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Research & Programs
CARLA is engaged in a number of interrelated
research and program initiatives related to second
language teaching, learning, and assessment.
Developing Classroom Materials for Less Commonly Taught Languages
There is a notorious shortage of teaching materials for the Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs)—defined as all languages except English, French, German, and Spanish. With a few notable exceptions, published material for LCTLs tends to be outdated, dull, and oriented primarily towards grammar, while supplementary materials are usually unavailable. Most LCTL teachers are faced with the need to create their own materials, often without having a background in language pedagogy.
To address the challenges LCTL teachers face in developing instructional materials the LCTL Project offers several resources:
- A summer institute entitled Developing Classroom Materials for LCTLs was created by Bill Johnston from Indiana University and Louis Janus, the LCTL Project Coordinator. Over 200 LCTL teachers have participated in this popular summer institute since it began in 1999. For more information, see the CARLA Summer Institute webpage.
- A book—also entitled Developing Classroom Materials for LCTLs—provides principles, practical guidelines, and actual examples for LCTL teaching of all levels and languages to develop raw materials into activities for the language classroom. Written by Bill Johnston with Louis Janus based on their summer institute, the book was published in 2007 as a CARLA working paper.
- A new website was created to more widely share the information from the book and summer institute. The site features videos of Bill Johnston presenting concepts for material development from a variety of resources. The videos also show pairs of LCTL teacher participants as they work through example activities using the materials as if they were students and then discuss the activities from the teacher viewpoint. Each video is accompanied by questions to think about before watching, and additional questions for reflection after watching. The site begins with a unit on using written texts and continues with units on using literature, audio, video, and pictures.