TESOL – This Week @ MIIS

MIIS Alum Adnan Al-Hammody published

Adrienne Lubbert Alumni, careers, Language Education, Language Program Administration, Language Studies, MIIS Update, TESOL, TFL April 22, 2014

MIIS Alum Adnan Al-Hammody, MA TESOL 2013, has recently been published. The paper is called When a Facebook Group Makes a Difference: Facebook for Language Learning, and was written during his time as a student at MIIS for Applied Linguistics Research and as part of his portfolio. The paper investigates what Iraqi students gain from interacting in English in a Facebook group in an EFL context.

Adnan’s paper was published by the e-journal English Language Teaching World Online (ELTWO), and can be found at this link: http://blog.nus.edu.sg/eltwo/2014/04/22/when-a-facebook-group-makes-a-difference-facebook-for-language-learning/.

Congratulations to Adnan!

New Service-Learning Course Builds Community Partnerships through Hands-On Learning

Anne-Marie Steiger asteiger@miis.edu Featured, IEM, IPS, MPA, newsroom, T&I, TESOL, TFL April 9, 2014

Lynn Bentaleb (MPA ’08), Kathryn Lattman (MAIEM ’14), Amitay Flores (MAIPS ’14), Molly McMills (MPA ’13), Maria Kovell (MPA ’14), Ali Philbrick (MAIEM ’14), and Natalie Cox (MPA ’14) at the Girls’ Health in Girls’ Hands Summit.

Monterey Institute students from the International Education Management, Public Administration, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Teaching a Foreign Language, and Translation and Interpretation degree programs are participating in a new course this semester, learning about program design while working with seven local organizations on projects that further each of their missions.

The new course, “Service-Learning: International and Domestic Community Partnerships,” was developed and taught by Professor Netta Avineri, who is passionate about civic engagement and prioritizes real world applications of her in-class lessons. The organizations are: Big Sur Charter School, Community Assessment of Monterey County, Girls’ Health in Girls’ Hands, International School of Monterey, Lyceum, National Steinbeck Center, and the YMCA. Student projects include website design, parent handbook and training development, educational video creation, leadership curriculum research, service-learning program development, grant writing, outreach, and tutor training handbook creation.

Alexandra (Ali) Philbrick (MAIEM ’14) and Kathryn Lattman (MAIEM ’15) have been working with the Girls’ Health in Girls’ Hands initiative this semester. Every year girls in Monterey County organize a summit with peer-taught sessions, which Ali and Kathryn attended and assisted with. They are working on a video to help the next group of girl organizers and also helping out with curriculum design, activities, and lessons, and doing research for a report.

“It could not be more perfect for me,” shares Ali, who will build on her experience working with local girls when she heads off to Peru for the practicum portion of her degree in the fall. In Peru, she will be working with the nonprofit organization Girlsportworks whose mission is to teach life skills to young women through athletics. “This is exactly what I want to be doing in the future,” she says. “Netta put a lot of thought into this,” says Kathryn appreciatively of the course, and adds that “you can’t beat the opportunity to learn by doing and do good at the same time by helping others.”

MIIS Alumni Mingle at CATESOL Conference

Adrienne Lubbert Alumni, Events, Faculty, Language Education, MIIS Update, TESOL, TESOL Convention, TFL November 13, 2013

MIIS Alumni: Back Row: Don Sillings, Larry Lawson, Tammy Wik, Jeff Madison. Middle Row: Gary Sosa, Karen Hamilton, Celeste Coleman, Belinda Braunstein. Front Row: Erin Butler, Chigusa Katoku.

Many MIIS graduates, students, and faculty attended the 44^th Annual CATESOL Conference two weeks ago in San Diego. The conference is for TESOL professionals in California, and the theme this year was “Riding the Waves of Success,” which dealt with the challenges and achievements educators and students face when teaching or learning English. The event included pre‑conference institutes, multiple plenaries, featured speakers, level and interest group workshops, poster sessions, an electronic village, and general sessions for every level of ESL. Highlights of the conference were the opening plenary, the Thursday evening reception, the Presidential Luncheon on Friday, and the Saturday Night Sizzle.

