2018 OFLA Teacher of the Year

Posted on January 19, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Beth Hanlon, 2017-2018 OFLA President

Spanish Teacher, Oberlin High School

The Teacher of the Year Award is designed to recognize very accomplished language teachers that follow best practices, both state and national standards, as well as proficiency guidelines. The Teacher of the Year portfolio submitted by applicants consists of letters of recommendation from a supervisor, a current student, and a current/former parent; a Curriculum Vitae/Resume; a five-hundred-word personal statement on the value of learning languages and developing cultural competence for all learners; samples of student work that reflect the goals of the State and National Standards for Learning Languages; a video of the candidate teaching of 15-20 minutes; and an interview with the Teacher of the Year Selection Committee.

It is my honor to introduce the Ohio Foreign Language Association’s 2018 Teacher of the Year, Lee Bishop, Japanese teacher at Columbus North International School!

Lee’s Teacher of the Year portfolio details her dedication to her students and her profession. In addition to teaching Japanese at Columbus North International School, Lee has assisted in implementing a Korean program for students. She organizes trips for students to Japan and is a faculty advisor for the United Nations Foundation sponsored Girl Up! Club and the Korean Language and Culture Club.

She has worked with the Ohio Department of Education and ACTFL on standards revisions; served on the OFLA board in various capacities as well as the Ohio Association of Japanese Teachers and the Northeast Association of Japanese Language Teachers boards; has presented at OFLA, CSCTFL, and ACTFL; is involved in the Asia Society International Studies Schools Network; as well as serving as a Japanese teacher and camp director for Camp OFLA. In 2009, Lee was named the International Educator of the Year by the Columbus Council of World Affairs. Lee has a great deal of experience with international business which is of great benefit to her Japanese students as she frequently makes career connections and opportunities for her them.

Lee will now represent OFLA at the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 8-10, 2018. Please join me in congratulating her and wishing her luck at CSCTFL! (Also look for her sessions at the 2018 OFLA conference!)

Posted in Executive News, General, Letter from the President, OFLA News: Association, Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

Ohio Association of Teachers of Japanese is ready for the new year!

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Laura Renz, Mirai Intercultural Language and Consulting, Vice President OATJ

The previous year ended on a great note with OATJ’s Fall Conference in November with guest presenter Yo Azama who presented on Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA). Teachers of Japanese from all over Ohio came to hear Yo Azama speak about how to inspire and engage students while assessing their performance using real-world tasks. Teachers saw examples from Mr. Azama’s own classroom and worked together with him and other teachers to create their own ideas on how to implement this in their own classroom. Continue reading →

Posted in Affiliates, Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

AATSP Winter 2017-2018: Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica Chapter Ideas

Posted on January 14, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Lindsay Dollinger, AATSP Buckeye Chapter President 2018

Having just inducted our school’s biggest incoming class of new inductees to the “Los Pioneros” Chapter of the Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica, the time for planning a new year of opportunities for our Spanish students has begun. In the four short years of our charter, our school has created a society which values foreign language and encourages students to extend their language learning instead of choosing to stop after the minimum requirement for their chosen graduation track. I had many reasons I initially shared with our administration for approval of the Sociedad Honoraria Hispánica (SHH). Primarily, I wanted to add more value to our department. Student members are able to apply for a junior travel award or a senior university scholarship (one per chapter) each year. In addition, our chapter is able to award service and academic awards to the top members of our organization. No other club or organization really offers these opportunities to our student body. In addition, the service opportunities and other fun bonding activities that the SHH would plan over the year would help encourage our members to continue on to higher levels of the language…and the plan has worked! Continue reading →

Posted in Affiliates, Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

Addressing context with Hymes’s SPEAKING model

Posted on January 14, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Marissa K. Wood

It is no doubt that role plays, conversation snippets, and dialogues in the foreign language classroom help to develop a learner’s communicative competence. Beyond the tier of Chomsky’s linguistic competence, students learn about appropriateness through practicing language in a staged scenario. Communicative competence is about “knowing not only the language code but also what to say to whom, and how to say it appropriately in any given situation. Further, it involves […] social and cultural knowledge” (Saville-Troike, 2003, p.18). Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

Letter to my Novice Language Learners: I understand, and I feel for you. Don’t give up.

