
		ILR Showcase 2005

INTERAGENCY LANGUAGE ROUNDTABLE SHOWCASE: PREPARING FOR THE GLOBAL LANGUAGE CHALLENGE

July 29, 2005

Morning Plenary Session: Auditorium

0730-0830 Light Refreshments will be served.

0830-0900 Welcome

Dr. Laura Murray, Department of Defense

Mr. Tom Glaser, Vice President of Information Technology, Howard Community College

0900-0950 Reflective Online Assessment and Data-Driven Instruction

Dr. Carl Falsgraf, Director, Center for Applied Second Language Studies, the National Foreign Language Resource Center at the University of Oregon

Morning Concurrent Sessions:

Auditorium Featured Presentations

1000-1025 2005 Year of Languages: Looking Back and Moving Forward

Marty Abbott, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

1030-1125 Initiatives Undertaken by the Departments of Defense and State to Address

National Language Needs

Dr. Susan Kelly, Defense Language Office and Ambassador Michael C. Lemmon, former Dean, School of Language Studies, Foreign Service Institute

1130-1200 The Present State of the National Language Capacity

Dr. Richard Brecht, Dr. William Rivers, Center for the Advanced Study of Language, University of Maryland

Room A Teaching

1000-1025 Telling America’s Story: Teaching Public Speaking at All Levels

This presentation will give an overview of the public speaking needs of Foreign Service professionals and of the techniques the School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute has developed to address them. The session will include examples of activities at different proficiency levels, including a "Mock Reception" with more than 20 students from beginner to advanced participating.

Presenters: Anna Hall and Eva Szabo, Foreign Service Institute

1030-1055 Foreign Languages and the Training of K-12 School Teachers

The paper will report preliminary findings from Title VI-funded research projects on prospects for internationalizing teacher education; the first project focused on teacher training for the secondary level and the current project has an elementary education focus. Data and opinions, about foreign language needs and instruction are drawn from over 350 interviews with university faculty, deans, students, and senior administrators, as well as some 80 current teachers.

Presenter: Dr. Ann Imlah Schneider, International Education Consultant

1100-1125 College-Level Courses Can Easily Employ All the Language Students Know

This presentation will demonstrate that through the use of readily available materials in multiple languages and the provision of opportunities for language-specific small-group discussion, virtually any college course can present multiple international perspectives on course subject matter and facilitate the maintenance and discipline-specific growth of students' skills in whatever languages they know.

Presenter: H.Stephen Straight, Binghampton University

1130-1200 Ten to Three: Getting to Level 3 Language Proficiency

At lower levels learners need to see that the foreign language makes sense, both on a decoding/linguistic level and in its connection to the larger world. At higher levels, we want learners to see the composition of a text as deliberate, written or spoken for a purpose. The basic question is, "Why did the author choose the words and that particular structure as opposed to some others? " We will present ten questions, which will help guide the learner to "hear" the author's voice. We base our classroom exercises on these questions and will share some of the activities we use to illustrate approaches to a level 3 text.

Presenters: Barb Deboy and Dr. Paula Finedore, National Cryptologic School

Room B Teaching Resources & Materials

1000-1025 Materials Development for Less Commonly Taught Languages

Presenters: Dr. Antonia Schleicher and Adedoyin Adenuga, National African Language Resource Center, University of Wisconsin

1030-1055 Passport to CARLA’s Free LCTL Resources

The LCTL project at the University of Minnesota offers a wide variety of free resources for LCTL teachers and students. This session will take participants on a tour of these valuable resources.

Presenter: Dr. Louis Janus, Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, University of Minnesota

1100-1125 Resources from the Language Resource Centers: Don't Reinvent the Wheel!

This presentation will inform participants about the wide range of materials and resources for teaching foreign languages available to government instructors through the 14 Department of Education-funded Language Resource Centers (LRC) housed in universities across the U.S. Many of the LRC materials and resources have been designed for adult students of the Less and Least Commonly Taught Languages, as well as the more Commonly Taught Languages. Six LRCs are devoted to languages of specific areas: Slavic and East European, East Asian, Central Asian, South Asian, African, and Middle Eastern. Handouts will include descriptions and information on how to obtain materials.

