I live in Texas, and Dallas Fort Worth area is home to the most diverse student population in the country, with well over a hundred languages and dialects spoken by children in our schools. It is important to recognize and appreciate this diversity in our schools by placing an added emphasis on the effective learning of these languages and the cultures from which they are derived. Just in a small city like Arlington which has 75 schools, there is a population of 4000 students who speak Arabic fully or partially at their homes. For this reason and more we need to promote teaching Arabic in our public/charter schools. This is the first part of my project.
My audience will be school boards and foreign language leaders of districts.
I will show them a short video, and discuss in a powerpoint things like:
● The importance of teaching foreign languages in the U.S.?
● Why teaching Arabic?
● Resources and facilities of support that are available to start the program.
● The Standards of teaching a foreign language.
● Lesson Sample and assessments.
The second part of my project splits into three workshops. This part will focus on improving learning and performance, we all know that delivering technique requires quality and productivity Instructional Design.
The three professional development plans are to facilitate creating Foreign Language curriculum to build teacher capacity through supporting, training, and coaching in order to increase student achievement. The goal is to create teachers who can offer effective standards-based on ACTFL standards with integrating instructional technology to enhance 21st century student centered learning, and empower proficiency in critical thinking for a life long learning.
Rationale for the project:
Our students need to use language effectively across geographic boundaries in order to cultivate positive relationships with future clients, allies, and neighbors. At the same time, students also need to communicate with the diverse populations that constitute Texas’s rich linguistic and cultural tapestry. For this reason the standards refer to world, rather than foreign, languages, and for this reason we need a better curriculum that fits each student’s needs. To deploy instructional technology to enhance the student centered learning, and empower proficiency in critical thinking for a life long learning.
Objectives:
This is a great experience for me to design three workshops for my colleagues. I will analyze and apply what I have learned through my courses at Wayne State University and from my long expertise in the education field.
I will turn my knowledge into something that makes sense to other people. This project will help sharpen my skills as an Instructional technology designer to better plan, format and review a workshop to suit a challenging audiences such as experts and intelligent educators.
