our output would be completely accurate. Unfortunately, our ability to process correction and produce language at the same time is limited. Certainly, our ego and other factors may get in the way. On this episode of Speaking of Language, Dick Feldman, director of the Language Resource Center at Cornell University, tackles the complex issue of error correction in second language acquisition.

This episode references the work of Natsuko Shintani, particularly her talk Examining the effects of corrective feedback: How, when and on which errors?

Natsuko Shintani obtained her PhD from the University of Auckland in 2011. She has worked as a language teacher in Japan and New Zealand, including in her own private language school for children. Her research interests include task-based language instruction, the role of interaction in second language acquisition and written corrective feedback. She has also worked on several meta-analysis studies of form-focused instruction. She has published widely in leading journals and is currently working on a single-authored book, The Role of Input-Based Tasks in Foreign Language Instruction for Young Learners, published by John Benjamins.

Twitter: @natsukonz