The Cardinal

Ryan Wertz and Kathy Shelton, World Language Consultants, Ohio Department of Education

You Are Appreciated!

As we pen this article, we are in the midst of Teacher Appreciation Week, which falls annually during the first week of May. We are profoundly grateful for all that you have done to keep students learning during an unprecedented school year filled with challenges that were almost unimaginable a little more than a year ago. We want to thank every world language educator who stuck with it this year, overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges to keep students engaged in language and culture learning. We have been duly impressed by your resilience and especially by your willingness to broadly support, collaborate and share ideas and resources with educators who have been struggling. This year Ohio’s world language teachers have shined brightly like never before, and you are to be commended!

Jonathan Harris, Ohio Buckeye AATSP President
Spanish Teacher, St. Gabriel Consolidated School, Cincinnati

The National Conference will take place in Atlanta, Georgia, from July 8-11. Georgia’s recently passed controversial Voting Laws prompted several other organizations to relocate their conferences out of Georgia. However, with a conference theme of Celebrating Diversity, AATSP released this official statement, “We believe the ideas and values we stand for will best serve our educational communities by continuing with plans for our in-person conference in downtown Atlanta (July 8-11, 2021).”

Teachers participating in the National Spanish Exam (NSE) were told that they will receive the results of the Exam on or before May 1.

TESOL 2021
International Convention & English Language Expo

Derek Braun, TESOL/OFLA Liaison
Columbus City Schools, EL Science Teacher

Like so many parts of our lives now, the International TESOL Conference that took place in March of 2021 was of course, virtual.  Beginning on Tuesday, March 2021 and occurring over a four day period, the conference offered hundreds of presentations, workshops and networking opportunities.  More than 8000 plus English language professionals gathered virtually to share experiences and expertise in the field of English language instruction.  Clint Smith, one of the keynote speakers and staff writer at The Atlantic, discussed the power a teacher can have on creating a transformative classroom in which students can have conversations to deconstruct and reconstruct ideas to build something better.  On Thursday, James Alatis presented on the topic of Courageous Conversation™: Building Bridges, Not Borders. In this presentation, James presented his work engaging with a protocol and framework entitled Courageous Conversation™ in which he develops methods for individuals to achieve sustained and deepened dialogue. Also on Thursday, Cindy Mi, founder and CEO of VIPkid, which connects English Learners in China to online teachers for virtual lessons, discussed the current and future implications of the new global classroom experienced through online learning.  Friday began with a Keynote address from Dr. Janet Zadina, author and neuroscientist, who presented on the science and strategies for optimal learning. Finally, the conference concluded with remarks from the Presidential Keynote, Dr. Deborah Short, in which she recounted many stories of resilience and reinvention from teachers in the field of English language instruction.

Decoding the Céloron Plaque

Dr. Roger Anderson, Assistant Professor of International Languages & Cultures, Central State University

The Great Lakes and Ohio River regions boast a fascinating French history.  In fact, the French even claimed Ohio as property of the French crown!  Ohio instructors of French should welcome this history into their classrooms. 

The Céloron Plaque refers to six metal plaques that were buried by the French in Ohio’s soil in 1749.  What follows is a brief overview of its story, followed by suggested classroom activities for French language instruction.  

Rethinking the “Foreign” in “Foreign Language”

Dr. Roger Anderson, Assistant Professor of International Languages & Cultures, Central State University

Editor’s Note: The OFLA Board has been discussing changing our association’s name in order to remove the word “foreign”. This process would require a change in our official documents including our certificate of incorporation, insurance and banking and it will impact the association financially. Therefore, the board must determine how to move forward with our mission and vision while respecting the work of those who came before us and were responsible for creating the name and logo.

The turbulence of 2020-21 has taught us that we must critically examine how our identities, our ideologies, and our work impact society’s most vulnerable or marginalized members.  Now is the time for critical self-reflection.

Are “foreign” languages really foreign?

For the Ohio Foreign Language Association, critical discussion is needed about our organization’s identity as educators of “foreign languages”.

As an association of Ohioans, “foreign” is problematic.  We know that language operates on many levels.  On a legal level, foreign means of a different nationality.  To the U.S., it means that the person or thing is not of the United States.  It is out of place from where it belongs.  It does not really belong there, or does not fully belong there.

We must ask ourselves:  are the languages we teach foreign languages?  Do they not belong in the United States, or in Ohio?  In other words, are our languages not used by Americans?   

Rebecca H. Bias, Ph.D., The Ohio State University
Assistant Director, Center for Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

The CAAP Program (Collaborative Articulation and Assessment Project) at The Ohio State University is in its 29^th year!  CAAP is a creative, action-oriented articulation project designed to address the problems typically associated with the language learner’s transition from high school to post-secondary world language instruction.  Collaborative refers to the collective effort of high school and university instructors to create a core curriculum and a common set of instructional objectives for students at each stage of a four-level language program.  Articulation ensures that students move smoothly through a course of study, from one level to the next. It addresses the problems that students encounter when they make transitions between high school courses and the college classroom.  Assessment measures give students an indication of their potential university course placement.  