CATESOL 2013 (2)

The event was a great opportunity for all TESOL educators and students to come together, especially current and past TESOL educators and students from MIIS. Many MIIS students, graduates, and faculty attended the event, including Tammy Wik, MA TESOL ‘10, who is currently the English Language Fellow Program (ELF) Regional Recruitment Coordinator for MIIS, and Celeste Coleman, also a TESOL graduate and English Language Fellow (see picture, right). All of the MIIS graduates met up and hung out at the Saturday Night Sizzle, which was a fun 2-hour social event on the last night of the conference (see featured picture above, with captions). Considering there were only about 100 total people who attended the social hour, there was a great turn out of MIIS people at the event.

TESOL Alumna Writes Memorial Piece for Dr. Leo van Lier

Jenna Tidwell Alumni, Language Education, Language Program Administration, MIIS Update, News, TESOL, TFL November 8, 2013

Caroline Fuchs, an alumna of the MIIS MATESOL program, recently published a memorial piece for the late Dr. Leo van Lier. According to Caroline, “words can’t do justice to the wisdom that Leo encompassed for those who were fortunate enough to have known him. This is my humble attempt at expressing my thoughts.”

If you would like to read the piece in its entirety, you can download it here.

Pym to Present on Translation and Language Teaching

Jenna Tidwell Faculty, Interpretation, Language Education, localization, MIIS Update, Professional Development, TESOL, TFL, Translation, Translation & Interpretation October 21, 2013

Anthony Pym, visiting researcher at GSTILE, is in Brussels on October 25 to present the results of a one-year research project on Translation and Language Teaching.

The presentation will be part of the DGT’s Translation Studies Days, to be webcast live: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/translation/publications/studies/.

The research has been carried out for the European Commission’s Directorate General for Translation. Professor Pym is the lead investigator, with input from the European Society for Translation Studies, the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, and over 100 experts contacted worldwide.

The research shows that there is no strong empirical evidence that the creative use of translation has a negative effect on the learning of a foreign language.

The Executive Summary can be downloaded here.

The final report can be downloaded here.

While in Europe, Professor Pym will be in Tarragona on October 24 for the public defenses of two doctoral dissertations that he has supervised: Postediting Machine Translation Output and its Revision: Professional Translators versus Subject-Matter Experts, by Özlem Temizöz, and Training for the Translation Market in Turkey: an Analysis of Curricula and Stakeholders, by Volga Tilmaz-Gümüs.

Guest Lecture on SLA Research

GSTILE Events, GSTILE lecture series, Language Studies, MIIS Update, TESOL, TFL May 6, 2013

Dr. Lourdes Ortega, Linguistics Professor at Georgetown University, will be giving a lecture on “How Useful is Instructed SLA Research for Teachers, and What does Epistemological Diversity have to Do with it?” Professor Ortega will examine ways in which the blooming of cognitive, sociocultural, and sociocognitive theories of additional language learning has invigorated the capacity of SLA researchers to make meaningful contributions to knowledge about language teaching. Come join on Friday, May 17^th, from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm in McGowan 102.

2nd Annual Celebrating Foreign Language Education: A Monterey Bay Symposium

GSTILE Events, Faculty, Language Education, Language Program Administration, Language Studies, MIIS Update, TESOL, TFL March 13, 2013

In honoring our late Dr. Leo van Lier, the 2nd Annual Celebrating Foreign Language Education: A Monterey Bay Symposium will commence on Saturday, March 30, 2013. Our keynote speaker this year is Peter DeCosta speaking on “Scales: An Alternative Lens for Investigating Foreign Language Learning and Teaching.” In addition, we will have speakers for local institutions speaking on assessment methods, technological tools, and intercultural competency.

Ready to register? Please go to http://mflsymposium.eventbrite.com to register today! Interested in participating in this meaningful event? We are looking for participants for the poster session. If you have a curriculum design project, a Kumar trade fair project, or a research project that you would like to showcase, please fill out our Poster Session Signup Form. If you would like to volunteer some time to help out with the event, please fill out our Volunteer Form. Volunteers will receive a waived $15 registration fee and lunch will be provided. For more information, please visit our website at mflsymposium.org We look forward to celebrating foreign language education with you on March 30th!