NYSAFLT Annual Conference 2024

What digital tools can students utilize to better their Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational communication skills? Join us as we explore software, and apps within the Google Suite, that will enhance understanding, and allow for student voice and choice. Time will be spent on Interpretive options for YouTube/ closed-captioning, Presentational communication choices within Google Slides, Canva, and the Screencast app, and Interpersonal communication enhancers within Canva and MOTE. Please bring a device if you would like to try out any of the software/apps during our guided practice time.

This session reports on one professor’s experience taking beginning and intermediate Spanish classes at the college-level. Sitting among the students provided a unique perspective to reflect on student learning, language acquisition, and language instruction. Instead of blaming students for not studying, we discuss the issues found among most freshmen and ways to help them. Delving into Second Language Acquisition theories, we examine the advantages and limitations of explicit grammar instruction. Finally, we offer concrete suggestions for language teachers at all levels to incorporate four strands (Nation, 2012) in their classroom: comprehensible input, comprehensible output, deliberate language study, and fluency development.

At its core, manipulatives are physical cards that show words, letters, or images that will be used to facilitate language acquisition and production that are often, but not always, accompanied by an authentic video or reading passage. This session will show the usefulness of manipulatives as an activity that can help language acquisition through critical thinking skills, repeat exposure,
physical movement, and fun. In the workshop, different types of manipulatives will be shown such ask Vocabulary Based, Sentence Makers, and Pictographs. Participants will learn how manipulatives can be used for all levels of language learners and by all types of language teachers in the three modes and to compare and contrast cultures and acquire language.