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Becky Searls
Spanish Teacher, Upper Arlington School District

Wow. Today I remembered what it’s like to walk a mile in your shoes. I’m writing from Otavalo, Ecuador, in South America, where I started Kichwa language lessons this week. Kichwa is a language spoken by indigenous (native) people here in the Andes mountains of Ecuador. In a couple of weeks, I’ll start all over again in the country next door, Peru, studying a similar, yet completely different language, spoken by the indigenous people there, called Quechua. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

French Braiding for Language Class Success

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Angela Gardner
Spanish Teacher
Ross Local Schools, Hamilton, OH

I’ll be forever indebted to my cooperating teacher for student teaching, Mrs. Virginia “Ginny” Gills. She taught me many important and valuable things that have served me well in my career as an educator. I hope every teacher has the opportunity to work with someone like her–a positive attitude towards the profession, caring towards her students and peers, strong pedagogical skill, and a generally cheery disposition. In case you weren’t blessed to work with someone like her, or are looking for something that could bolster your language program, I hope to share one of the many lessons that Ginny taught me that continues to resound in my classroom and impact my practices. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

Ritual vs Routine in the K-12 Classroom: What’s the difference? Why does it matter?

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Becky Searls
Spanish Teacher
Upper Arlington School District

I am naturally a pretty type-A individual. While my husband may argue otherwise based on my tidiness level at home sometimes, I would say that I’m a pretty organized person, particularly as a teacher in my classroom. I remember, over a decade ago, reading The First Days of School by Harry and Rosemary Wong, clinging to the classroom management and organizational strategies it proposed, and writing, I kid you not, this document outlining all of my procedures and rules and possible consequences. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

OHIO AATG FALL CONFERENCE AND OTHER AATG UPDATES

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

OHIO AATG FALL CONFERENCE

Dennis Boyd, Brunswick High School/Ohio AATG Treasurer/AATG Liaison to OFLA

The Fall AATG conference was held on Saturday, November 4, 2017, at the Hyatt Place Dublin. The conference featured presentations by Gene Aufderhaar, Darlene Lyons, Leeni Martinkari, Debbie Page, Kevin Richards, Julie Schonauer, and Krista Winzer-Lee.

The presentation topics included articulation: collaboration between German programs at the secondary and post-secondary levels and OSU’s outreach program in high schools; testing: The National German Exam and the Deutsches Sprachdiplom; methods: intercultural competences, “Can do” statements, and elements of PBL for German; and advocacy: student travel (trips and exchanges) and cooperative projects between the German language advisor (Leeni Martinkari) and local institutions. Continue reading →

Posted in Affiliates, Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

LESSONS IN LANGUAGE LEARNING FROM A NATION OF POETS

Posted on January 8, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Derek Braun, TESOL/OFLA Liaison

Columbus City Schools, ELL Science Teacher

Aqoon l’aani waa iftiin la’aani. (Somali proverb: To be without knowledge is to be without light.)

Somalia is known as a nation of poets. The Somali language wasn’t given an official alphabet for the first time until 1972, but many Somalis can recite poetry that is centuries old. These poems and proverbs preserve the wisdom and values that construct the Somali culture. In the spring of 2016, I had the opportunity to visit Somalia and spend time observing and learning from some of the customs and values hidden within this nation of poets. Continue reading →

Posted in Affiliates, Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment

TALKABROAD: A New Way to Encourage Students to Engage in Conversations with Native Speakers

Posted on January 7, 2018 by Cardinal Editor

Yuki Togawa Gergotz, Case Western Reserve University / Lecturer of Japanese

TalkAbroad (https://talkabroad.com) is a website that provides a well-trained conversation partner for conversation practice in eight different languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Arabic, and Japanese) for over 100 universities, colleges, and high schools. Real-time conversations are 30 minutes in length and take place directly on the website with state-of-the-art videoconferencing tools. While there is a per-conversation cost for students, TalkAbroad is free for instructors who wish to polish their language skills in their spare time. The use of TalkAbroad is limitless for both students and instructors. Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Winter 2018 | Leave a comment