SWCOLT 2025

This session explores how to use authentic resources in the Spanish classroom, level 1 and through upper levels. We will discuss ways to support different types of students with appropriate tasks and will focus on instructional strategies that use authentic resources to build students’ proficiency in Spanish and explore intercultural comparisons. Join us to share how the use of authentic resources can motivate our students to use Spanish in and beyond the classroom.

Join Erica Peplinski-Burge and JJ Morgan to explore the fascinating intersection of language learning and neuroscience. Gain a deeper understanding of how neuroscience principles can revolutionize language learning, making it a more effective and enriching experience for students. Learn practical strategies to create supportive, low-stress learning environments that foster greater language proficiency and overall well-being.

Presenters: Erica Peplinski-Burge & JJ Morgan

How can we take full advantage of authentic materials? In this workshop, participants will experience the power of authentic materials to develop and enhance students’ interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational communication, while developing their critical thinking, and linguistic, and intercultural skills.

Want to improve your classroom practice? Most teachers do! Teachers routinely re-design their practice to meet perceived needs and then evaluate how changes impact student learning. These are fundamental inquiry practices of research as well. Action research is a well-established, valuable form of practitioner-led research, which engages teachers in examination of current practice, design of a new approach, followed by systematic analysis of how a shift in practice influences student experience and/or outcomes. In this workshop, we present action research fundamentals and concrete examples from two French teachers’ current studies-in-progress, so that language teachers new to the practice can leave the session with concrete ideas and tools for getting started in their own contexts.

Presenters: Julie Monty & Fernando Trejo Rios

This presentation will share best practices and highlight the significance of formative assessment with constructive feedback in foreign language learning. The presenters will discuss how formative assessment, through ongoing influential feedback to learners, bridges the gap between current understanding and learning goals, thereby enhancing student achievement and teacher content knowledge. By incorporating targeted, specific, timely, balanced, differentiated, and supportive feedback, this approach tailors teaching strategies to meet individual learner needs. The presenters will also explore practical strategies for implementing formative assessment and designing learning activities that foster cooperative and collaborative learning, ultimately promoting student engagement and self-regulation in language learning.

Presenters: Bozo Dzakula & Maida Dzakula