Presenter: Dr. Catharine Keatley, National Capital Language Resource Center, George Washington University

1130-1200 UCLA Language Materials Project – New Resources for LCTL Teachers

This is a demonstration of web-based resources for teachers and learners of 129 less commonly taught languages. The presentation will offer examples of language profiles, a bibliography of pedagogical and linguistic materials, downloadable authentic materials, and sample lesson plans.

Presenter: Dr. Barbara Blankenship, UCLA

Room C Research

1000-1055 Conversion Training: What is Known about L3 Acquisition

Presenters: Dr. William Rivers, Dr. Eva Golonka, and Dr. David Mehall, Center for the Advanced Study of Language

1100-1125 Observations in Conversion Courses: Spanish to Portuguese and Turkish to Turkmen

Presenters: Marisa Van de Putte, Antonio Caiafa, and Bakar Tuzinovic, Foreign Service Institute

1130-1200 Hallmarks of High Level Language

Presenter: Dr. Catherine Doughty, Area Director for Second Language Acquisition, Center for the Advanced Study of Language

Room D Listening Comprehension

1000-1025 RAILS: Russian Advanced Interactive Listening Series and web-authoring tools for all LCTLs

This presentation will demonstrate new web-based instructional materials developed under a USED grant to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to create a full-year's curriculum of advanced-level listening comprehension lessons for intermediate-advanced students of Russian. The lessons are created with new authoring software developed at UW-Madison, the Multimedia LessonBuilder and Annotater. The lessons, based on excerpts from films and videotaped interviews, are being shared with institutions across the U.S. The authoring tools are available for other language instructors to create similar web-based materials.

Presenter: Dr. Dianna Murphy, University of Wisconsin

1030-1055 GLOSS Listening Lessons as a Proficiency Maintenance and Enhancement Tool

GLOSS (Global Language Online Support System) is an online language maintenance and enhancement tool offered by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC). The site provides stand-alone interactive reading and listening lessons in several languages, including Arabic, Russian, and Chinese among others. GLOSS lessons are not limited to online self-study, and can be incorporated in teach-mediated or monitored courses. The presentation will show how the various features of GLOSS lessons can help learners who do not have access to teachers, and how the lessons can support traditional and online courses.

Presenter: Abdelfattah Boussalhi, Defense Language Institute

1100-1125 Processing the Spoken Text: Designing Listening Comprehension Activities in Arabic and Urdu

Constructing listening comprehension activities in Arabic and Urdu.

Presenters: Hajra Akbar and Ahmed Hegazy, Titan Corp.

1130-1200 LangNet: Listening at Higher Levels; Multimedia Professional Development

Presenters: Dr. Catherine Ingold, National Foreign Language Center, and Pat Fisher, Department of Defense

Room E Language Mini-Lessons I

1000-1025 Georgian Made Easy!

Let’s learn Georgian! Georgian (Kartuli), an Ibero-Caucasian language, is the only written member of the Kartvelian linguistic family. It is the official language of Georgia (Sakartvelo). The Georgian alphabet is one of the 14 ancient alphabets of the world, and is distinguished by its originality. The Georgian language has the reputation of being a difficult langauge. But with desire and a good teacher, a student can learn Georgian easily. In 20 minutes participants will learn several phrases, and demonstrate that Georgian doesn’t deserve its reputation as a difficult language.

Presenter: Nana Maraneli, Foreign Service Institute

1030-1055 Taking Part in the Coffee Culture of Albania and Kosova

Very little of importance happens between people in the Albanian culture that doesn’t happen over a cup (or two!) of coffee. This mini-lesson will provide an introduction to this important aspect of Albanian culture and the opportunity to practice a few appropriate phrases and expressions in the language.

Presenter: Ardiana Sinoimeri, Foreign Service Institute

1100-1125 Sveiki! An Immersion in Latvian Culture

The Latvian culture and language are unique and Riga one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The presenters will offer a short, fun introduction to the culture, with multi-media support and realia from the Baltics. Everyone will speak some Latvian by the end of the lesson.

