December Social Event: Holiday Potluck

FLESA would like to invite all current FLE students and faculty members to attend an end-of-semester holiday potluck.

What better way to celebrate the beginning of our richly-deserved vacation than with some great company and delicious food? Please come by with a dish to share, and feel free to bring your loved ones.




The potluck will be held in SZB 526, which the FLESA committee will be decorating for this event.

Here are the details:

Event: FLESA Holiday Potluck
Date: Tuesday, December 10th, 2013
Time: 6pm - 8pm
Location: SZB 526
Request: If you can, please wear a holiday-themed sweater or holiday colors.

Good luck with the rest of the semester, and we look forward to seeing you on December 10th!

FLESA celebrates Dr. Horwitz's birthday

On Wednesday, November 13th, FLESA organized an early surprise birthday celebration for Dr. Horwitz. Professors, graduate assistants, and FLE students dropped by to wish Dr. Horwitz a happy birthday with a song, a cake, flowers, and a card. Thank you to everyone who joined us for this event!

Photo credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo credit: Mimi Ghosh

Dr. Thomas Garza Brown Bag Lunch Write-Up

Photo caption: Dr. Thomas J. Garza

On Monday, November 4th, Dr. Thomas Garza was the guest speaker at our final brown bag lunch for the Fall 2013 semester. Dr. Garza is the director of the Texas Language Center and Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies at UT.

FLESA would like to thank Dr. Garza for his engaging and informative talk at our November brown bag lunch. We all learned a lot of great, practical teaching tips for the classroom.
Thank you also to the FLESA members who attended.




The following is a synopsis of the major points of Dr. Garza's talk.

"Getting from Good to Great: Cultural Literacy and Advanced L2 Proficiency"

Cultural literacy should be part of advanced proficiency in a foreign language. To move from an intermediate to an advanced level, language learners need a big dose of cultural literacy.


Part I: Which C(c)ulture?

Big "C" culture: literature, films, music
Little "c" culture: ephemera, popular culture, contemporary mores

Russian perspective: Linguoculture

"In the process of learning, the union of language and information relating to the national culture is called ‘linguocultural’ teaching”
-Kostomarov and Vereshchagin, Language and Culture, 1983

Linguoculture in FL contexts

• A baguette is not merely a "bread stick". It is part of a culture of eating.
• A piñata does not have a one-word definition in other languages. It is part of a culture of celebration.
• A matryoshka doll symbolizes a culture that values children and mothers who produce many children.
• A driver's license in the U.S. is a symbol of coming of age and a part of law enforcement culture. Driver's licenses do not necessarily carry these connotations in other countries.

How to proceed?
Having separate "culture days" or even "culture modules" in FL classes gives the message that culture can be put into a separate box, apart from language.
Enhancing learners' cultural knowledge is what instructors should be striving to do. To be proficient linguistically, cultural knowledge is what learners need.

The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines provide a visual reference of how much learners should know (in terms of grammar, lexis, semantics, pragmatics, and cultural knowledge) at each of the following levels: novice, intermediate, advanced, and superior. Language learners need a great deal of cultural knowledge to move from the intermediate to the advanced level.

Learners require hundreds of hours of instruction in the language before they can reach an advanced level. Unfortunately, the number they require exceeds the number of contact hours in a 3-year university foreign language program.


Part II: Cultural Literacy, Cultural Competence, Global Competence

How do we help learners achieve cultural literacy without increasing the number of instruction hours?

One thing teachers can do is bring in texts (including audio/video texts) that are valuable from both linguistic AND cultural standpoints.

(Dr. Garza gave some examples of authentic texts. You can see the texts he used, and his explanations of why they are useful, on the COERLL website.)



Part III: Video-based Instruction of Language and Culture  
We want to help our learners become active learners.
When we find ourselves in a new, unfamiliar situation in an L1 context, we usually observe those around us to determine how we should behave. This is a strategy that L2 learners should use as well. Teachers should help them become better observers.

Authentic video materials should be essential components of the FL classroom. They simulate a "real life" environment to facilitate the acquisition of linguistic and non-linguistic elements of communication.

When choosing a video, here are some characteristics to look for:

• high audio/visual correlation
• video track is essential to complete understanding
• video track facilitates comprehension of text
• visuals may stand alone
• the scene contains multiple layers that encourage repeated viewings
• high production values
• entertaining
• would maintain the interest of a native speaker
• the scene presented should be a complete, discrete segment

Exploitation of video materials

• preview (e.g. introduce new concepts, provide background information)
• task viewing (guide the learners in "peeling away" various layers through repeated viewings)
• follow-up (help the learners understand the broader application of the material covered in the segment)

The law of authentic media use: Adjust the task, not the text!

What can your students do with the text? (Dr. Garza uses a Russian movie scene in the very first week of a first semester class!)

