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| UFLA Annual Conference
Set
The annual UFLA conference will be held November 11 at Weber State University, so mark your calendars now and start talking to your administrators about attending. The keynote address will be given by Dr. Renate Schulz, who teachers German and Second Language Acquisition at the University of Arizona. Her topic will be: Age and Foreign Language Learning: F.L.O.P.* is Not a Flop. Dr. Schulz has spoken extensively in the United States and and abroad. She is a past President of the AATG, a past editor of Die Unterrichtspraxis, and currently a member of the editorial advisory boards of the Modern Language Journal. She has received numerous awards, among them the Bundesverdienstkreuz erster Klasse from the President of the Federal Republic of Germany. There will again be a catered lunch, this year the "Pacific Rim" buffet. Early registrants can take advantage of a lower price for the luncheon, as UFLA will pay part of the cost for all who register by October 15. Free parking will be available at the Dee Events Center, with free shuttle service provided to the Student Union Building. *Foreign Language for Older People |
| Summer Workshops and
Inservice
Joan Patterson at the Utah State Office of Education has made several opportunities for professional development available for this summer. These include: ACTFL Modified Oral Proficiency Interview (MOPI) workshop:
Methods of Teaching Foreign Language workshop: "Soar with Standards."
German for Hospitality and Tourism:
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| 1000 German Students
Sing Along With Uwe Kind in Kaysville and Salt Lake City!
Organized and entertaining bedlam was the watchword as AATG-Utah hosted Uwe Kind for two concerts in February. The Salt Lake Concert, organized by AATG-Utah President Craig Paxman and Past President Martha Smith, was attended by third graders through high schoolers--about 450 in all. Carolyn Sandstrom of Davis High School in Kaysville suggested that she organize and even up in her end of the state and came up with about 550 participants, mostly from her feeder junior high and one of its feeder elementary schools. A group of Jolene Huddleston's junior high students delighted their principal by returning to their building singing the songs, and excitedly explaining to him what they had learned. |
| Would You Like Another
Goethe Institute UEA Lecture?
The Goethe Institute of San Francisco, through Dr. Roland Meinert, brought in German author Freya Klier during out October 1997 Utah Education Association Convention. Thirty-five members of AATG-Utah cranked up their listening skills as she shared in relatively fast-spoken German her upbringing in the former DDR. Graig Paxman, President of AATG-Utah, would like to know if members would attend a similar type of event with a German speaker during the October 1998 UEA conference. Please e-mail him with the information, and include which day you would prefer, Thursday or Friday, in the event that there is a choice. His e-mail address is: craig.paxman@slc.k12.ut.us |
| Meeting in Mesa a
Success
The annual SouthWest Conference on Language Teaching, held in Mesa, Arizona, was held in April of 1998, and was quite successful for most Utah participants. Joan Patterson, the Foreign Language Specialist at the Utah State Office of Education was elected to the Executive Board, giving Utah two positions on the board. Shauna Winegar, teacher of German from Springville High School won Best of SWCOLT, and will represent the conference at the Pacific Northwest Conference in Seattle next year. Kirk Skyles, the other board member from Utah, did not have as pleasant a stay in mesa, as he made an emergency trip to the hospital, but he is now recovered and doing fine. Next year, the conference will be held in Sparks, Nevada, April 8-10, and the following year, 2000, in Salt Lake City in March. |
| Vitality Award Deadline
Extended
The publication of this newsletter was delayed due to illness, so the postmark deadline for the UFLA Teacher Vitality award has been extended to June 15, 1998. These awards are for members of UFLA who are contracted to teach in a public or private school, elementary through universities, in the state of Utah for the upcoming year. The recipients must plan to teach language for at least three more years, and be willing to report on their experience or project to the membership. These are $500 awards for the purpose of research, study abroad, workshops, or projects for improving the quality of teaching. The application form is in this newsletter, or available at the UFLA website at http://cc.weber.edu/~tjmathews/ufla/ufla.htm |
| Share Your Great Ideas
With Other Language Teachers!
Have you ever attended a conference session and thought, "I could do that!" Even if you haven't thought that, you probably could present. UFLA is your chance--it's a lot less scary than a larger conference, and a good opportunity for you to share "that thing you do" that's so good. Send in your proposal now, and you can add "conference presenter" to your resumé, and impress the socks off your administration. If you're too nervous to do an entire session by yourself, team up with a colleague and share the time. Another way to share a good idea is to send it to the newsletter editor, and then you can add to your professional portfolio that you have "been published in a professional publication." We all have something to share, so go ahead and do it! |
| IDEA CORNER
There are lots of things you can do with cards. First, to help generate a stack of cards for these activities, give students cards and pens or markers and a text. Have them work in pairs, with each pair using a different text. Depending on your focus, you might have them write all of the verbs on the cards, or all of the food vocabulary, or all of the adjectives, etc. This helps students lean to recognize words forms of vocabulary, and improves reading comprehension. Then you can have them play games such as: Vocabulary Poker: put students in pairs or groups; give either each student or whole group five cards. They can exchange one time, and may exchange all cards, four, three, two, one, or none. They must make up a conversation, skit, etc., with whatever cards they have at the end of the exchange. Neverending Story: Students sit in a circle, and first student begins a story. After a few minutes, the teacher says "next," at which point the next student draws a card, and must continue the story, using the new word. The next student draws a new card, and so on. |
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