The Cardinal

The Faces Behind OFLA’s Newsletter

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

OFLA’s newsletter, The Cardinal, is published in the fall, winter, and spring of each school year.  The issues of the newsletter would not be possible without the behind-the-scenes dedication and hard work of the editing team.  They painstakingly comb through all of the articles in search of grammatical and spelling errors and to ensure the “flow” of the articles.

I would like to take this opportunity to spotlight them!  

Milton Alan Turner, OFLA Editor for Electronic Media
French Teacher, Saint Ignatius High School

As language teachers, we often emphasize the forms of a language (sounds and structures or vocabulary and grammar) or the meaning of words. However, the context in which these words and structures are used are often the key to correctly interpreting the meaning of utterances.  Pragmatics, which is the linguistic science of studying language in context and paying attention to who says what to whom and in which context, is a critical aspect of language instruction.

Words and sentences take on different meanings depending on who says them and why. State Farm Insurance several years ago created a series of commercials demonstrating the importance of context. These commercials featured two people using the exact same words in different contexts which as a result had entirely different meanings. You can watch one of these commercials, Jacked Up, on YouTube at https://youtu.be/k29ogXL_S2U.  

A CONVERSATION WITH DR. BILL VANPATTEN: PART 1 

Marianela Serrano, OFLA Professional Development Chair
Spanish Teacher, Hathaway Brown School

It is a wonderful and warm Monday here in Ohio, and I have the pleasure and honor to interview one of my heroes in the field of Second Language Acquisition, Dr. Bill VanPatten.

Dr. VanPatten is now a talented fiction writer who also spent several years in academia and in the classroom teaching a second language. Most recently he was a Professor of Spanish and Second Language Acquisition at Michigan State University.  He also taught and researched at the University of Illinois at both the Chicago and Urbana-Champaign campuses, as well as at Texas Tech. Dr. VanPatten focused on the expanding of SLA and developing the theory of Input Processing, which also led to substantial work in both processing itself and in processing instruction. He is a pioneer in his field and continues to educate about the importance of Second Language Acquisition to educators.

In our conversation, I asked him about the future of language teachers. His responses gave me much to ponder about as we begin to move forward into a more hybrid world.

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

The theme of our mini-conference this year was “Moving forward,” and it seems fitting in timing for our membership and organization. In order to move forward, we must look ahead and into the future, anticipating the changes we hope to initiate, as well as the challenges and barriers that we may have to face. 

During the conference, Milton Alan Turner shared a video as a part of his presentation on social justice that asked us to consider not the how, but the why, we should take action. In the video, a speaker prompts an audience member to sing “Amazing grace,” and he does so, beautifully. But then, the speaker provides a context–a reason why the singer might be performing the song and asks him to sing it again, and the performance goes from beautiful to turning into a moving, emotional experience. 

Julia Thomas, OFLA Early Language Chair
Spanish Teacher, Oberlin City Schools

When I was in elementary school, I would ask my mom to let me use her iMac so that I could play JumpStart games that came on a CD-ROM. Twenty years later, I see my elementary school students ask to watch these 15-60 second videos coupled with a pop song on a telephone that gets its signal from outer space! Yes, I am talking about the famous TikTok. Maybe you cringe or maybe you smile at the mention. I myself had said that I would never get on TikTok and that it was just one more social media platform that I did not need. Then came pandemic teaching. 

It started one day while I was teaching a virtual lesson about food to first graders. The lesson went wonderfully; students were engaged, producing in the target language, and they absolutely adored the “food song” that I always introduce when we discover how to say “I like” and “I don’t like”. But at the end of the class, a student who had been rather quiet throughout the lesson started singing, “Chicken wing, chicken wing, hot dog and baloney” and then about three more students joined her chorus, singing “Chicken and macaroni–chillin’ with my homies”. After the class ended, my student teaching assistant (a college student who is much more knowledgeable about trends) informed me that they were singing an extremely popular TikTok song and wondered how we could incorporate their interest in TikTok into the next class. She had noted that another student was wearing a TikTok sweatshirt and was dancing as the song was being sung. I honestly had no clue of what to do next. As we all have been or maybe still are, I was exhausted and burnt out. There were no creative juices flowing. Thankfully, I work with a group of college students who had a plethora of ideas, the most obvious of which being, “Let’s make our own TikToks in Spanish!” 

