Regardez, Ecoutez, Interagissez (cont.)

.... FLEAT has held five conferences since 1981. It provides a focused occasion to explore current innovations in technology and language teaching.

Presentations included the application of old and new technologies (blogs, wikis, forms, DVD-captioned videos). Even mobile phones (owned by most students in Japan) can be used to enhance instruction (a technique which may be available to US instructors in two years). A presentation on the use of PowerPoint in instruction was particularly enlightening; this technique is used in fully equipped classrooms, and would be particularly helpful for sharing materials in multi-section courses taught by graduate instructors.

The Berkeley French-language teachers had the opportunity to attend a pre-conference workshop in the use of technology for “tech-shy” instructors. Désirée Pries found this useful for a perspective on how to introduce technology to instructors who are familiar with the web but not with web publishing. Also of interest was the pre-conference workshop on “TestFabrik” a cross-platform template developed by Dan Soneson for constructing interactive multimedia foreign language tests in four modalities: speaking, listening, reading and writing. The template makes use of video, audio, graphics, and text in a variety of ways.

The Berkeley professors presented a paper entitled “Technology Marries Listening Comprehension with Culture” on the marriage of listening comprehension and culture with the support of technology in intermediate and advanced foreign language classrooms (with the emphasis on website and DVD use). They offered a website as a resource (login and password available upon request): http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~amelie/IALLT/index.html.

Françoise Sorgen-Goldschmidt chaired two sessions and presented a paper with Valérie Braimah, an educational consultant, on the topic of “Backward Design for Language Learning with Technology.” Backward Design (BD) is an instructional design process that begins with the end in mind. They gave specific examples to demonstrate how BD allows instructors to make targeted decisions about what kinds of instructional technology will most effectively support student mastery of course standards, thus hopefully avoiding the pitfall of technology for the sake of technology.

The attendance of Sorgen-Goldschmidt and Pries at the conference will continue to have an impact on teaching at Cal, and on Pries’ supervision of graduate students and instructors in the French department. Although both attended the conference already convinced of the importance of technology in language teaching, they came away with even more ideas, access to more platforms, and contacts of colleagues who are excited to share their ideas and creations with the academic community.

— Désirée Pries, Françoise Sorgen-Goldschmidt