SWCOLT 2025

This activity takes ACTFL’s Communication Standard and puts it into a context that will get your students speaking the target language. It helps to break down those performance fears, creates speaker confidence, plus it can easily be morphed into a writing activity and leveled up or down as you need. This activity can be easily manipulated to support grammar practice as well! Easy, fun and…..free!

All are invited to attend the SWCOLT Plenary (sponsored by ACTFL) featuring our keynote speaker, Dr.Sheila Nicholas, and the announcement of the SWCOLT Regional Teacher of the Year!

Twenty years ago, award-winning author Thomas Friedman proclaimed The World is Flat in his eponymous novel. This visionary concept addressed economics, politics, technological innovation, and telecommunications. To what extent has language education gone global? How can educators prepare our students for an interconnected world? How will this notion shape our approaches in the classroom? Come explore the latest multimedia and digital, authentic resources in Spanish, French, and German to engage a variety of learners.

This study investigates how beginning L2 learners of French engage with multimodal texts to design their own infographics, a critical 21st-century skill. Despite the growing importance of multimodal communication, L2 classrooms remain largely focused on traditional, text-based approaches. Grounded in socio-cultural and social semiotic theories, this research explores how learners apply their understanding of multimodality in creating infographics on sustainable development issues. The study draws on infographics, reflective essays, and interviews to analyze learners' use of semiotic resources and intersemiotic relationships. Findings indicate that tasks designed to encourage deep engagement with multimodal texts can significantly enhance L2 learners' communicative competence, preparing them for full participation in contemporary communication practices. This research contributes to the ongoing discussion on multimodality in L2 education and offers practical insights for educators aiming to integrate multimodal literacy into their classrooms.

Presenters: Tara Hashemi & Beatrice Dupuy

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.

Vocabulary is a crucial component of language acquisition and significantly influences learners' proficiency levels. In language courses for professional purposes, focusing on expanding technical vocabulary can help develop the linguistic skills necessary for professional success. This presentation explores how modern learning tools, such as AI applications and metacognitive strategies that involve learners reflecting on their learning processes and tracking their progress, can offer innovative approaches to enhancing vocabulary acquisition and overall language proficiency.

Integrative Leadership Development is a professional learning model that empowers world language leaders to thrive as they advance proficiency-based instruction. Participants will understand the connection between social emotional wellness and ACTFL World Readiness Standards. Participants will gain skills for honoring linguistic and cultural heritage and prioritizing rest.

Presenters: Christine Lanphere & Liz Matchett

This presentation centers on redefining traditional grading practices to foster a more dynamic and learner-centric approach that empowers all learners. Growth comes from failure that is recognized and remedied, yet grades often promote perfectionism and a hesitancy to take risks. Thus, the very trait needed to become a lifelong language learner is quashed before students ever get out of the classroom.
The speaker will share research in the field and strategies with students from their respective institution. Deciding how to grade can make all the difference in promoting risk-taking, encouraging independent learning, and embracing creativity. Through the judicious use of self-assessment, individualized homework, diagnostic feedback, self-directed goals, and Integrated Performance Assessments (IPAs), students can move beyond a scarcity mindset and develop a culture of continuous improvement.

This presentation uses linguistic landscape photos from Vienna, Austria, and Paris, France as authentic materials that can be incorporated into a foreign language curriculum in different ways. The focus is on teaching French and German, but teachers of any language can use the ideas from the presentation to develop lessons, modules, or projects that focus on the Connections goal area of the World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages. This presentation includes a mix of explanations about the linguistic landscape as a resource and hands-on, small-group work with linguistic landscape photos provided by the presenter.

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.

In a globalized and interconnected world, languages and language learning are essential skills, yet relatively few US students study an additional language, and there has been a decline in language enrollment at the college and university level. Language advocacy is needed now more than ever before, with professional collaborations and community partnerships key elements. A range of advocacy topics will be discussed, including goals, strategies, and methods, highlighting the fact that everyone can be a language advocate.