Department of World Languages and Cultures faculty present at ACTFL in New Orleans

Three faculty members from the Department of World Languages and Cultures presented at the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held Nov. 26-18 in New Orleans. The event draws more than 8,000 language educators from around the world each year. 

Senior Lecturer in Spanish April Post and Assistant Professor of Spanish Pablo Celis-Castillo shared about their work doing collaborative course design in SPN 221 and 222, the intermediate Spanish sequence. Since 2016, Post and Celis-Castillo have worked on creating engaging course curricula that are based on mysteries of the Spanish-speaking world (221) and growing up in the Spanish-speaking world (222). They discussed the process of redesigning the two courses and shared about their experiences teaching them.

Assistant Professor of German Kristin Lange presented together with Diane Richardson, Assistant Professor at West Point Military Academy. In their workshop “Grading as a Rewarding Part of Language Learning and Teaching,” Lange and Richardson presented data on their own grading practices and argued that grading can and should be an integrative part of the learning process, one that is rewarding for instructors and students. Together with workshop attendees, they discussed grading practices such as minimal grading or delaying grades in several institutional contexts.

Post, Celis-Castillo and Lange look forward to sharing insights into the major themes of the ACTFL convention with their departmental colleagues and the larger Elon community.