The Department of the Middle Eastern and
South Asian Languages and Cultures

Workshop Overview

This week-long workshop has a twofold purpose: To introduce new instructors, and especially graduate student teaching assistants, to the theory and practice of Teaching Foreign Language (TFL), and to start a dialogue amongst teachers of the various foreign languages taught in the department about the issues involved in TFL, linguistics, language pedagogy and applied linguistics research.

New instructors will be exposed to educational literature and the elements of teaching material design. They will also have a chance to practice teaching and to evaluate teaching by others. The workshop covers a wide range of topics that deals with principles of language learning and teaching, processes of course design and materials development, planning and delivery of effective language lessons, framework for assessing the proficiency and achievement of language learners. Sessions will take the form of a seminar discussion, where an exchange of the participants’ own teaching experiences and debate of recent researches on TFL take place with the goal of providing the language teacher with the ability to be flexible and innovative in responding to various types of learners' needs, cultural differences, and language program requirements.

The ultimate goal of this workshop is to maintain an on-going dialogue among the teaching assistants and teachers to discuss the nature and process of learning a foreign language, debate critical issues in TFL pedagogy, and enhance their ability to develop effective teaching materials and to plan and implement classroom activities that help students develop proficiency in the target language in the ever-changing, constantly advancing field of foreign language teaching.

Workshop Schedule
Day 1 – Monday, August 17: Introduction to Foreign Language Teaching

• Note: Workshop participants are asked to read “A Methodical History of Language Teaching” by H. Douglas Brown in advance of Monday's sessions.
• 8:30-9:00. Coffee and Bagels
• 9:00-9:20. Greetings and Introduction (Daniel Lefkowitz), CABELL B-31
• 9:30-11:00. Teaching Foreign Languages – Overview (Omima Elaraby), CABELL B-31
  • Preparatory Reading: Brown, “A 'Methodical' History of Language Teaching”
  • History & Overview of Approaches to Foreign Language Teaching
  • Demonstrations of various sample lessons using different techniques
  • Discussion of advantages / shortcomings of the various methods
• 11:00-12:00. Break for Lunch (Lunches provided)
• 12:15-1:30. Proficiency Levels (Abdulkareem Said Ramadan), CABELL B-31
• 1:45-2:15. Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) -- Overview (Shadi Biadci), CABELL B-31
• 2:30-3:45. Lesson Planning and Warm-ups (with Spanish Department), WILSON 216
  • Optional Preparatory Reading: Rifkin, "Guidelines for Foreign Language Lesson Planning"
• Overnight Tasks:
  • Find an authentic text for a proficiency level of your choice and prepare to tell the group how would you use it in the classroom
  • Read: Gass & Selinker, “Beyond the Domain of Language"

Day 2 – Tuesday, August 18: The Communicative Approach

• 8:30-9:00. Coffee and Bagels
• 9:00-10:00. Communicative Approach -- Overview (Shadi Biadci), CABELL B-31
• 10:00-10:30. Break (Refreshments Provided)
• 10:30-12:30. Communicative Activities (Omima Elaraby), CABELL B-31
• 12:00-1:30. Lunch Break (Lunch Provided), CABELL B-31
• 1:30-3:00. Integrating the Four Skills & Integrating Grammar and Culture (Omima Elaraby)
  • Discussion of Activities with Authentic Texts (Abdulkareem Said Ramadan)
• 3:00-3:30. Break (Refreshments Provided)
• 3:30-5:00 Non-Language Factors and Error Correction (Shadi Biadci)
• Overnight Tasks:
  • Prepare Lesson Plan for a 1st-Day class

Day 3 – Wednesday, August 19: TRC NEW TA Workshop Sessions

• 9:00-1:00pm. Teaching Resource Center's August Teaching Workshop
  • Graduate Students: see the Teaching Resource Center's August Teaching Workshop website for scheduled sessions.
  • New Faculty: see the Teaching Resource Center's August Teaching Workshop website for scheduled sessions.
• 3:00-4:00 Microteaching Demonstrations (with Spanish Department), WILSON 216

Day 4 – Thursday, August 20: TRC NEW TA Workshop Sessions

• 9:00-2:30pm, Teaching Resource Center's August Teaching Workshop
• 3:00-4:00 Introduction to Collab, CABELL B-31
• Overnight Tasks:
  • Read: Brown, “The PostMethod Era: Toward Informed Approaches”
  • Prepare: 15-minute micro-teaching lesson (for presentation at Friday's 9:30am session w/Spanish)

Day 5 – Friday, August 21: "Resources for the Language Teacher"

• 9:00-9:30. Coffee and Bagels, CABELL B-31
• 9:30-11:00. Microteaching Practice (with Spanish Department)
  • Tara Ingram --> CAB 236
  • Alla Hassan --> CAB 241
  • Victor Nemchenok --> CAB 242
• 11:30-12:30. Introduction to the UVa Language Laboratory, CABELL 221
• 12:30-1:00. Demonstration of Video Teleconference Class (Abdulkareem Said Ramadan and Omima Elaraby), CAB 221 & 217
• 1:00-2:00. Lunch Break (Lunches Provided), CABELL B-31
• 2:00-2:30. Share and Critique Lesson Plans (from Tuesday's Overnight Task), CABELL B-31
• 2:45-4:00. First Days in the Language Classroom, CABELL B-31

Workshop Bibliography

• Brown, H. Douglas. 1994. "A 'Methodical' Historyof Language Teaching." IN: Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Regents/Prentice Hall. (Pp.13-38)
• Brown, H. Douglas. 1994. "The Post-Method Era: Toward Informed Approaches." IN Brown, Teaching by Principles: An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy. Regents/Prentice Hall. (Pp.40-61)
• Gass, Susan M. and Larry Selinker. 2008 [1994]. "Beyond the Domain of Language." IN: Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course, New York: Routledge. (Pp. 395-448)
• Rifkin, Benjamin. 2003. "Guidelines for Foreign Language Lesson Planning." Foreign Language Annals 36(2):167-179.

Topic Bibliography -- Individual Differences in 2nd Language Learning

• Lightbrown, Patsy M. and Nina Spada. 2006. "Individual Diffrences in Second Language Learning." IN: How Languages are Learned, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press. (Pp. 53-76)
  PART 1. PART 2.
• Essay on "differentiated instruction."