LILT Annual Conference 2024

Creating and using resources that highlight diverse and often marginalized voices is of significant importance in today's world. In this session, learn why this is necessary in a World Language classroom and also explore a growing library where you can find these resources.

Based off of an idea from TikTok and modified to work in a Middle School Classroom within New York City Publics schools by a teacher with A.D.D. that takes on too much, this workshop shows how one idea to work smarter not harder and negotiate with middle schoolers created an entire classroom community and economy. We will discuss the process of what ARE Bueno Bucks, how they are used, and what processes I put in place to make sure everything runs smoothly.

As language educators, we all strive to help our students reach higher levels of fluency and proficiency. However, many upper level Italian courses can become bogged down with grammar drills and rote memorization, leading to a lack of communicative competence. Comprehensible input strategies offer a practical solution to this problem by providing meaningful and engaging language input that promotes language acquisition and fluency. We explore the benefits of implementing comprehensible input strategies in upper level Italian courses, as well as practical ways to do so. We discuss techniques such as story-telling, picture-based instruction, and targeted vocabulary acquisition, and their impact on language acquisition and fluency. Participants will be provided with templates that they can adapt to apply these strategies to different contexts, themes, grammatical structures, and so on, helping participants will have a better understanding of how to create a communicative and engaging learning environment in upper level Italian courses, and how to help their students develop the fluency and confidence needed to use the language in real-world settings.

The profession of teaching is considered to be a very stressful occupation. Experiencing elevated levels of stress is associated with harmful outcomes such as mental illness, burnout, and attrition from the profession. Teachers who define themselves as stressed demonstrated reduced levels of stress after participating in mindfulness and yoga activities as professional development. Join me in participating in a mindfulness and chair yoga activity to reduce your stress level. This activity is open to all those who seek a moment of self-care. All physical fitness levels are welcome.