The Cardinal

WHAT’S YOUR “ASK”?  

Angela Gardner, OFLA Public Relations and Advocacy Chair
Spanish Teacher, Ross High School

Just as every lesson has one or more objectives to guide it, conversations and written correspondence with our representatives have objectives, often referred to as an “ask.” As our lesson objectives may align to state or national standards, similarly, it helps our representatives understand our requests when we are specific in terms of legislation that we want to see changed, supported, or ***denied***.  Continue reading →

SPOTLIGHT ON NEW TEACHERS: MEGAN HELGESON

“No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helped you.” ― Althea Gibson

Shelly McAlister, Marlington Local Schools

Megan Helgeson

The OFLA Beginning Teacher Committee is working hard to connect with new teachers and to support them to become excellent, innovative, resourceful, and long lasting world language teachers. Our goal is to provide a network of resources, strategies and tools for new teachers. We want new teachers to know that they are not alone, and that OFLA is here to help them. To this end, we will be interviewing new teachers throughout the year and highlighting them in The Cardinal. Megan Helgeson is a French teacher at Dempsey Middle School in Delaware, Ohio who recently participated in one of our resource swap meets. This is her fourth year teaching French full time. Continue reading →

TEACHING INTERCULTURAL AWARENESS

A global approach to global languages 

Samantha Bremner, OFLA Early Language Learning Chair, Zid Zid

Our students have more access than ever to the world. From pictures of national monuments to what a popular social media influencer eats for breakfast, they have it all at their fingertips. Using this plethora of information in a way that is educational and communicative is our job.  Continue reading →

WHAT’S THE GOOD WORD?

Julie Frye, OFLA Scholarship Chair
French Teacher, Lexington High School 

You may have seen the question on social media. You may be in the habit yourself. “What question?” you may ask. “What habit?” you might be wondering.

The question is “What is your word for 2020?” Choosing a word to focus on for the year has a number of benefits. It’s different from making resolutions for the new year. A resolution is a goal that can be crossed off a list. A word becomes a mantra for your life. The word you choose can bring clarity and focus to the choices you encounter each day.  Continue reading →

OHIO’S SEAL OF BILITERACY

The What, Why, When and How of the Process

OFLA Secondary Language Learning Committee:  Maureen Gerber, Perrysburg High School, Chair,  Alexis Blum, Minster High School, and Kerry Parker, Edison High School 

The Secondary Language Learning Committee would like to help encourage more teachers to have students aspire to earn Ohio’s Seal of Biliteracy.  What follows is an article explaining the whats, hows and whys of the new Ohio Seal of Biliteracy. Continue reading →

A FLIPPED LANGUAGE CLASSROOM

Leah Henson, OFLA Technology Integration Chair
Miami University, Senior Lecturer

Have you heard that one year of a high school world language course is equivalent to one semester of the same language at the university level? I’ve heard this many times since I started teaching at Miami University just over 20 years ago, and a Google search will show that this idea is still alive and well. Let’s take a moment to consider the contact hours for those courses.  High school language courses typically have between 135-150 contact hours in one year. College courses require ~60 contact hours for a four-credit hour course (typically the beginning language courses) and ~45 contact hours for a three-credit course (often for the intermediate level language courses). How can college courses cover the same material or increase students’ proficiency when they have half or even a third of the time as a full-year high school course? Realistically, they can’t.  However, they can leverage technology to get closer to that goal by adopting an inverted or flipped classroom.
Continue reading →