PS News

Reports on recent College activities and a selection of announcements, events and initiatives in the wider education community.

 

Immersed in language

More than 860 French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese core and immersion teachers from across the country attended the annual spring conference of the Ontario Modern Language Teachers' Association (OMLTA) in Toronto.The conference theme, The Road We've Travelled...The Road Ahead, reflects the history and future of the organization, which celebrated its 125th anniversary in March.

"We are the oldest subject association in the province and probably the country," says conference co-organizer and OMLTA secretary Wanda West-Gerber, OCT. In her full-time job, West-Gerber is a learning services consultant for French and the arts in the Waterloo Region DSB.

Teachers at the OMLTA conference participate in a workshop by Madeleine Charpiot (standing) on how to integrate printmaking into their junior immersion language classes.

With rich professional development (PD) opportunities and more than 60 publishers, travel companies and other vendors on display, the three-day event was a resounding success, says conference chair Karla Torrente, OCT, a program facilitator with the Durham DSB.

OMLTA's mandate is to provide advocacy and PD for its members and promote the benefits of learning additional languages to students, parents and education stakeholders.

"Our goal with the 91 workshops we offered was to provide our colleagues with targeted, practical and hands-on PD they can learn today and use in their classrooms with their students next week," says Torrente.

"French is the second most popular second language learned in the world today," says West-Gerber. "The more students learn in a second language, the more they confirm what they are learning in their first language."

Keynote speaker Samantha Nutt, Founder and Executive Director of War Child Canada, echoed this message in her remarks.

"Modern language teachers expose students to different ways of seeing the world and give them tools to communicate more effectively in our increasingly global society.

Nutt is also a staff member at Toronto's Women's College Hospital and an assistant professor at the University of Toronto in the Department of Family and Community Medicine.She spoke about the benefits of learning other languages and cultures outside of what she calls the anglophone narrative.

"Lasting social change begins and ends with equity of and in education, and since 46 per cent of Canadians speak a language other than English as their native tongue, learning languages opens doors, helps build empathy and broadens young people's perspectives.

Nutt's beliefs align with the 2003 federal government's action plan for official languages, The Next Act: New Momentum for Canada's Linguistic Duality, designed to help increase the number of graduates from Canadian high schools with a functional knowledge of their second official language.

"Our mandate is clear," says Faten Hanna, OCT, OMLTA's newly elected president and head of French and international languages at St. Edmund Campion SS in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic DSB. "Among other things, the action plan recommends improving core second-language programs, revitalizing immersion programs and increasing the number of qualified teachers, and OMLTA supports these important goals.

The Ontario College of Teachers encourages French as a Second Language (FSL) teachers to continue to learn through the revision of Additional Qualification guidelines in second-language learning. This past year a new course on teaching within French Immersion was also introduced.

College Registrar Michael Salvatori, OCT, an FSL teacher and long-standing OMLTA member and supporter, acknowledges the value of second and additional language learning for students.

"As students learn an additional language," says Salvatori, "they also learn to appreciate an additional culture because language and culture are so finely interwoven. Beyond the personal benefits they derive with respect to communication, students become global citizens who understand and appreciate diversity.

The conference offered participants a tremendous range of PD opportunities.

Workshop topics included technology, equity and differentiated instruction; how to use drama, dance, music and the visual arts to boost language instruction; and how to engage the whole child with active, hands-on teaching and learning activities.

"We're aiming to support our colleagues as they educate students for success in the 21st century," says Torrente.

Teachers who attended Madeleine Charpiot's workshop rolled up their sleeves, got their hands dirty and had a great time doing it. Charpiot co-ordinates French-language education programming at Mississauga's Living Arts Centre. She showed 35 teachers how to integrate printmaking into their junior immersion language classes.

"I wanted them to see how easy it is to integrate the arts and the French language into any subject area," says Charpiot. "We start by teaching the vocabulary the students will need to make their prints.

She finds that children are often keen to do the art but possess weak language skills. This type of fun activity bridges the gap and motivates students to learn new vocabulary and explore new forms of visual expression and technique.

"Once they learn the vocabulary and the screen-printing procedure," Charpiot explains, "they apply the creative process to make two-dimensional artwork using visual arts principles and techniques to explore whatever topic the teacher wants to introduce. The kids learn new vocabulary and use a different media technique to express themselves and have fun producing creative and attractive work.

Meanwhile, Jen Jinks, OCT, an FSL teacher from the DSB of Niagara, facilitated the workshop titled Critical Thinking for Social Change in FSL: Building Citizens for Tomorrow.The session introduced core and immersion teachers to a unit she and colleague Jackie Kelly, OCT, created on poverty.

The introductory task, the first of six different critical-thinking challenges, has groups of students working together to decode stark images of poverty. Depending on the students' level, teachers can introduce the vocabulary ahead of time or let students work it out for themselves.

Students are encouraged to discuss what they see and why the events depicted have occurred and to imagine what happened before and after the images were created. Immersion students would extend that to connect their new learning with previous experience and knowledge.

Beth Hill, OCT, Jinks's workshop co-presenter, says that although some students may never continue with French, "all will continue to think, so if we can get them to think critically, that's good, and if they are thinking critically and communicating in a second language, that's even better."

The unit continues with students analyzing and discussing video clips and readings on poverty.The culminating activity sees them develop and implement an action plan to diminish poverty in their community. Click here for Jinks and Kelly's unit on Jennifer Jinks's class web site.

Perhaps the ultimate PD that the conference showcased was Projet á Québec, co-sponsored and co-funded by the Ministry of Education and the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Forty Core FSL teachers - with at least three years of full-time classroom experience in Catholic and public English-language district school boards - will be selected from hundreds to participate in a 12-day immersion experience of workshops and excursions in Québec this July. The cost of the session, accommodation and most meals is fully funded. Successful applicants must pay for their travel expenses. Application forms for the 2012 program will be available at www.omlta.org this fall.


The Living Arts Centre in Mississauga offers teachers and students a variety of visual arts and dance programming developed by artists and education specialists to connect specifically to the JK to Grade 12 curriculum in both English and French.

For more information visit www.livingartscentre.ca. For French programming, contact madeleine.charpiot@livingarts.on.ca.