The project was initiated in 1992 by The Ohio State University, Columbus State Community College, and Columbus Public Schools, with a grant from The Ohio Board of Regents.  CAAP is currently funded by The Ohio State University College of Arts and Humanities and the Center for Languages, Literatures, and Cultures.  In 1994, CAAP added suburban schools in the greater Columbus area. Since then, over 250 schools from all over Ohio have become CAAP participants.  

Susan Colville-Hall, University of Akron, Professor Emeritus

“There are some who bring a light so great to the world, that even after they have gone, the light remains” (Leanin’ Tree.)   That is so true of our dear friend, Theresa Minick.  It’s been almost a year since the passing of our beloved Theresa (June, 2020) and we members of OFLA have missed her greatly.  Theresa brought us together in so many ways.  First, she helped us celebrate the language profession with her creative ideas to engage everyone in language interaction and culture learning.  Second, she thrust new ideas in technology at us and helped us make sense of new-fangled gadgets and procedures through professional development.   Third, Theresa seized the opportunity to fund summer workshops for teachers of specific interests and made these opportunities possible for many of Ohio’s teachers.  Finally, Theresa was generous with her time and took on the necessary dissemination of state standards and the sharing of curriculum development.  While these acts of professional service were ongoing, Theresa taught her own students at Kent State University and served on the board of several other important international non-profit organizations, such as Global Ties- Akron, the International Institute of Akron, and the International Institute Women’s Board.  She was also a member of Women’s Interfaith Spiritual Heritage (WISH) and a strong advocate and friend of the Arts in Akron.

Elfe Dona, Associate Professor of German, Wright State University

When educators first had to deliver their content online in early 2020, they scrambled to get their course materials online and did not pay too much attention to the advantages that such a move could have.

For some educators, the interruption due to the pandemic triggered them to reflect on how they had previously delivered content and how students actually learn best. After the “crisis teaching” (Fisher, Frey & Hattie, 2020), the on-campus return is imminent and we have to ask ourselves what we will take with us from our online experience into the classroom. In my case, although I have studied online course design for many years before actually going completely online, I knew that reflecting on my old teaching habits and strategies would be necessary. Initially, my idea of online learning was to digitize my documents, upload them in a learning management system (LMS), and use the online grading functions. Effective teaching, both online and in person, must establish a close connection to our students, show respect for their learning styles, and provide organized courses.

In the following paragraphs, I will share some insights into what strategies have worked well in the online course delivery mode, and what can be integrated into the traditional face-to-face classroom or, in my case, the blended learning classroom (50% online 50% in-person). The new connection I have made between online teaching and learning in a traditional classroom might be helpful for other educators. The ideas are categorized by benefits for the teacher and students in the online environment. The second part lists challenges when moving online content into the in-person or blended classroom in a meaningful way and how we can overcome the hurdles to create a positive learning experience.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Focusing On What’s Important This Year

Chris Lemon
Spanish Teacher, Northmont High School

A young woman from Spain fell in love with a man from Chile, moved there with him and made a family.  Along the way Ofelia discovered democracy and political organizing and volunteered for Salvador Allende’s presidential campaign.  Along with many other people at the time, she and her family were rounded up shortly after the September 11, 1973, coup and detained for many months.  Thanks to her Spanish citizenship, they were deported rather than disappeared, and she has lived the last 40 years of her life in Sweden.

Two years ago my brother and I made a trip to Santiago, Chile, to see the mountains, the museums and the stars.  When we were at the Museo de la Memoria, I bought a copy of Ofelia’s autobiography, Mi historia – y un viaje al fin del mundo.  She left it in the gift shop when she flew back there for the first time in many years to give a speech not long before my own trip.

This school year, our instructional time was cut by about 25%, our first quarter was remote, the rest has been hybrid, and we all know how much our students’ learning was stunted in Spring 2020.  So this year, we decided to take a step back and ask ourselves what matters most.  Maybe your answers are different than mine, but what I chose to focus on was an emphasis on stories, real and imagined (thanks to whoever posted that Krashen article), project-based learning and remote exchange.  All three of these were already a part of our teaching practice, but they have really taken off now.

Amye R. Sukapdjo, 2^nd Grade Teacher
École Kenwood French Immersion School

The pandemic rocked learning environments everywhere in spring 2020. My current second grade students missed out on the last quarter of their first grade, which then transitioned into summer. As of fall 2020 it had been six months since most of the children had been in “school mode” and there was a lot of uncertainty about what la rentrée would look like.

When teachers at École Kenwood French Immersion School (Columbus, Ohio) were told late last August that the school year would begin fully online, we wondered how it was all going to work. Like other full immersion programs, we were concerned about how we would be able to maximize language input through a new modality in order to develop students’ production skills. How many platforms do we use and how many of those are in French? What French language texts are accessible to students working remotely? How can we help them improve their writing skills when we cannot even see what they are writing? Our thoughts were swirling. Challenges were abundant and we had to get creative. Quite simply, we wondered what would be successful. How was this to be accomplished?