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Q: 21 st Century Skills include flexibility and adaptability;
initiative and self-direction; social and cross-cultural
skills; productivity and accountability; and leadership
and responsibility. With these specific life and career
skills in mind, what do you do to empower your
students to be independent learners?
ACTFL Invites Educators to
Air Their Views on Topics
in So You Say
April
Q: How do you demonstrate to your students the
usefulness of linguistic and cultural knowledge for
their future careers? What assists you in preparing
students for the global workplace of the 21 st century
and ensuring their mastery of 21 st century skills?
August
Q: How do we personalize the language learning
experience? Tell us about a time when your students
took their language learning in their own direction,
making it match their own needs and goals.
So You Say is the section where you can speak up
on the issues most important to you.
Each issue of The Language Educator will include this
feature where our readers can offer their opinions on
topics relevant to language education. Representative
statements will be published in the magazine.
To offer your views on a topic, please go to
www.actfl.org. You will be taken to a form where
you may enter a message of no more than 150
words. When finished, click submit and your
message will reach the editor.
Thanks in advance for contributing
to more representative content for
The Language Educator!
ReadeR Responses to issues in language leaRning
Students from grades 2–5 are exploring ways to work in groups
to assess their speaking, reading, and writing skills. For instance,
students in fourth and fifth grades are taking turns videotaping
each other as they keep short conversations. Another student in the
group assesses their performance with a user-friendly rubric that is
age- and grade-level appropriate. Students are able to share their observations
while learning how to provide and receive feedback from
their peers. As a result, students are working together to divide their
tasks and working collaboratively in decision making. Students are
receptive to working together rather than being tested in front of the
class. Their videos become part of their assessment and important
and powerful evidence for their performance portfolio.
Jeannette Hernandez-Cordero, Spanish
Ranney School, Tinton Falls, NJ
Provide students with opportunities and choices. For example,
create a Facebook group (you do not need to “friend” your students
to have a group) or similar social network and let them decide what
to share rather than making it an assignment. They will find amazing
links to media that you can incorporate into your lessons, thus
empowering and encouraging the students who shared the items.
Also, give them a performance task and a rubric, and perhaps some
possible options for what the final product should be, but don’t
require them to all turn it in using the same technology. You end up
with a much better demonstration of what students know and can
do in the language when they can share it their way: electronically,
orally, or on paper.
Lauren Rosen, Spanish
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
I believe that modeling 21 st century skills is an essential component
of empowering students to be independent learners. If I expect
students to be flexible, productive, and responsible, I must demonstrate
these characteristics myself as a teacher. Never underestimate
the power of example.
Andrew Schwei, Spanish
Jefferson High School, Jefferson, WI
The Language Educator n February 2013