Special Methods II
Fall Semester 2011

Friday, September 2, 2011

Guten Tag and Hola,
2011 Interns! 

Even though the weather continues to be hot with only a hint of cooler temps in the making, fall semester has officially commenced for students of all ages. Are you ready for excellence? The time is now.

Just a short three weeks ago, you finished your first semester in the MAT program and are now three weeks into the first rotation. As you discovered in class last Friday, presentations by each member of the 2011-12 cohort revealed the uniqueness of every classroom across our 15 partner school districts. Some of you have already served as substitutes, while others are just beginning to teach a lesson or two.

The semester will hold many surprises and even a heartache or two as you experience and reflect on the day-to-day practices of teaching and learning.

As the semester progresses, you will delve deeper into the scholarly aspects of the masters program. You will choose a topic and develop a plan to explore a research question of special interest to you. In preparing to answer the question, you will have the opportunity to read an abundant collection of scholarly articles.

You will also explore the professional aspect of becoming an educator by attending the fall foreign language conference in Fort Smith, where you will earn six hours of professional development solely in foreign language. You will report on this experience as one of your class assignments.

You will also create a unit plan of instruction to provide evidence of the practitioner side of the masters program. This document gives evidence of your ability to create, design, implement, and assess a unit of instruction while keeping in mind the context of the classroom and needs of the students in your class.

And this is just for your methods class. Also consider all the useful information you will be gaining in your other classes.

Click on the links to the left to find the syllabus and calendar for CIED 5253, Special Methods II for Teaching Foreign Languages.

Wilkommen and Bien venidos! 

 
Dr. Bowles

Freddie A. Bowles
Assistant Professor of Foreign Language Education
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education and Health Professions
Peabody Hall 312
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Office: 479-575-3035
fbowles@uark.edu

First Day
of Classes.

Monday, July 11, 2011

Hola and Guten Tag,
2011 Interns! 

Welcome to the Special Methods web of Planet Gnosis, your class website for information about our profession — teaching and learning.  Today was your initiation into the three-semester program leading to initial licensure, the Master of Arts in Teaching, and your first day to meet other interns from English, math, science, and social studies.

You will experience the challenges and delights of classroom teaching during your rotations in the public schools of Northwest Arkansas. At the same time, you will wear your “student caps” on Fridays when you return to campus for your pedagogy classes. In between these demands, you will begin to notice your own professional growth as you gain experience teaching your content in a variety of school settings.

Take a few minutes to explore the Special Methods site. You will discover some delightful practices, products, and perspectives of previous interns as they experienced the same journey you are beginning today.

Click on the links to the left to find printable versions of your syllabus and calendar for CIED 5243, Special Methods I for Teaching Foreign Languages.

Bien venidos and Wilkommen! 

 
Dr. Bowles

Freddie A. Bowles
Assistant Professor of Foreign Language Education
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
College of Education and Health Professions
Peabody Hall 312
University of Arkansas
Fayetteville, AR 72701
Office: 479-575-3035
fbowles@uark.edu

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