Cornell University Language Resource Center Speaker Series

Teaching for and about social justice positively influences all students, yet integrating social justice education into the college language curriculum can be challenging. In this talk, Drs. Cassandra Glynn, Pamela Wesely, and Beth Wassell, the co-authors of Words and Actions: Teaching Languages Through the Lens of Social Justice (Glynn, Wesely & Wassell, 2018), will address the principles of social justice education, looking specifically at how those principles connect with the guidelines and standards in world language teaching and common instructional practices in language programs. Attendees will be provided with illustrations, examples, and models of how social justice can be integrated in the ...

In his 2005 publication, John Levis highlighted the importance of promoting intelligible rather than nativelike speech as a target for second language (L2) pronunciation learning (and, more broadly, L2 speaking development). Broadly speaking, intelligibility refers to how well listeners understand L2 speech (Levis, 2006). However, “understanding” has frequently been operationalized via two dimensions, firmly established in Munro and Derwing (1995). Intelligibility (here used in a narrow sense) refers to listeners’ accuracy of understanding, frequently measured through learners’ word- and sentence-level transcriptions. Comprehensibility refers to the effort required by listeners to understand L2 speech, primarily measured using Likert scale ratings. Though a focus on ...

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a research-based framework for designing instruction to be more accessible to all learners. By following the principles and guidelines of the UDL framework, instructors can design a more inclusive learning environment that will provide an improved experience for all students. This talk will provide both a theoretical introduction to the UDL framework and practical suggestions for applying it to the language classroom. First, a brief introduction to UDL and information on learner variability (i.e., the diversity in how everyone learns) will be provided. Next, results of research that has investigated the effects of an ...