SWCOLT 2025

Visit two Phoenix-based, 50/50 (partial immersion models) Dual Language Immersion Programs in one day. The morning visit will be Tarwater School, a PK-6 Mandarin Chinese DLI program serving over 300 students in Chandler School District. This strand within the school was proudly named a top ten Chinese School by the Chinese Teacher's Association in 2022 and has a SWCOLT teacher of the year finalist teaching there. In the afternoon we will visit Kyrene Del Norte School, a K-5 Spanish DLI whole school program in Kyrene School District, serving 490 students with 10-20% average of students with Spanish as a home language.

Presenters: Maria Cristina Ladas & Patricia Fernandez

What strategies can I use to keep my students cognitively engaged? This interactive workshop will present and model practical strategies to maintain cognitive and active engagement in tasks that address all three modes of communication, as outlined in the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages. Drawing on examples from the Secondary Portuguese Dual Language Immersion class, the session will demonstrate how these strategies align with language acquisition theory and can be easily adapted to any level or language. Participants will explore ways to facilitate target-language comprehensibility, guide learners in interpreting authentic resources, and design oral interpersonal communication tasks, ensuring that students remain focused and actively involved in creating with the language.
Led by a highly experienced educator, this session integrates proven classroom practices with insights from language acquisition theory. Attendees will learn practical techniques to add authentic cultural resources to their curriculum and invite native-speaking guests to enrich the classroom experience. Participants will leave with actionable tools and ideas they can implement immediately to boost student engagement and proficiency.

Bio
Priscila Rebicki Prestes is the 2024 SWCOLT Teacher of Excellence Secondary. With 16 years of teaching experience, including 10 years as a Portuguese Dual Language Immersion teacher in Utah, she has excelled in the field of language education. Priscila is a researcher in Second Language Learning and Teaching and is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Portuguese Pedagogy at Brigham Young University (BYU). Her professional journey spans all educational levels, from elementary to high school, showcasing a comprehensive and innovative approach to teaching Portuguese as a second language.

Want to know the secret for teaching today’s Gen Z & Gen Alpha students? Spoiler alert: it’s students having fun! In this session, you will learn how to invigorate your curriculum as you participate in new (and improved!) engaging WL activities that reflect today’s students. Whether you follow a textbook or create your own curriculum, these activities will work in every level & language. Participants will engage in a fun and interactive presentation. At times, participants will play the role of student. At other times, they will reflect with their WL colleagues and go over the new strategies they learned. Strategies presented include vocabulary introduction & review, grammar games & review, and kinesthetic & communicative partner activities. Participants can take notes on a paper handout (which will also be available digitally) to track the activities that are of interest to them. They will also have access to the slide presentation for their own future use. The goal is that they will be able to walk out of the session with activities that they can implement in their classrooms on Monday! The presentation will be in English, but samples will be from our Spanish and French students.

Presenters:Amy Kingsley & Marina Barcelona

This session will introduce participants to the 10 principles of extensive or pleasure reading—an approach to teaching reading that allows learners to read copious amounts of easy material of their choice for pleasure in a relaxed environment. Drawing on his own experience, the presenter will discuss the successful implementation of extensive reading (ER) and the importance of collaborating with colleagues in other departments to build an ER collection. Participants will work together to create a plan to: (a) search for ER materials in their target language, (b) collaborate with colleagues to start building their own ER collection, and (c) begin incorporating pleasure reading into their courses. This session will cover topics such as instructional resources and personalized learning.

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

A language classroom where learners have agency is one that includes opportunities for student voice, choice, and ownership of learning. During this interactive session, participants will gain strategies and examine classroom samples for enhancing engagement of diverse students in their classrooms through student agency.

This session outlines steps to promote Advanced and Superior levels of proficiency using weekly proficiency activities to prepare students to present a panel on current events, e.g., climate change. Each student presents one aspect of the topic, building their presentation around the three superior-level functions, namely in depth discussion, supporting an opinion, and hypothesising an outcome, and making use of transition and connector words to organise their prepared content. This project serves as a capstone activity for advanced level students to push their language skills to the next level. This presentation will guide educators through the preparation process and will introduce them to transition words which can facilitate organisation of student presentations and highlight where students can elaborate their individual presentations.

In this session, participants will explore effective strategies for planning and implementing a dynamic and culturally-immersive Mandarin summer camp. The presenter will share curriculum development, activity design, and language acquisition techniques that cater to different age groups and proficiency levels. Emphasizing hands-on experiences, attendees will learn how to create a vibrant environment that fosters language learning through cultural exploration, interactive games, and creative projects. This session also covers logistical aspects, such as scheduling, resource allocation, and community engagement, ensuring a well-rounded program that resonates with both students and parents. Attendees will leave with actionable insights and resources to design and implement a successful Mandarin summer camp that inspires and empowers young learners.