Presenters: Diana Brante-Bicevskis and Inita Ozolina, Foreign Service Institute

1130-1200 Urdu Mini-Lesson

Presenters: Anika Ahmed, Shabbir Bilani, and Tasnim Razi, Foreign Service Institute

Room F Technology I

1000-1025 Features of the ILR WebPage

Presenter: Dr. Bogdan Sagatov, National Cryptologic School

1030-1055 From the Foreign to Familiar: A New Approach to Language Learning

Learners of "foreign" languages in the U.S. often lack opportunities to use the language(s) they are studying, particularly outside the classroom. In the absence of sustained contact with the language--as it is employed in the community--advancement is often restricted. In this session, a pragmatic, community-based approach to foreign language and English as a Second Language (ESL) enhancement, termed the collaborative continuity model will be presented. The utility of the approach for both child and adult language learners will be demonstrated with representative video clips and other data samples.

Presenter: Dr. Anita Pandey, Morgan State University

1100-1125 Teaching with the Web in Korean

A web page with links to specific exercises or activities by topic and/or function on an Internet site, to electronic flashcard lists, or to instructor developed exercises. Reading, listening, grammar, vocabulary, culture, area studies. All levels of proficiency.

Presenters: Euhnee Choi and Grace Seo, Intelligence Language Institute

1130-1200 Authentic Tasks on the Internet

An example task tying a textbook chapter on adjectives describing people to a real-life activity, using a national police web site with pictures and descriptions of criminals. There will be a classroom speaking activity of students describing a criminal and others guessing which picture matches the description and then reading the actual description by the police. The activity includes speaking and reading vocabulary at beginner level.

Presenter: Michel Christophe, Intelligence Language Institute

Room G Technology II

1000-1025 Developing and Mentoring Portuguese Express: Dealing with Two Variants

This session consists of a PowerPoint presentation of the development and mentoring of the Portuguese Express course. It will also demonstrate one lesson and activities, paying closer attention to the issue of two variants of the same language. Finally, mentoring methods and guidelines will be discussed.

Presenter: Graca Da Cruz, Foreign Service Institute

1030-1055 Russian Interactive Online Consular Course: A Preview

American consular officers need to have the job-related language skills in order to successfully carry out their duties abroad during the war with terrorism. They need the language to conduct a visa line interview and to interact appropriately with the applicants. FSI is developing an On-Line Russian Consular Course to build these job related language skills. The presenters will demonstrate interactive activities for both listening comprehension and speaking skills. Participants will be able to see the demo of the one lesson of Russian Consular On-Line Course and also will be provided with handouts of sample activities

Presenter: Luda Kogan and Vera Gorokhov, Foreign Service Institute

1100-1125 Taking Arabic to the People: Arabic without Walls

Arabic is offered by less than 10% of American colleges and universities, and far fewer high schools. With FIPSE funding, the University of California Consortium on Language Learning & Teaching and NMELRC have teamed up to produce an asynchronous first-year Arabic distance learning course, Arabic without Walls. The AWW model leans heavily on technology to provide learners a rich interactive learning environment, including critical human interaction essential for successful language learning.

Presenter: Dr. Kirk Belnap, National Middle East Language Resource Center

1130-1200 Spanish Reading Maintenance, a Sui Generis On-line Course

How to keep a foreign language alive while posted in a country different from the language of interest? Reading is a remarkable endeavor to maintain our skills in the target language and this course is a relevant tool to achieve this goal. We will discuss the role that content, mentor, software, and technical and administrative support play in the learning process. We will show how this course works and how students benefit from it. Finally we will provide recommendations that we have tested as effective to achieve the best results.

Presenter: Fernando Osorio, Foreign Service Institute

Room H Language In Use

1000-1025 Language Applications in Military Operations Other than War

A presentation about my experiences as a Serbian-Croatian interpreter in the former Yugoslavia during 1995/96; including interpreting for Muslim and Serb war criminals, locating a Bosnian Serb mass grave and discovering a Muslim-supported terrorist training camp. The focus will be on how my language experience and area studies expertise (B.A. in Balkan History and M.S. in Strategic Intelligence) benefited the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords.

