Noah McLaughlin
Kennesaw State University
Monday, November 1, 2021
4:30 pm Eastern; 3:30 pm Central
Title: Engaging World Language Students with Authentic Texts & Tasks
Description: Students engage more in their learning when they can clearly discern its application beyond the classroom. Making plans for the weekend that include a real weather report is more appealing than a worksheet. Negotiating which movie to watch that’s presently in theaters stays with them longer than just describing their favorite film. With a focus on student agency and a dialectical approach to instruction, teachers can use high-leverage teaching practices to design activities that both spark students’ interest and support their emerging language skills.
About the Discussant: Noah McLaughlin is an Assistant Professor of French and Director of the Foreign Language Resource Collection at Kennesaw State University, where he teaches courses about world languages and cultures as well as transnational cinema. He has publications in the fields of film studies, foreign language pedagogy, and popular culture, most recently “Spaces of Critique and Transformation in Bande de filles” in Popular Culture Review. He has served as an online language teaching mentor for ACTFL’s mentorship program and has been invited to conduct professional development workshops and presentations for language teachers by the University of Calgary and the International Association of Language Learning Technology. He also coordinates Kennesaw State's American Sign Language, Arabic, Hebrew and Russian courses.