Registration Opens January 4, 2021

2021 CARLA Summer Institute Program for Language Teachers

The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota has provided high-quality professional development for language teachers for over two decades. Launched in 1996, this internationally known program reflects CARLA's commitment to link research and theory with practical applications for the classroom. Each institute is highly interactive and includes discussion, hands-on activities, and networking. In 2021, CARLA will offer online (synchronous and asynchronous) institutes and face-to-face institutes on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.

CARLA Summer Institute participants—more than 6,700 to date—have come from every state and from countries all over the world. They have included foreign/world language, ESL/EFL, heritage language, and immersion educators at all levels of instruction, as well as program administrators, curriculum specialists, and language teacher educators.

Join us for the 26th annual CARLA Summer Institute Program in 2021!

Online Summer Institutes—Asynchronous

Online Summer Institutes—Synchronous

Face-to-Face Summer Institutes* Held at the University of Minnesota

Information and Registration

• Find detailed information about each institute on the CARLA Summer Institute website.
• Registration will open on January 4, 2021. Last year, nearly all of the summer institutes filled to capacity. Early registration is encouraged.

The summer institutes are co-sponsored by the University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development and College of Liberal Arts; many are offered for graduate-level credit for an additional cost.

CARLA Receives Federal Funding for a Social Justice in Language Education Project!

Social Justice in Language Education: Strengthening Career Competencies, Intercultural Understanding, and Language Proficiency Through Specialized Materials (Social SCILS) has been funded for three years through the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI International Research and Studies Program. The Social SCILS program will create a suite of materials in Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish that are grounded in multiliteracies pedagogy and address a range of critical social justice topics (e.g., racism, global health, language policy, environmental sustainability).

The Social SCILS materials will:

• develop students’ oral and written language proficiency and prepare them to communicate in personal, academic, and professional contexts;
• encourage complex intercultural understanding of social justice topics and how they are addressed through languages and across cultures; and
• foster the core career competencies of critical thinking, creative problem-solving, ethical reasoning and decision making, and engagement with diversity.

CARLA Director Kate Paesani will lead the project in close collaboration with a team of language-specific curriculum coordinators from the University of Minnesota. With input from consultants on social justice in language education and career readiness, the Social SCILS project will engage language instructors from the University and other institutions around the country to develop social justice materials in ten languages.

Social SCILS is funded by the U.S. Department of Education's Title VI International Research and Studies Program (IRSP) to develop specialized materials for foreign language instruction.

Learn more about this exciting new project on CARLA’s Social Justice in Language Education webpage.

New Journal: Second Language Research & Practice

The inaugural issue of Second Language Research & Practice, the open-access journal of the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC), is now  available! The issue celebrates 30 years of AAUSC publications with six articles from former editors of Issues in Language Program Direction and includes a special section on postsecondary language education in times of crisis. Second Language Research & Practice is published by the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) in partnership with CARLA, CERCLL, COERLL, L2TReC, and OLRC.

The editors are now accepting submissions for Volume 2, to appear in Fall 2021! Research articles and reports received by January 15, 2021 will be considered for publication in this volume; manuscripts submitted after that date will be considered for Volume 3 (2022). Submission details are available on the journal’s website.

Learn more about publishing in the journal at a CARLA-sponsored webinar on November 12, 2020.

New Podcast Episode: Multiliteracies Pedagogy and Teacher Professional Development: From Research to Practice

CARLA Director Kate Paesani talks about multiliteracies pedagogy and highlights resources from CARLA’s Foreign Language Literacies project in a new episode of the podcast Speaking of Language sponsored by Cornell University’s Language Resource Center. 

Listen to the podcast episode on multiliteracies pedagogy.

CARLA @ Conferences

Check out the following presentations that will be given by CARLA staff members and colleagues at the University of Minnesota.

American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators Panel: Second-Language Research and Practice: Past Accomplishments, Future Directions

Friday, January 8, 2021
11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m. (Central Time)

Panel Presentations:

• Person-Centered Approaches to Second-Language Research and Teaching
  Presenter: Carol A. Klee (University of Minnesota)
• The Ecology of the Theory, Practice, and Politics of the University Foreign Language Program
  Presenter: Glenn Levine (University of California, Irvine)
• The Proficiency Profiles of Language Students: Implications for Programs
  Presenter: Fernando Rubio (University of Utah)

Presiding: Kate Paesani (University of Minnesota) and Johanna Watzinger-Tharp (University of Utah)

Applied Linguistics Forum: Applied Linguistics in Graduate Education for Modern Language Programs

Saturday, January 9, 2021
2:30–3:45 p.m. (Central Time)

Forum Presentations:

• Responding to Graduate Students’ Needs through Multiliteracies Professional Development
  Presenter: Kate Paesani (University of Minnesota)
• Graduate Students and ‘Real World’ Language Issues beyond the Classroom in Modern Languages Programs
  Presenter: Janice McGregor (University of Arizona, Tucson)
• Fostering Sustainable Classroom Inquiry: Inclusive Practitioner Research for Graduate Education
  Presenter: Cori Crane (Duke University)

Presiding: Chantelle Warner (University of Arizona)

CARLA Online Presentation Series

Sign up to attend the following online presentations sponsored by CARLA.