• novice level - can pick out cognates; get exposure to what L2 sounds like
• intermediate - can derive meaning from text
• advanced - can comment on text in detail

Our goal as teachers is to create autonomous learners. We should teach them how to learn so they do not have to depend on us.


Questions and answers (paraphrased) from the Q&A session:

Question: What about teachers who are non-native speakers (NNSs) and who are not from the L1 culture?
Answer: For learners, there are advantages of having both NSs (native speakers) and NNSs as teachers. NSs can provide a perfect model of the language. NNSs can share valuable information about how they learned the language. Often, they can explain grammatical issues better than NSs. Learners will see NNSs as role models who have successfully learned the target language. In an ideal situation, there would be NS-NNS team teaching, or the two types of teachers would at least collaborate to create teaching materials. NNS teachers have a lot to offer students.

Question: When you assign a video as homework, what do you tell learners to do?
Answer: The most important thing is to give them a watching guide. Let them know what they should watch for during each viewing. When they get used to using watching guides, they can also make their own for the rest of the class.



Here are some useful links:

More on Dr. Garza:
https://www.utexas.edu/cola/depts/slavic/faculty/garzatj
https://webspace.utexas.edu/garzatj/index.html
http://www.utexas.edu/opa/experts/profile.php?id=731

Dr. Garza's culture module on the COERLL website (highly recommended if you missed the event):
http://coerll.utexas.edu/methods/modules/culture/

The Texas Language Center:
http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/tlc/ 

The BLC Library of Foreign Language Film Clips
(NB: It seems that you can only access this if you are a current FL instructor at UT or another participating institution. For those of you who are instructors, this is might be a great resource for you!)
http://blcvideoclips.berkeley.edu/ 

Photo credit: Jenna O'Connor

Photo credit: Mimi Ghosh

FLESA Supports Qualifying Exam Takers

This evening, FLESA prepared care packages for the FLE doctoral students scheduled to take their Qualifying Exams on October 31st and November 1st. The four PhD students are Adele Douglin, Claire Parrish, Eunjeong Choi, and Li-Tang Yu. We hope that our care packages will brighten their spirits and alleviate their hunger pangs during the hours-long exam.

Photo Credit: Fu-Hao William Chiang

Over the past few weeks, FLE students, friends, and faculty signed good luck cards, offering words of encouragement to the test-takers. These cards will be included in the package, along with loads of nutritional foods prepared by FLESA. These healthy snacks include granola bars, dried fruits, peanut butter crackers, nuts, applesauce, and dark chocolate. We will also add bottled water and teas (the teas were provided by FLE master's student Angela Pittman).

Hopefully, the cards and munchies will help Adele, Claire, Eunjeong, and Li-Tang pass the challenging exam with flying colors!

To Adele and Claire, "Good luck!"
To Eunjeong, "화이팅!"
To Li-Tang, "加油!"

Fall 2013 October Social Event

The social event for the month of October was held earlier this evening at Buffet Palace, Austinites' go-to buffet restaurant for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisine. We had a wonderful turnout consisting of FLE master's students and family. It was great to see everyone outside of an academic environment. I'm sure we all stuffed ourselves with Asian cuisine, which eased some of our stress.

We look forward to hosting our next brown bag lunch (Nov. 4th), and the November social event. Please join us again, FLESAns!

Photo Credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo Credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo Credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo Credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo Credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo Credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo Credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo Credit: Yi-Wen Su

Photo Credit: Yi-Wen Su

Photo Credit: Yi-Wen Su

Fall 2013 Brown Bag Lunch Series: November

Photo Credit: Thomas J. Garza

Our last brown bag lunch* for the 2013-2014 academic year will be held on Monday, November 4th from 12:30-1:30pm in SZB 536L (George I. Sánchez Building). The guest speaker for the event is Dr. Thomas J. Garza, Ed.D., the Director of the Texas Language Center and Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies. He offers courses in Russian, foreign language pedagogy, and Russian popular culture.

Dr. Garza will be giving a talk on teaching cultural literacy ("Getting from Good to Great: Cultural Literacy and Advanced FL Proficiency"), a topic that is especially relevant to second language instructors in this age of globalization. Don't miss this opportunity to meet Dr. Garza, who is on FLE's Graduate Studies Committee, and to ask him about his work at the Texas Language Center and his research on vampires (!)!

Event: Brown Bag Lunch with Dr. Thomas J. Garza
Time: Monday, Nov. 4th; 12-30pm-1:30pm
Location: SZB 536L

*Bring your own lunch to this event (FLESA does not provide lunch). Please make sure drinks are in nonspillable containers. 

Dr. Per Urlaub Brown Bag Lunch Write-Up

Our Fall 2013 brown bag lunch series had its second installment on October 2nd with a talk by Dr. Per Urlaub from the Germanic Studies department. Dr. Urlaub talked about his own research interests as well as his professional trajectory within the fields of applied linguistics/foreign language education and German studies. He also shared some very enlightening thoughts about what it means to read in the L2. FLESA would like to thank Dr. Urlaub for his interesting and engaging presentation.