Presenter: Mitch Murphy, CTICM (SW/NAC), US Navy

1030-1055 Duty and Experiences of a Defense Threat Reduction Agency Linguist

Presenter: Matthew Steffler, TSgt, U.S. Army

1100-1125 Arabic Romanization in a Nutshell

Presenter: John Samaha, Federal Bureau of Investigation

1130-1200 Two Examples of Leveraging Technology to Meet Language Needs of Deploying Soldiers

Presenter: Yvonne Pawelek, Fort Lewis, Washington

Multipurpose Room Poster Sessions, Demos and Displays (ongoing)

1200-1300 LUNCH

Afternoon Concurrent Sessions

Auditorium

1300-1325 On Advanced Language Learning and Use

Presenter: Renee Meyer, Department of Defense

1330-1355 Twelve Months to Advanced (2/2+) Proficiency in Arabic: Tapping Higher Education’s Potential

In response to National Middle East Language Resource Center's survey of 640 students of Arabic, 73% indicated they want to achieve "professional-level fluency." Nevertheless, few of the 10,000+ students of Arabic in the collegiate pipeline reach even Level 2 proficiency. As a result, NMELRC has developed a model to help students from institutions of all types move expeditiously toward their goal. In a pilot study, 57 students of Arabic spent the Fall 2005 semester in Egypt, with 80% scoring 2 or 2+ in speaking. Many began their first Arabic class in January, therefore achieving 2/2+ in one calendar year. Implications for all LCTL's are considerable.

Presenters: Dr. Kirk Belnap, National Middle East Language Resource Center, and Dr. Ray Clifford, Brigham Young University

Room A High Level Language

1300-1325 SEALANG Lab: 3/3/3+ Surge Capacity for Southeast Asian Languages

The SEALANG Lab targets advanced learning systems for mainland Southeast Asian languages. Non-Roman orthographies and linguistic distance from English make acquiring these least-common languages particularly difficult. We discuss design of a) advanced reading/drill/self-test tools b) data resources that exploit similarities between these languages, and c) programs designed to meet DoD 'Language Roadmap' requirements. SEALANG 3/3/3 emphasizes rapid acquisition of the 3/3/3 rating, with a heavy emphasis on ‘autonomous learning’ tools, targeting Burmese, Khmer, Lao, and Thai. SEALANG Surge leverages verbal fluency of heritage speakers, and/or competence in cognate/contact languages, targeting national and minority languages, including Shan, Karen, Mon, and Wa.

Presenter: Douglas Cooper, Center for Research in Computational Linguistics

1330-1355 Overcoming Terminal Twos: CLI Approach to LCTL Level 3 Proficiency

Each year the Arizona State University Critical Languages Institute (CLI) is able to generate graduates with Level 3 ILR proficiency in less commonly taught languages of the Islamic rim. In large part it does so by combining cutting-edge use of interactive technology in the classroom with traditional immersion in overseas study programs in frontier regional centers, such as Tirana, Yerevan, Tashkent, and Kazan. This presentation addresses the CLI strategy for effective layering of proficiency development in the four basic skills by integrating U.S. and overseas training. The discussion will include case studies illustrating CLI's success.

Presenter: Dr. Ariann Stern, Arizona State University

1400-1425 Arabic Variant Identification Aid

Presenters: Dr. William Young, Dr. Jonathan Owens, and Dr. David Mehall, Center for the Advanced Study of Language

1430-1500 Helping Teachers Integrate Multimedia Technologies into Language Training

The presentation will address multimedia lab training for language instructors at the Foreign Service Institute (FSI). We will focus on the training program developed by Instructional Support Division (ISD) multimedia lab staff to help instructors enhance language learning through incorporating multimedia instructional resources and technology into their teaching strategies. We will cover the principles and objectives of the training program, its key topics, and technology-specific methods of training facilitation utilized.

