Using Target Language Texts to Support Students' Literacies Development

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Length:
1-Week
Format:
In-Person
Instructor:
Kate Paesani
Registration Information
Kate Paesani

Preparing students to participate in multilingual and multicultural communities entails shifting the way we approach language instruction. How do we move beyond teaching students to order food or talk about weekend activities, and instead encourage them to think critically and reflectively about language, culture, and communication? To answer this question, this institute focuses on how to develop students' foreign language literacies—or the ability to interpret and create different kinds of discourse—through engagement with target language texts such as movies, infographics, poetry, music videos, magazine articles, podcasts, and the like.

Using conceptual and pedagogical understandings gained during the institute, participants will examine and assess target language texts for use in their classrooms and create text-based instructional materials that develop students' communicative abilities, critical thinking, intercultural understanding, and language awareness. 

Target Audience:

 This institute is designed for world language and ESL teachers at the middle school through the postsecondary level, as well as teacher educators, curriculum coordinators, and language program directors. This institute is not intended for elementary school teachers or immersion educators. 

Program Schedule

9 a.m.–4 p.m. (Central Time)

Expand all

Day 1

  • Building Conceptual Understanding: Foreign Language Literacies, Texts, and Communication

Day 2

  • Working with Texts: Moving Beyond Experiencing

Day 3

  • Connecting Form and Meaning: Focus on Conceptualizing

Day 4

  • Exploring Cultural Practices and Perspectives: Focus on Analyzing

Day 5

  • Assessing Student Learning: Focus on Applying
  • Materials Sharing, Reflection, and Wrap-Up

Instructor

Kate Paesani

Kate Paesani is the Director of CARLA and Associate Professor in the Department of French & Italian at the University of Minnesota. She has delivered workshops and lectures across the United States on topics related to text-based teaching and learning, multiliteracies and critical pedagogies, and teacher professional learning.

I would highly recommend this institute to colleagues and other professionals in the field. It, like other CARLA Institutes I have taken, provided me with so many new things to try and a sense of energy as I look towards next school year. —Jason Bush