From a pedagogical perspective, one of the highlights of the talk was Dr. Urlaub's discussion of the reading strategy known as "questioning the author." In traditional language teaching approaches, learners read a text and then answer comprehension questions provided by the teacher or the textbook. Questioning the author flips this idea on its head. This strategy requires learners to imagine that they will have the opportunity to talk to the author of the text. They must think of questions that go beyond what is already in the text. Doing this requires learners to think more deeply about the text and promotes a more active, engaged reading process. Using this approach in the classroom can help learners self-monitor their comprehension and increase their sensitivity to intercultural issues.
To find out more about this reading strategy, please visit Dr. Urlaub's site:

http://wikis.la.utexas.edu/rcst/page/cross-cultural-questions

 
There was also time for a Q&A. Questions and answers are paraphrased below:

Question: Does "literacy" encompass writing as well as reading?
Dr. Urlaub: Yes, it encompasses both. I am more of a reading guy, though. Another phenomenon in literacy research is the reading-writing connection. One of my articles is on how creative writing can help learners develop their literary reading skills. Engaging in creative writing makes learners more aware of the literary qualities of the texts they are reading.

Question: When you say "literary texts," does that term go beyond the story genre? Can it include essays, for example?
Dr. Urlaub: My working definition of a literary text is a text that depicts fictional events. This is not unproblematic. For example, there can be gray zones between biography and fiction. But for me, a literary text is not a depiction of something that happened in the real world. It is a depiction of fictional events.
In literary theory, there are reader-response theorists who would argue that it is not the text itself that provides the definition, it is the reading process--how a text is approached.

Question: Does The Onion count as literature? It's satire.
Dr. Urlaub: It's satire, yes. It is also fiction. Parody is a process where you use an established genre (e.g., a newspaper article). Parodies are good for teaching literature because they often play around with the elements that define the genre of a text. They modify those elements. And they draw the reader's attention to what it is that is being parodied.

Question: How do we, as teachers, reduce the psychological distance between the reader and the text? What are some practical ways to do this? For example, would it be a good idea to use videos to teach students about the cultural context of the writing?
Dr. Urlaub: Pre-reading activities are very important, especially with literary texts. In many textbooks, pre-reading activities consist of vocabulary lists and maybe some questions that learners can ask each other about experiences related to the content of the reading. A vocabulary list is not much of a pre-reading activity. When you teach a literary text, the pre-reading activity should not just provide linguistic scaffolding; it should also provide cultural scaffolding. You mentioned using videos. Working with visuals can be a good idea. For example, you can show some photographs of the place during the relevant time period.

Question: English textbooks in Korea have reading excerpts from authentic American or European stories. However, sometimes parts of the stories are changed to make them more familiar to a Korean audience. For example, character names may be changed to Korean names. What do you think of this?
Dr. Urlaub: This runs counter to the idea of the authentic text. Modifications can sometimes be helpful for learners by making the text more comprehensible. However, it deprives them of the cultural component of the text.
I also argue that literary texts used in a language classroom are among the most authentic types of texts. The reason for this is that the audience that the author has in mind is the general audience of native speakers of the language.

Question: What do you think of using literary texts in translation? E.g., using a German translation of Harry Potter in a second semester German class.
Dr. Urlaub: The rationale is that the learners are familiar with the text and the imaginary world that the text sets up. From a teaching point of view, you are depriving students of a learning opportunity (i.e. the opportunity to learn about German culture). From a research perspective, it is a useful approach because it allows you to look at reading from more of a linguistic standpoint by eliminating the cultural variables. 
 

Dr. Urlaub concluded his presentation by talking about the course he will be offering in the Spring 2014 semester, a graduate seminar on literary reading in the L2. Although it is technically a Germanic Studies course, the course will be conducted entirely in English; you do not need to know German to take the course. It should count as an FLE elective (although you should double-check this with your adviser). If you have any interest in L2 reading pedagogy (and most of you should), please consider taking this course!

Here is some tentative information about the course, which will be divided into three sections:

What is reading in the L2?

• What is reading?
• How is the acquisition of reading competency different in the L1 and the L2?
• Theories and approaches to frame L2 reading

What are the problems with literary reading in the L2?

• What is literary reading (vs. reading expository texts)?
• What are the particular challenges of reading literary texts in the L2?
• Linguistic distance
• Cultural distance
• How can teachers scaffold these challenges for learners?

Hands-on materials development

• How does one develop teaching materials to help learners to read literary texts in the L2?

Once again, a big thank you to Dr. Urlaub, and thank you to all of the FLE students who were in attendance!

Photo credit: Mimi Ghosh

Photo credit: Jessie Trawick