This Semester
We Will Study
Differentiated
Instruction,
Elementary
Education, and
Classroom
Technology. 
 

Greetings, interns, and welcome to another semester of Special Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages.  May it be rewarding and successful for each of you.

Our instructional focus includes differentiated instruction in the foreign language classroom, teaching elementary students, and using technology to enhance instruction. You will also conduct a textbook evaluation by comparing three different textbooks — perfect timing as this is adoption year in Arkansas.

We will continue to reflect on classroom practices, refine lesson plans, and build a collection of practical language activities. You will present four lesson plans to the class this semester: one for elementary students and three using technology.

We will also view several videos of effective teachers using best practices to support our focus on differentiation and FLES (foreign language for elementary students).

In order to review for the mid-term and final exams, we will return to the Glossary project. Each one of you will be responsible for collecting terminology from our primary text to submit for addition to the Special Methods online Glossary.

See you in class on Mondays!  

Dr. Bowles

Freddie A. Bowles
Assistant Professor of Foreign Language Education
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education and Health Professions
PEAH 314
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Office: 479-575-3035
fbowles@uark.edu

Posted on Monday, January 12, 2009

Different languages — I mean the actual vocabularies, the idioms — have worked out certain mechanisms of communication and registration. No one language is complete. A master may be continually expanding his own tongue, rendering it fit to bear some charge hitherto borne only by some other alien tongue, but the process does not stop with any one man. While Proust is learning Henry James, preparatory to breaking through certain French paste-board partitions, the whole American speech is churning and chugging, and every other tongue doing likewise.
     — Ezra Pound, "How to Read," 1929