Presenters: Irina Nowak and Shannon Robinson, Foreign Service Institute

Room B Technology for Teachers & Learners

1300-1325 Teaching Language on PowerPoint

Introduction of any grammar point through lots of examples, such as possessive suffixes in Turkish. PPT is readily available easy-to-learn easy-to-use technology that allows for easy display of visuals, color, and animation which provide enhanced input as required by adult learners for better retention.

Presenter: Melek Hicks, Intelligence Language Institute

1330-1355 Distance Language Learning: Hands-on Courseware

Since 1999, the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has been designing and delivering distance-learning courses and self-study programs for languages to foreign affairs professionals around the world. These programs teach listening, reading and speaking skills in 14 languages, which are essential to their work. All federal government personnel, eligible family members and Marine Security Guards may engage in distance language learning. Programs will be demonstrated and made available to showcase participants for hands-on exploring.

Presenter: Josh Saunders, Foreign Service Institute

1400-1425 Technological Applications to Grammatical and Lexical Categories: Russian Grammatical Dictionary

SEELRC has developed an innovative web-based grammatical dictionary of contemporary standard Russian that provides on a single screen (1) full grammatical paradigms, (2) sound files for every grammatical form (pronounced by native speakers) (3) case government indicators, (4) English gloss of basic meanings, (5) Russian examples in gloss and in notes, (6) related words and (7) aspectual information for verbs. This new dictionary is available to multiple platforms and browsers and is the first such grammatical dictionary of its kind. Our presentation will discuss how this project differs from its predecessors and the problems encountered in its compilation, which include issues of aspectual relationships, presence and absence of specific conjugated forms, addressing questions of bi-aspectual verbs, and determination of plural formation of nouns where their existence is questionable.

Presenter: Dr. Edna Andrews, Slavic and East European Language Resource Center, Duke University

1430-1455 The Critical Languages Series: The Second Wave

The Critical Languages Series DVD-ROM courseware for Beginning Ukrainian, Intermediate Cantonese, Intermediate Turkish, Intermediate Kazakh, and Advanced Kazakh was completed over a 3-year period at the University of Arizona. Each extensively tested DVD-ROM contains lessons comprised of video dialogues with native speakers, thousands of audio recordings, exercises, and extensive footnotes.

Presenters: Scott Brill and Alexander Dunkel, University of Arizona, College of Humanities, Critical Languages Program

Room C Helping Learners Learn

1300-1325 Learning Consultation in School of Language Studies, FSI: An Interactive Case Study

A counselor and a learning consultant from the FSI Learning Consultation Service will use an interactive case study to show how teamwork, learning style preference data, and discussion with the language learner can come together to clarify and overcome problems that may be hindering an individual’s progress. Participants will have the chance to develop their own hypotheses about the case and possible recommendations for the learner. Presenters will end by sharing the outcome of the case.

Presenter: Natalie Lord, Foreign Service Institute

1330-1355 Development of an Effective In-Country Transition Immersion Program in Hebrew

Presenters: Sarah Kunreich and Dr. Frederick Jackson, Foreign Service Institute

1400-1500 Design and Results from the NSEP Flagship Programs

Presenters: Dr. Robert Slater and National Security Education Program Panel of Returned Grantees

Room D Language Policy

1300-1350 Towards a New Model of Language, Culture, and Area Education: A Report from MLA's Committee on Foreign Languages

Presenters: Karin Ryding, Georgetown University; Michael Geisler, Middlebury Language School, Middlebury College; Peter Patrikis; Mary Louise Pratt, New York University

1400-1425 The Role of Community Colleges in Meeting National Language Needs

Cheryl Berman, Howard County Community College

1430-1500 Northeast Conference CD – 50 Years of Language

Fifty years of time-tested instructional strategies, professional writing on policy questions, reports, narratives, interview and survey results, and reflection on one searchable CD --whether browsing, reminiscing, or researching, you will find what you need using this unique professional tool! Teachers, educators, practitioners, archivists, students, and researchers have all praised the CD as a means to accomplish important tasks, efficiently and productively. We invite everyone to join us in exploring the enormous potential of this CD, which includes the most up-to-date ideas, as well as rewarding trips down memory lane!

Presenters: Dr. Scott McGinnis and Marjorie Hall Haley, Northeast Conference