Improving Second Language Teaching through Action Research
Dr. Roswita Dressler | University of Calgary, Canada
Location
Online
Date & Time
April 4, 2022, 4:30 pm – 5:00 pm
Description
Monday, April 4, 2022
4:30-5:00pm
Online - Eastern US Time
Free registration by e-mail to TESOL@umbc.edu
Summary
Teachers have questions about their teaching, but don’t often have the time to engage in systematic research to discover answers. A colleague and I have been working with a group of six German – English Bilingual program teachers for four years to investigate how to promote the learning of German in an elementary school. Our initial work introduced a teaching approach intended to foster oral development – the Neurolinguistic Approach – designed by Joan Netten and Claude Germain for a specific second language program, the French Intensive program. Our work with the teachers allowed them to expand the approach to a different format (three sets of two Intensive weeks) and across a wider range of students (Kindergarten – sixth grade). We are now shifting our focus to the reading phase of the literacy loop within the approach. A lack of resources is a common complaint and the most obvious stumbling block for these teachers to provide a strong focus on reading print and digital resources. To overcome aspects of this stumbling block, we are innovating in the area of text leveling for German children’s books, an aspect we take for granted in English, but has not been practically applied in German schools. This talk will inform teachers and future teachers about second language teaching innovations that can improve second language teaching focusing on oral language development and the promotion of reading in the target language.
Dr. Roswita Dressler is an Associate Professor, Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary. Her research examines Second Language Teaching and Learning. She is a former teacher of German and French as Second Language (FSL) in Alberta, Manitoba, and British Columbia. In 2020, she was awarded the Robert Roy Award by the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers.
For more information, please visit:
https://education.umbc.edu/tesolevents