Group items tagged

Links to the 15 centers with national funding.

Comet is the name of a set of templates that language teachers can use to create multimedia instructional materials in nearly any language. Developed by the Center for Language Study at Yale University, the Comet templates simplify the authoring of online materials by allowing instructors to focus more on pedagogical intent and foreign language content than on technical details of design and implementation. (The name COMET is an acronym for COurse Materials and Exercise Templates.)

The Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) supports the educational community and the nation by providing resources and research focused on culture, language and literacy in less commonly taught languages. CERCLL is associated with the SLAT Program.

The National Capital Language Resource Center is a nonprofit organization funded by the US Department of Education to promote foreign language learning nationally. This video podcast gives highlights of our summer institutes for foreign language teachers and other local events that can be useful in the language classroom.

The Berkeley Language Center has created a library of foreign language clips, each tagged for the vocabulary in the target language and for English descriptors (culture, linguistics, speech acts). Instructors are able to search the library for a clip of interest and then 'order' the clip (a URL is created linking to an mp4 file; the URL stays active for two weeks). Currently we have 5200 clips in 15 languages, and those numbers continue to grow.

The American Councils Advanced Russian Language and Area Studies Program (RLASP) serves both graduate and undergraduate students. The academic program is designed to improve participants' oral, listening, reading, and writing proficiency in Russian language and to develop their knowledge of Russian history, politics, culture, and society. The academic year, semester, and summer programs provide approximately twenty hours per week of in-class instruction in Russian grammar, phonetics, conversation, and cultural studies at Moscow International University, the Russian State Pedagogical University (Gertsen Institute) in St. Petersburg, and the KORA Center for Russian Language in Vladimir. One day per week of the academic program is set aside for local cultural excursions.

Transana is software for professional researchers who want to analyze digital video or audio data. Transana lets you analyze and manage your data in very sophisticated ways. Transcribe it, identify analytically interesting clips, assign keywords to clips, arrange and rearrange clips, create complex collections of interrelated clips, explore relationships between applied keywords, and share your analysis with colleagues. The result is a new way to focus on your data, and a new way to manage large collections of video and audio files and clips. Transana is inexpensive and Open Source. It was developed at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, where it continues to be maintained and enhanced. It is widely used in the education research community, where video is an integral part of most researchers' methods. Researchers in many other disciplines also find it useful in their work.

The Arhoolie Foundation's Strachwitz Frontera Collection of commercially produced Mexican and Mexican-American recordings (the Frontera Collection) is the largest repository of Mexican and Mexican-American vernacular recordings in existence. With funding from Los Tigres del Norte Foundation the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center has sponsored the digitization of the first section of the collection by the Arhoolie Foundation. These performances were recorded primarily in the United States and Mexico and issued on 78 rpm phonograph recordings during the first half of the twentieth century. This vast digitized collection of approximately 30,000 recordings is now available to researchers and the general public.

An online blind-refereed journal dedicated to the issues underlying the teaching and learning of heritage languages. Hosted by the UCLA Center for World Languages.

"The VAC is a series of web-based learning modules that provides teachers with background information, step-by-step guidance, and many practical resources on developing proficiency-based second language assessments for the classroom."

Online collection of websites, scholarly papers and presentations, and other resources for teaching classics. Includes webquests, interactive vocabulary and grammar activities, online dictionaries, etc.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework for designing curricula that enable all individuals to gain knowledge, skills, and enthusiasm for learning. UDL provides rich supports for learning and reduces barriers to the curriculum while maintaining high achievement standards for all.

The Standards-based Measurement of Proficiency (STAMP), a criterion-referenced, Web-based assessment tool, measures students' language proficiency at levels ranging from Novice-low to Intermediate-mid. STAMP currently measures reading, writing, and speaking proficiencies in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. CASLS strives to continually improve STAMP's test design while adding new languages and new levels. STAMP is available through CASLS' partner company, Avant Assessment.

Distributes "ExTemplate" language learning management system. Also has interesting cultural documentaries program.

Information for faculty about learning disabilities and instructional strategies to meet students needs.