ACTFL Day 1 (Friday)

The actual ACTL conference started today with an opening session. The speaker was Tony Plana; a very accomplished star of stage and screen. He is one of the stars of the ABC Series, Ugly Betty. Mr. Plana developed an innovative literacy program “beyond boarders” which uses the performing arts to impact literacy.

Elke Kuegle (German Teacher from Rapid) and I then meet while passing in the halls. This was her first ACTFL conferences as well. She and I toured the Vender Exhibit hall. There was an overwhelming amount of information, curriculum, and discussion on various different topics. They seemed to have the vending areas set up by language content. This was nice as Elke and I walked through the German booths. I also was able to pick up some information on Spanish and French. There were numerous displays for Chinese and many venders from Spain.

I then attended a session entitled: Foreign Languages and Multimedia. This was an excellent session and gave some free programs that can be used by teachers. The programs were created through Michigan State and are free for language teachers to use. I am attending another session tomorrow to learn more about the online tools. http://clear.msu.edu/clear/


I then attended a Plenary session entitled: National Language Legislation inititiaves. This was a panel discussion by many individuals. There seems to be a good beginning for legistation to support world language instruction.


Then I attended a very interesting session called: Assessment as a Strategy for Student Motivation. This session focused provided models of written and oral assessment implementation with a large multi-section program. The session was presented by Robert Davis, Paual Ellister and Laurie De Gonzalez, from the University of Oregon. The level one Spanish classes have a large amount of writing using the learned vocabulary for assessment. For example if they have learned vocabulary about the family, then the student will write about their family. On exam day, the student knows that they are writing about the family, however, they may not know the exact prompt of the assessment, thus they are not able to memorize or rehearse a written piece, but rather create the product from knowledge learned. The papers are scored with a common rubric and the most interesting item is that if all expectations for the unit are met then the student receives a “C” grade. It is through the student adding additional vocabulary and other “additions” that they receive a higher grade. Thus rewarding them for added accomplishement rather than starting at the perfect level and subtracting for errors. The project has demonstrated that students are achieving higher levels in the targeted language through this method.

The most interesting item learned through this session is what the project called NORMING. The program operates with over 800 students in many different sections with various instructors, so to provide a consistent quality in grading the faculty conducts norming sessions called a grading party. They conduct the sessions three times a year. There are 4 instructors in a group. Each instructor in the group chooses example writing from what they believe to be an “A, B, C, D” graded paper. They take the samples with them to the party and then each paper is graded by the other three instructors with out prior knowledge of the original grade. Grading is based on the same rubric. The instructors then discuss and compare why each graded the paper to the level they did. This has helped tremendously to create a standard grading expectation across the program.

At the end of year one students were surveyed in response to the new methods on assessment of their knowledge and all were very satisfied.