The Cardinal

Angela Gardner, Spanish Teacher, Ross High School

Introduction

Some years ago, when I began my journey as a classroom teacher, I dreamt of a classroom environment where my students would be engaged, respectful, and excited to learn. At the same time, I was terrified of soliciting support from parents, which I have now come to know as highly beneficial, even essential, to running a successful classroom. Today, I still get jitters from time to time when I have to contact a parent, especially to share unpleasant news, but for the most part, I have found that the risks are well worth the rewards. Here, I will share with OFLA members the methods and timing I use for parent contacts, the purpose of contacting parents, and more. I also hope that other teachers might find some use in having new ideas about engaging parents in their children’s language education process. Continue reading →

María Postigo, Ph.D.

María Postigo is a native speaker from Spain. She teaches Spanish II, III/Hnrs & IV and is the Spanish Club Advisor at Canal Winchester HS. She is on the OFLA Secondary Language Learning Committee.

When it comes to cultural celebrations, we as educators try to make the experience as authentic as possible for our students.

This year we were thrilled to have the opportunity of celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by bringing the music and dance group ADÚ Proyecto Universal to perform in our school. It transmits culture and folk elements in a contemporary context by combining diverse disciplines such as dance, theatre and Peruvian tapping. Continue reading →

Mary Jane Kelley, Ohio University

The Ohio Valley Foreign Language Alliance held its annual fall meeting at Ohio University in Athens on Saturday, October 31, 2015. This year’s program featured a workshop on “Integrating Technology to Assess for Student Proficiency” lead by Bryan Drost, Director of Educational Services for Firelands Local Schools and Tech Integration Committee Chair for OFLA.  Drost guided the thirty participants through a series of mobile-apps and Web-2.0 tools that lend themselves to real-world learning in the language classroom.  Drost shared examples of activities he has created using these apps in order to teach and assess the eight themes of the Ohio Standards via Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs).  The three-hour hands-on workshop was lively and entertaining as Drost alternated between demonstration, participation, and small-group experimentation.  As always at our OVFLA meetings, participants had time to catch up, meet new members, and share ideas informally over coffee and other refreshments. Continue reading →

Lucas Hoffman, Sylvania Southview HS, OFLA President-elect

In October, 2015, I wrote an article as a follow-up from the LILL 2015 summer institute (organized by ACTFL, NCSSFL, and CSCTFL among other national and regional bodies).  I included information on the six core practices of world language teaching; you might think of these practices as those critical to really teaching languages for communication.

If you are looking for a strategy to help your students speak better, core practice #6 might be for you! Continue reading →

Diane Ceo-DiFrancesco, Xavier University, OFLA Teacher Preparation Committee Chair

We are currently facing two important issues with regards to world language teacher preparation. We have noticed a precipitous drop in the number of students in our world language teacher licensure programs across the state. This certainly raises concerns regarding the source of the next generation of language teachers. In addition, some non-native speaking students enrolled in world language teacher preparation programs struggle to reach the ACTFL proficiency levels required by the state of Ohio and need consistent communication practice opportunities in speaking and writing. Continue reading →