Resources for Foreign Language Supplementary Materials

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Resources for Foreign Language Supplementary
Materials

• George Marquis
• The American University in Cairo

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Why Supplement?

• Text lacking or inappropriate in some aspect
• Expressions of special interests from Ss
• Syllabus open-ended

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If you do supplement

• Incorporate into focused lesson plan
• Make choices based on objectives
• Have clear pedagogical outcomes

4
What to choose?

• Authentic materials
• Focus on content and meaning
• Contrived materials
• Focus on language

5
Examples?

• You provide some here

6
Comparison
7
Relationship of Text to Materials
8
Advantages of Authentic Materials

• Complete and meaningful messages
• Non-linguistic clues
• Obvious connection between classroom and outside
  world.

9
Advantages of Contrived Materials

• Slower Pace
• Recurrence of structures
• Obvious turn taking
• Fewer Hesitations
• More Accuracy

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All Supplementary Materials Must

• Be appropriate to the level of the student(s)
• Complement the syllabus
• Further the objectives of the course
• Contribute to formal assessment

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What component to supplement?

• The Four Skills (RWSL)
• Grammar
• Culture

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What cultural themes?

• Geography
• History
• Festivals
• Customs
• Traditions/Beliefs
• Religion
• Folktales

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What cultural themes? (cont.)

• Arts and Crafts
• Dances
• Songs
• Rhymes
• Social and cultural norms
• Cultural appropriateness
• Literature

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Where to find available materials

• University websites
• Government project websites
• Language Teacher Associations
• Home Country Associations
• Online newspapers
• Satellite/cable TV
• Blogs, etc.

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Internet search for materials Keywords

• Your language (e.g. Russian)
• Your language family (e.g. Slavic)
• Your language region (e.g. African, Asian, Near
  Eastern languages /or literature)
• Your country or language culture
  association
• Linguistic data consortiums
• Your language teachers association (e.g.
  Chinese Language Teachers Association)

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Some Useful University Websites

• CCAT web at University of Pennsylvania
• http//ccat.sas.upenn.edu/teachtech/resources.html
  
• A list of e-resources
• http//ccat.sas.upenn.edu/hot/language.html
• 2. UCLA Language Materials Project for LCTL
• http//www.lmp.ucla.edu/Lessons.aspx?menu003
• Authentic materials database resources and
  sample lesson plans
• 3. Language Data Consortium at UPenn
• http//ldc.upenn.edu/
• Authentic audio recordings in New Corpora Archive

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More University Websites

• http//langmedia.fivecolleges.edu/arabic/msa/dialo
  gues/
• A very extensive database of materials to
  accompany textbooks, or to use on their own
• Has many languages to choose from

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A Database of Language and Culture Resources

• LangSource
• www.langsource.umd.edu
• a resource guide
• www.langnet.org
• contains materials
• needs login and password

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Some Useful Government Websites

• Languages of the World Website
• http//www.nvtc.gov/lotw LingNet
• College of William and Mary
• Brigham Young University
• Has list serv for Arabic teachers
• listserv_at_byu.edu
• Has links for Chinese language teachers

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Other Organizations

• LingNet
• http//gloss.lingnet.org/
• Locates lessons according to language and level
• The British Council
• http//www.teachingenglish.org.uk/TRY/vocabtry/spo
  t.shtml
• Ideas for classroom activities involving specific
  skills

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Language Teacher Associations

• Chinese cita.osu.edu
• American Association of Teachers of Arabic
  (AATA)
• American Association of Teachers of Slavic and
  East European Languages (AATSEEL),
• Association of Teachers of Japanese (ATJ),
• Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA),
• Council of Teachers of Southeast Asian Language
  (COTSEAL),
• International Association of Teachers of Czech
  (IATC),
• South Asian Language Teachers Association
  (SALTA),
• Cantonese Language Association (CLA),
• Norwegian Researchers and Teachers Association of
  North America (NORTANA),
• American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR),
• North American Association for Celtic Language
  Teachers (NAACLT),
• National Council of Japanese Language Teachers
  (NCJLT),
• American Association of Teachers of Korean
  (AATK),
• American Association of Teachers of Turkic
  Languages (AATL),
• African Language Teachers Association (ALTA),
• Chinese Language Association of Secondary
  Elementary Schools (CLASS),
• National Association of Self-Instructional
  Language Programs (NASLIP),

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Example of a Blog

• http//trendypalermoviejo.blogspot.com/

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Use your own sources

• Visual
• Listening
• Text
• Realia

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Authentic Listening/ Viewing Materials

• TV commercials, video clips, cartoons,
• news clips, TV shows, movies,
• professionally audio- taped short stories,
• novels, radio ads, songs, documentaries

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Authentic Printed Materials

• newspaper articles, movie advertisements,
• astrology columns, sports reports,
• romance ads, lyrics to songs,
• restaurant menus, street signs, food packages,
• tourist information brochures,
• telephone books, maps, bus schedules,
• comic books, greeting cards,
• for sale/for rent ads, TV guides
• web popups

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Authentic Visual Materials

• slides, photographs, paintings,
• childrens artwork, stick-figure drawings
• wordless street signs, silhouettes, pictures from
  magazines, ink blots
• postcard pictures
• wordless picture books, stamps, X-rays

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Realia

• coins and currency, folded paper, wall clocks,
  phones,
• holiday masks, dolls, and puppets,
• cultural tools

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Now what?

• You have a focused lesson plan
• Youve found supplementary materials
• You decide to try them out
• You need a classroom activity in which to use the
  materials.

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Culture Composition

• Tomalin and Stempleski (1998)
• You
• (1) Hand out various pieces of realia, such as
  bus or air tickets, receipts, coupons, money and
  photographs
• (2) Mix up items
• (3) Put students into groups of two or three.
• As an item occurs in the story, it is shown to
  the class and placed on the table
• When all groups have finished, the students
  write their own individual version of their story.

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Culture Composition (Cont.)

• Students
• (1) Identify each item
• (2) Make up a story about their set of items
• (3) Present their stories to the rest of the
  class

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Eavesdropping

• Porter and Roberts (1987)
• Students are told that they are guests at a party
  and that they can eavesdrop on conversations.
• They listen to short segments of real-world party
  conversations (or telephone calls) and complete a
  worksheet in which they note down what topic the
  people are talking about.

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Listening/Viewing Activities

• Stempleski and Tomalin (1990)
• (1) Silent viewing of video clips to let students
  consider what is going on and guess what the
  speakers are doing and saying.
• (2) Students watch the beginning only of a video
  clip, and then predict what will happen next.
• (3) Present a video clip through split viewing
  half of the class sits with their back to the
  screen half can see the screen and both groups
  can hear. Pairs then come together after the
  split viewing, and create a story about what
  happened.

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Meet the Press

• Gaylor and Oura (1999)
• Students are asked to read news clippings about
  an event at which a reporter is present
• Students are divided into groups of four -- one
  is the spokesperson for the place where the event
  happened and the other three are the reporters
  who must ask questions related to their concerns
• Spokespersons write a prepared statement that
  they will release to the press, and try to
  prepare answers to possible difficult questions
  that reporters may ask them.

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Meet the Press (cont.)

• Reporters prepare questions to find out as much
  as they can about the situation.

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Thanks and Good Luck!

• geomarq_at_gmail.com