2021 OFLA Teachers Grant Recipient

Na Li, OFLA Scholarship Committee Chair
Chinese Teacher, Columbus Academy

Kaleigh Baker, OFLA Technology Integration Chair
Spanish Teacher, Butler High School

We have almost crossed the finish line in what has proven to be a marathon of a school year. Across the state, schools have been through a variety of plans to continue educating our students. If you returned to in-person learning, you might still be getting to know your students. If you are still remote or hybrid, you are probably a pro at Zoom and digital activities. As the end of the year approaches, no matter what plan you are teaching under, you need to start considering how to wrap up the school year.

At the end of April, I attended the OFLA Mini-Conference and it was inspiring and invigorating. Listening to fellow educators share their experiences and plans as well as Laura Terrill’s keynote speech got me thinking about how to wrap up and end this wild ride of a school year. In my lower-level classes, I decided on the future tense, and in my upper levels, I chose a travel unit for my Spanish 3’s and an autobiography for my Spanish 4/AP students. These units are fun and engaging and will set me up for success in the fall because I can pick up where I left off!

Strategies to help keep you from losing your mind … and everything else!

Maureen Gerber, OFLA Secondary Language Learning Committee Chair
French Teacher,  Perrysburg High School 

Bonjour!

One of the hardest aspects of teaching for proficiency, in my opinion, is keeping it all together.  Google Drive helps, but even there I’ve had my moments searching for the resource I just knew I had tucked away somewhere in the labyrinth of my drive.

I’ve come up with the following practices, those which are working for me, and so as this school year draws to a close, I pass them on to you.

Megan Brady, OFLA Beginning Teacher Committee Chair
Spanish Teacher, Marlington Local Schools

The OFLA Beginning Teacher Committee is working hard to connect with new teachers and to support them in becoming 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. This spotlight edition is on Michael Campbell,  a Spanish teacher at Sylvania Northview in Sylvania, Ohio. This is his third year teaching Spanish.

What is your favorite thing about being a teacher?

My very favorite part about being a teacher is having something to celebrate every single day. Every little bit of language growth that I see in my students is an invitation to recognize and affirm their achievements, and I make sure that we all celebrate that on a daily basis. Even when I’m having tough days, applauding my students’ strides is always enough to put a smile on my face.

What made you want to teach?

As a humanities major in undergrad, I had always wondered what teaching might be like but really came to love it while working as a long-term substitute at Coventry Middle School near Akron, OH. My amazing colleagues there showed me how rewarding teaching can be when done in an environment that supports students when they face challenges and celebrates their victories when they overcome them. That experience stayed with me throughout my subsequent graduate studies and motivated me to pursue teaching as a full-time profession after that.

Kirsten Halling, OFLA Teacher Recruitment and Retention
Professor of French, Wright State University

How can we, as language teachers, ensure the longevity of our profession and avoid the epidemic of program cancelations due to the current language teacher shortage? By identifying and recruiting the next generation of language teachers. Do you have students who are natural born teachers? Students whose passion for the language reminds you of your own? Then consider mentoring these future teachers by giving them a window into the profession. 

Given the severity of the current world language teacher shortage, The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) has put together a whole program specifically targeted to language teacher recruitment. ACTFL’s Educators Rising 2.0 program can be used informally in a one-on-one setting, within the context of an after-school program, as a language club activity, or as a component of Educators Rising Ohio. Their comprehensive program provides master teachers with every imaginable resource for supporting future language teachers, from the practical to the inspirational. And in the very near future, these English-language materials will be translated into Arabic, French and Spanish and will be available at the same location for use in language clubs and even in the classroom (Back). This short article will explore the language teacher shortage and introduce ways that language teachers can inspire a future generation of educators to continue the boundary breaking work we do.