In need of some inspiration for another semester in the virtual classroom? Just A Minute! The LRC has your back with the JAM, our winter video series investigating quick ways to spruce up the online language teaching and learning experience.

Short videos drop twice a week on YouTube and our live jam sessions provide the opportunity to debrief with us and address any questions sparked by watching our LRC JAM series.

Join us to talk about all things online language teaching and learning.

More details and link posted on our website: https://lrc.cornell.edu/learning-communities

Join us on Zoom throughout the spring for LRC Happy Hour. Every second Tuesday of the month (third Tuesday in April). We'd love to hear how it’s going! All of it.

Bring your (language instruction) stories whether they be good, bad, amazing, or unusual. It takes all kinds of stories to make a Happy Hour great!Bring your own coffee, tea, or mystery beverage.While we can't serve lunch, the LRC will provide fun, jokes, and laughs free of charge.Also, we just want to see your smiling faces, because we miss you.

More details and link posted on our website: https://lrc.cornell.edu/live-help-sessions

Friday, December 11, 2020 | 4:00 - 5:30 PM ET | LASP-CUSLAR Public Issues Forum

“The War on Cuba” is a brand-new film, released in three (short) parts in Fall 2020 by the Havana-based Belly of the Beast Collective.

The film is in English and Spanish with English subtitles. It looks primarily at U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba and also shows Cuba under the pandemic, which is particularly relevant given the United States’ inability to contain or manage the virus.

Find more information about the film here: https://bellyofthebeastcuba.com/war-on-cuba

The film is 60 minutes in length, and we will hold 30 minutes of questions and answers afterward.

Guest Speaker: Luna OG (she/her) is a CUSLAR alumna (2014-15) and the impact producer for Belly of the Beast. She is a multimedia producer and journalist whose work centers how a dying internet affects worldwide culture.

Register/RSVP for the Zoom link here: https://tinyurl.com/waroncuba-cuslar

Co-sponsors: Committee on U.S.-Latin American Relations (CUSLAR), Cornell University Latin American Studies Program (LASP).

"Developing an Open and Inclusionary Language Textbook for Portuguese"
Eduardo Viana da Silva
Associate Teaching Professor of Portuguese, University of Washington

This presentation describes the development of an e-textbook for first-year Portuguese classes. This pedagogical initiative strives to provide an inclusionary and open textbook for Portuguese, including the collaboration and feedback from Portuguese speakers of several economic and cultural backgrounds. In this context, "openness" means listening to the language of a given community and the commitment to reproduce it in a textbook format. Inclusion of minority groups in the textbook is perceived not as "curiosities," but as an integral part of the cultures being represented so that a wider range of communities and language registers (from formal to informal) is portrayed. While the example presented here is in Portuguese, the process of developing open and inclusionary language materials applies to all languages.

Bio: Eduardo Viana da Silva (Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara) is Associate Teaching Professor of Portuguese and Portuguese Program Coordinator at the University of Washington. Before joining the University of Washington in 2015, Eduardo taught language courses, Luso-Brazilian literature, and topics on Brazilian culture at UCSB, BYU, University of Utah, and the Salt Lake Community College. His main areas of interest are Applied Linguistics, Luso-Brazilian literature and culture, curriculum development with a focus on culture and task-based language teaching (TBLT), and Global Citizenship. Eduardo is currently working on a textbook for Portuguese - Bate-Papo: An Introduction to Portuguese - as an Open Educational Resource (OER).

Co-sponsored by the Language Resource Center and Latin American Studies Program.

Join us live on Zoom.

"Barriers to Innovation in Language Teaching"
Bill VanPatten

We have all heard about revolutions in language teaching - big leaps in thinking that offer insights and new methods for the classroom (e.g., The Direct Method, ALM, Communicative Language Teaching). Yet, such revolutions wither quickly and never really take root. It seems that innovation in language teaching is difficult if not impossible. Why is this? In this talk, I will first differentiate between what I call "real innovation" and "pseudo-innovation," suggesting that the vast majority of what people call innovation in language teaching is actually pseudo-innovation. I will then outline five interrelated barriers to real innovation: knowledge, personnel, institutionalized education, power, and time. Each barrier suggests radical reformation of how we view the profession, perhaps explaining why real innovation is so difficult. I will conclude with a discussion of what I call "incremental innovation," focusing on whether such a thing is possible in lieu of real innovation.

Bio: Bill VanPatten (Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an award-winning international scholar and teacher in the field of second language research, having published ten books, eight edited volumes, and almost 200 articles and book chapters. His most recent publications include Key Questions in Second Language Acquisition (Cambridge University Press) and The Nature of Language: A Brief Guide to What’s in Our Heads (ACTFL). He is also well known for his language teaching materials in Spanish and French. Currently, he is writing fiction full time and getting ready for his one-man show "ASFW (Almost Suitable for Work)" coming to a conference or event near you beginning 2021. Check him out at www.aliasbvp.com.

Join us live on Zoom.