The Cardinal

Kaleigh Baker, OFLA President-Elect
Spanish Teacher, Butler High School

OFLA is pleased to announce TWO fabulous conference opportunities for the 2023-2024 school year. Last year, after our summer conference, we surveyed attendees and responses were favorable to having a summer or fall conference in addition to the annual spring conference. Therefore, this July, we are having a Back to School Splash on Saturday, July 22, 2023 at the Embassy Suites in Dublin, Ohio. Proposals are being accepted now! You can submit one HERE. See the flyer here for more information! Registration will open soon.

If you attend the Summer Mini-Conference, we are offering a discount off your Spring 2024 Annual Conference Registration! We would love to see you at both! 

This year’s Spring Conference will be held at Otterbein University during their Spring Break, so we will have campus to ourselves! The dates are March 7-9, 2024. We have a room block at the Aloft in Westerville and have a lot of exciting things planned! See the flyer here. 

We look forward to seeing you in Dublin, Ohio, in July and in Westerville, Ohio, in March!

Megan Brady, OFLA Executive Vice President 
Spanish Teacher, Northwest High School

After a super busy, hugely beneficial weekend at the Central States Conference (languages for ALL!), I came home energized and ready to change the world. A huge shoutout to superstar Kathy Shelton for introducing me to the Sustainable Goals website and initiative to help me make the connection that every single level of language courses could benefit from it.  It showed me that I have the power to change my lessons to be more impactful than ever before. This, along with talking to some fellow colleagues in the project-based learning session , I created what I consider an awesome unit that I am super excited about. I am implementing this in my Spanish 3 classes this year. 

The Cardinal Editing Team is looking for additional editors

Beth Hanlon, Executive Recorder and Editor of The Cardinal
Spanish Teacher, Oberlin High School

The articles that appear in OFLA’s newsletter, The Cardinal, are read by The Cardinal’s editing team.  This is a dedicated group of world language teachers that combs through each article to make any corrections needed in grammar, spelling, and general message.  We accept articles from OFLA members that are a thousand words or less.

We publish The Cardinal three times a year: fall, winter and spring.  All articles submitted by OFLA members come to me and I place them in Google Docs.  I send the Google Docs to the editors where they can comment within the documents when they find grammatical errors, spelling errors, etc. Once they are done editing, I take care of their corrections and then place the edited articles in The Cardinal WordPress website for OFLA members to view.

The Cardinal is not a peer edited publication, but having a higher education member to add to the editing team would be so beneficial to edit our higher education submissions.
If this sounds like a way you would like to be involved in OFLA, the editing team needs a few additional editors to join us for the 2023-2024 school year!  If you are interested, please make sure your OFLA membership is current and then contact me at OFLAcardinaleditor@gmail.com by June 10, 2023. 

Cheryl Johnson, OFLA Parliamentarian and Bylaws
Instructional Technologist for the Dept of Modern Languages, Denison University (Retired)

Readlang.com enables students to read almost any digital text that they have an interest in. This online e-reader for language learners translates words or phrases and permits students to review them later as a word list or as flashcards. As stated on the Readlang website, browser extensions for Safari and Google Chrome allow the reading of websites. Students may also choose to copy and paste a text into the e-reader page or upload a file. These options enable students to read almost any digital text.

How I get enough tissues to last all year

Lisa Howie, OFLA Executive Treasurer
Spanish Teacher, Smithville High School

Right now I have a little city in my classroom made of tissue boxes. Let me start from the beginning.

Years ago a teacher friend of mine and I were lamenting never having enough tissues for our students. Our school didn’t provide them, and the kids were always asking to go to the bathroom to blow their noses during cold and flu season. We did not give the high school students long lists asking for tissues, wipes, and baggies like the elementary teachers did. They were getting too expensive for us to keep buying them. What could we do?

…and treat yourself to a membership upgrade: consider becoming a lifetime member of OFLA!

Maria Herman, OFLA Membership Chair
German Teacher, Maumee City Schools

Everyone enjoys OFLA conferences. They are a great way to meet people, network, connect to other teachers and share great ideas.  It is a time to unwind a bit and find support, too!

I personally have learned so much about teaching and have improved my teaching skills from the many OFLA conferences I have attended.

Each and every time I attend a conference, I am also lucky enough to rub elbows with some fantastic presenters, some of whom may be retired teachers who just want to share their wealth of knowledge.  And, when I started thinking about my membership and participation in OFLA, I realized the many benefits that being an OFLA lifetime member would have.