(Co)constructing critical pedagogies: Expanding on our department’s approach to language teaching

In this report, we—the members of a curriculum working group (CWG) in Penn State’s German department—describe our efforts to decenter our German language sequence by integrating critical pedagogies into our department’s existing communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. We trace our process towards this goal, beginning with an exploration into and analysis of two critical pedagogies, namely Antiracist Pedagogy (ARP) and Social Justice Pedagogy (SJP). We ultimately adopt SJP because we find it to be a better fit for our purposes in German language instruction. We offer a framework to evaluate and didacticize existing as well as newly created course materials, guided by social justice (SJ) learning objectives. To illustrate our work, we describe the creation and implementation of an instructional unit in an intermediate German language course. Reflections from this course’s instructor and student reactions concerning this unit’s instruction—as well as SJP in the language classroom in general—make evident the importance of critical perspectives regarding curricular development in fostering equitable classrooms

Costs of the Keyword Method: Cognitive Impairment Due to Confusing Semantic Links in Second Language Vocabulary Learning

From the Washington University Senior Honors Thesis Abstracts (WUSHTA), Volume 2, Spring 2010. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Henry Biggs, Director, Office of Undergraduate Research / Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences; Joy Zalis Kiefer, Undergraduate Research Coordinator / Assistant Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; E. Holly Tasker, Editor. Mentors: Mitchell Sommers and Joe Barcrof

Costs of the Keyword Method: Cognitive Impairment Due to Confusing Semantic Links in Second Language Vocabulary Learning

Mentor: Mitchell Sommers and Joseph Barcroft From the Washington University Undergraduate Research Digest: WUURD, Volume 6, Issue 1, Fall 2010. Published by the Office of Undergraduate Research. Henry Biggs, Director of Undergraduate Research and Associate Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Joy Zalis Kiefer, Undergraduate Research Coordinator, Co-editor, and Assistant Dean in the College of Arts & Sciences; Kristin Sobotka, Editor