As the shift to online learning accelerates in world/foreign language education, instructors face significant challenges in maintaining effective communication and interaction. Since 2020, the growth of online language classes, especially asynchronous ones, has been remarkable. Some institutions are experiencing enrollments in these online language courses that far surpass those in traditional in-person settings. However, concerns persist regarding course delivery, the communicative nature of the curricula, and the lack of quality interaction between students and instructors. This presentation will explore practical strategies for improving asynchronous online language classes, focusing on assignment types, assessments, and interactive activities. By implementing these strategies, instructors can enhance student engagement, foster communicative competence, and simulate the dynamics of traditional in-person classrooms. Additionally, the session will introduce tools and platforms that support these goals, providing participants with actionable insights and resources to create a more interactive and communicative online learning environment.

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

Several LEAs and SEAs have created K-16 pathways that make it easier for Dual Language, Heritage, and Newcomer students to matriculate into postsecondary institutions. This session will look at those K-16 Pathways and how some higher education institutions are already working with Dual Language, Heritage, and Newcomer programs. We will discuss the Utah and Delaware Bridge Programs, which connect high school students with upper division university coursework and their multiple entrance points, as well as other proficiency-based programs for college credit around the nation. We will also discuss the need for higher education institutions to articulate pathways for historically underrepresented populations, which will lead to greater equity, increased enrollment, and the creation of new language for specific purpose programs.

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

Student engagement, under siege from post-pandemic mental health issues, virtual distractions, and economic necessities, is of concern to administrators, teachers, and parents at all educational levels. To adress this concern, the interest session will suggest a framework for language teaching centered around student engagement by approaching instructional design based on three intersecting parameters: task, mode, and time. Attendees will become familiar with relevant theories, see the various parameters in action during instructional design, consider examples of tasks, instruments, and activities that represent those parameters, and explore the proposed approach as it applies to their own teaching context.

Attendees will learn about Open Educational Resources (OER) and how to use them in planning and preparing engaging real-world, relevant, and meaningful pedagogical products for a wide array of student populations in second-language (L2) classrooms. The presentation will emphasize techniques for adapting and remixing OER to meet specific educational contexts and learner needs. In addition to offering participants a comprehensive definition of OER and an exploration of proven pragmatic advantages of these resources, the session will provide two distinct demonstrations of how and why OER have been used in instructional design for beginning and intermediate level language learners. The first of these demonstrations discusses using authentic popular culture products to develop lessons that enhance students' communicative language skills, with an emphasis on interpretive and presentational skills, whilst the second demonstrates how existing technologies can be used to create engaging and interactive grammar tutorials.

Struggling with low enrolled classes in foreign language?  Unsure what mix of in-person, online, and/or Zoom offerings to include in the schedule?  Online courses cannibalizing and replacing in-person courses (or vice versa)?  Disgusted with trying to guess how many sections to include and seeing too many sections unhealthily enrolled?  Attendees will learn about a simple new idea - HyFlex courses.  If an HyFlex scheduling paradigm were included or expanded in higher education, scheduling headaches and low-enrollment would become a problem of the past for foreign language instructors! Attendees will also learn about simple and inexpensive technology tools and techniques that could transform traditional classrooms into HyFlex-ready rooms on ANY budget.

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.

Like many of you, I have spent countless hours curating authentic resources for lessons and units of study. Figuring out how to exploit an authentic resource to its fullest meaningful capacity changes how we view them and use them in class. This session will focus on not just scaffolding an authentic resource to be used over multiple levels, but also applying it across the 3 modes of communication and the ACTFL C’s, to maximize use across several lessons. When we intentionally leverage an authentic resource, we expand the resource into a meaningful, and mindful, language and culture tool to meet our academic standards, and promote proficiency at any level.

The mention of AI in the classroom can trigger thoughts of doom and gloom. But this session will show how to harness the powers of AI to build students’ language proficiency through the lens of interculturality, giving them the opportunity to dive more deeply into the target culture while building their communicative skills in all three modes. Using AI as a springboard, educators can take their students beyond investigating the three Ps of products, practices, and perspectives and allow them to truly interact effectively. The magic of AI is out there; why not use it to your students’ advantage?

In this session, we will explore neuroscience research on how knowledge is learned and retained, particularly in language acquisition. Participants will discover how the human brain can change and grow through neuroplasticity and gain insights into the mechanisms of memory. Additionally, we will uncover the "why" behind various language activities, enhancing understanding of their effectiveness. Most importantly, the presenter will share proven strategies for actively engaging students with the target language, along with practical tips to make language learning enjoyable and dynamic. This session aims to equip educators with valuable insights and tools to enhance their language teaching practices through the lens of euroscience.

Project-Based Learning (PBL) thrives on eight key principles, including posing challenging problems, fostering exploration, and promoting teamwork. Integrating language learning and AI enhances PBL by addressing linguistic diversity and supporting these principles. AI tools create accessible challenges, personalize learning experiences, bring real-world scenarios to life, and support multilingual collaboration. They also facilitate self-reflection, constructive feedback, and showcasing work in multiple languages. This integration creates an inclusive, stimulating environment that nurtures critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration among students.