SWCOLT 2025

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

In this session teachers will take their routine lessons from drab to FAB! You don't need to alter your instruction, you just need a pair of scissors and a playful mindset to gamify your instruction. This session shows you how gamification leads to engagement and engagement leads to learning. You will walk away with useful, editable templates for instruction, learning, and getting kids SPEAKING in the target language.

Learn how to develop a virtual or in-person exchange with a sister school abroad and empower your students to develop their language skills and cultural proficiency while transforming your school into a truly global campus. You will receive a step-by-step planning guide, identify best practices in establishing an exchange partnership, and walk away inspired to start a group exchange at your school.

Presenters: Patricia Roque & Zachary Richardson

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

Creating a proficiency-based classroom is like mining for silver. Come join us for an adventure into a Nevada mine, where we need to prepare for our adventure, check in as we go and mine the gems as we find them; all to help our students increase their proficiency. This session will feature activities and resources that 3 teachers from a variety of educational situations (rural, magnet, comprehensive high schools) use to design a classroom environment that encourages students to embrace their proficiency journey. Come strike it rich with us!

Presenters: Jennifer Newman-Cornell, Tzeitel Borbon & Jana Arnold

It could be argued that assessment is one of the most important aspects of language teaching and learning. Assessment usually has two main purposes: to make summative evaluations and to provide instructional feedback to help learners progress. However, assessment practices should be authentic or students should perceive them as related to their lives and goals in form, topic, process, content, or any element they consider related. At the same time, authentic assessment should serve as a representative picture of student’s competencies while providing a learning tool. Some examples of quick assessments discussed during this presentation will include: quick quizzes that can be given at the end of class after a warm-up period, and simple and quick ways to gauge and check student understanding.

Presenters: Diego Batista & Melany Batista

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

How can assessment help preserve a program? For Dual Language Immersion (DLI) programs in New York and Utah, assessment data has been critical. This session addresses some common questions about potential learning delays for students or drawbacks of participating in DLI programs. Learn how two administrators are using standardized test scores to tell a compelling story as they advocate for and build the strength of their language programs.

Presenters: Karl Bowman & Jennifer Dobberfuhl Quinlan

None of the tools for language acquisition or proficiency matter if the student doesn’t care and they’re only “in it” for the test or grade. Boomalang can be the first breakthrough for a student, allowing them to recognize the joy, challenge, and gateway to another world that a language can afford them.

How long does it take to achieve intermediate fluency in school? An ACTFL publication suggests that it takes 4 to 7 years. Amazingly, the majority of students taught with TPR Storytelling are achieving intermediate fluency in 60 hours. Our best students are intermediate speakers after just 30 hours. How is this possible? Through a simple process of CI, what we refer to as Comprehensible Interaction, blended with regular student output, our students are reaching fluency levels we never dreamed were possible. Come learn how these innovative ideas can help your students get there, too.