Webinar: Second Language Research & Practice: Publishing in an Open-Access Journal on Postsecondary Language Education

Thursday, November 12, 2020
Noon–1 p.m. (Central Time)
Register here for the Zoom link

Second Language Research & Practice, the new open-access journal of the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC), addresses postsecondary language education from theoretical, empirical, and practical perspectives. To celebrate the journal’s debut, the co-editors will lead a thirty-minute webinar to orient readers to the journal and its inaugural issue, describe the focus of the journal’s two main rubrics, and explain the submission process. Come learn about why you should read and publish your scholarship in this exciting new journal! Second Language Research & Practice is published on behalf of the AAUSC by the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) in partnership with CARLA, CERCLL, COERLL, L2TReC, and ORLC.

Presenters:
Johanna Watzinger-Tharp is Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Utah.
Kate Paesani is Director of CARLA and affiliate Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota.

Expanding Arabic Colloquial Instruction through Online Course Design

Wednesday, December 2, 2020
Noon–1 p.m. (Central Time)
Register here for the Zoom link

Among the challenges Arabic multiglossia creates for Arabic language programs is the question of which, and how many, colloquial varieties of Arabic to offer as part of the curriculum. Due to constraints related to manpower and expertise, many Arabic programs limit their colloquial Arabic offerings to a single, or two, widely understood varieties: Egyptian and/or Levantine Arabic. In many cases, learners with interests or professional needs that go beyond these colloquials are left to their own devices—a problem exacerbated by the dearth of high-quality instructional materials for other varieties of Arabic. 

In this presentation, the speaker discusses the design and delivery at the University of Minnesota of an online course in the colloquial Arabic of the Arabian Peninsula. This variety of Arabic has rarely been taught in the United States despite its usefulness for learners with a range of academic and professional interests. The speaker will address the opportunities and challenges involved in the creation of a curriculum for less commonly taught varieties of Arabic like Arabian Peninsula Colloquial, as well as the advantages and the constraints of the online delivery format of the course. Additionally, she will offer recommendations for the design of online courses in colloquial Arabic that can support the expansion of Arabic colloquial instruction in academic programs across the United States.

Presenter: Katrien Vanpee is the Director of Arabic Language Instruction at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches courses in Arabic language, literature, and culture. 

The Long-Term Impact of the CARLA Summer Institute Course on Styles and Strategies-Based Instruction

Tuesday, December 8, 2020
Noon–1 p.m. (Central Time)
Register here for the Zoom link

The CARLA Summer Institute on Styles and Strategies-Based Instruction (SSBI) was offered for 22 years (1996 to 2017). During that time, 553 teachers, researchers, and administrators participated in the course. Given that the field of language learner strategies, and especially the sub-area of strategy instruction, has been experiencing an upsurge of interest, a study was conducted to investigate the long-term impact of this course on the subsequent careers of the participants.

Twenty-nine past SSBI participants volunteered to respond to a carefully designed and piloted 20-item survey questionnaire. A smaller group of these respondents also engaged in a follow-up interview. The respondents represented language educators who had taken the course up to two decades prior, as well as those who had taken it more recently. These respondents were largely language instructors, spanning the instructional levels from kindergarten through higher education, primarily teaching Spanish, but also English, Asian languages, and other languages as well. They reported teaching in language courses, in immersion programs, and in programs intended to enhance their students’ language learning experiences whatever the target language. The findings from this study provide insights as to the aspects of a CARLA Summer Institute course which may have a lasting impact on a language educator’s career.

Presenters: Andrew D. Cohen is Professor Emeritus from the University of Minnesota. He will present along with his undergraduate research team from the University of Minnesota: Leif Anderson, Namitha Binu, and Sai Tallapragada. 

About CARLA

The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota is a research and resource center devoted to improving language teaching and learning.

The CARLA Update is a quarterly electronic newsletter designed to give second language teachers and researchers current information on the programs and projects currently operating under the auspices of CARLA. We encourage you to share this newsletter.

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