This page will be regularly updated with our Faculty Professional Development workshop slides and any corresponding materials. We are working with Camosun’s Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) to share these faculty (internal only) workshops via LibCal, so please stay tuned for updates in CamNews and CETL newsletters, as well as emails from your chair or MSS directly.
Faculty Workshops:
- Instructional Materials Analysis: Improving linguistic clarity for our diverse learners
- Tips to Make Intercultural Team Projects Work
- Supporting Intercultural Classroom Engagement
- Machine Translation in Academia: Exploring Emerging Perspectives
- Clear Lectures for Multilingual Learners
Instructional Materials Analysis: Improving linguistic clarity for our diverse learners
Description:
Ever wonder how students navigate the language in your instructional materials (exams, assignments, D2L overviews, etc.)? Have you considered how language in your instructional materials may contain grammatical errors, linguistic bias, and cultural favoritism focused on the dominant culture? (Abedi, 2016; Martinkova et al., 2017). This workshop will introduce you to some linguistic features that may be adding unnecessary complexity and creating barriers to understanding for your students, and in particular, your multilingual students. We will walk you through examples to practice identifying and modifying items across a range of disciplines, with the goal of applying this knowledge to your own materials creation and revision processes.
Learning outcomes:
- Recognize linguistically accessible written English
- Find and modify potentially challenging language
- Implement linguistic modification in your own materials
Tips to Make Intercultural Team Projects Work
Description:
Project groups with a mix of cultures have the potential to develop both teamwork and intercultural skills. But those goals are likely to fall flat without sufficient preparation and ongoing care. This workshop offers practical tips from published research and Camosun instructors that will give your intercultural groups – or any groups – a good chance to succeed.
Learning outcomes:
- Increased understanding about the challenges and rewards of intercultural group projects
- Ideas for starting strong and facilitating ongoing work
- Assessment options that reflect group and individual contributions
- Links to useful resources
Supporting Intercultural Classroom Engagement
Description:
Do you often find yourself trying to come up with ways to get your English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) students engaged in the classroom, or have them contribute actively to class discussions? You may find that some EAL students are struggling with pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. Others may refuse to engage, or take an extended pause before responding. You may also have met the EAL student who gives long-winded or rambling explanations and responses. In this workshop, we will explore how culture can influence expectations and behaviour of both students and instructors in the classroom. We will also consider some strategies to promote a more inclusive classroom environment and to get our EAL students more engaged and more comfortable speaking in our classes.
Learning outcomes:
- Increased understanding of the ways culture influences behaviour in the classroom
- Ideas for building a more inclusive classroom environment to get your EAL students speaking comfortably
- Practical strategies for better engaging your EAL students, and all students, in the classroom
Machine Translation in Academia: Exploring Emerging Perspectives
Description:
Do you have multilingual students who rely on translation tools on their devices? What are the arguments for allowing or disallowing machine translation in credit courses or programs? The literature (Paterson, 20223; Ducar & Schocket, 2018; Steigerwald, et al, 2022), has identified discrepancies between student and instructor perceptions and practices related to machine translation use. This workshop topic explores machine translation, policies around it (or lack of), and the pros and cons of using it. This workshop was designed to highlight faculty experiences with how multilingual students use translation software and unpack views around the impacts of this practice on real-world outcomes.
These workshop materials will provide you with pedagogical methods and rationale for its use, including:
- learner autonomy
- developing metalinguistic awareness
- vocabulary development
- support for writing in an additional language
Viewing these materials will help you form a clearer perspective on machine translation and whether its use by EAL students fits your course context and goals.
MSS also conducted a small research study on machine translation use and perspectives of faculty and students (May-Oct. 2024). Please see the summarized results in these slides below. Contact Cristina Petersen if you have any questions: petersenc@camosun.ca
Clear Lectures for Multilingual Learners
Description:
A big challenge for English as an additional language (EAL) learners is comprehending lectures. While our students do their part to improve their listening and note-taking skills, meet them halfway by incorporating clear lecturing strategies. This interactive workshop will leave you with a better understanding of learner issues and strategies for enhancing comprehensibility. The following areas are included:
- Speaking clearly
- Monitoring vocabulary and grammar
- Supplementing clear lectures
Learning outcomes:
- Recognize that learner understanding is the responsibility of the instructor as well as the learner
- Raise awareness of the comprehension challenges with lectures that additional-language learners face
- Identify implementable instructor strategies for clear speaking, vocabulary and grammar, and supplementing lectures
