The professional enthusiasm of teachers is the first step in creating a worthwhile learning experience. Enthusiasm and teaching expertise are essential but often not sufficient elements for establishing a successful and engaging school environment. This webinar series focuses on the foundational elements of heritage language schools, such as organizational structure, management, leadership, and institutional practices. A model of institutional support services needed for teachers and learners to succeed in their educational efforts will be examined. Special attention will be given to the process of making informed and proactive decisions about the direction that schools should take to position themselves in the ever-changing 21st century educational milieu.

• The workshops are purposefully designed for heritage language practitioners, administrators, and teachers.
• A Certificate of Completion will be issued to the workshop participants.
• Recordings will be available when all of the webinars have been held. 

You can access materials from the Webinars and the recordings of Webinars 3 and 4: Technology-Infused Curriculum and Parental Role in Heritage Language Learning here: http://savavr.com/webinar.html.

Webinar 1: School Models and Practices

October 28, 2021

The professional enthusiasm of teachers is the first step in creating a worthwhile learning experience. Enthusiasm and teaching expertise are essential but often not sufficient elements for establishing a successful and engaging school environment. This webinar focuses on the foundational elements of heritage language schools, such as organizational structure, management, leadership, and institutional practices. A model of institutional support services needed for teachers and learners to succeed in their educational efforts will be examined. Special attention will be given to the process of making informed and proactive decisions about the direction that schools should take to position themselves in the ever-changing 21st century educational milieu.

Webinar 2: Alignment of Instructional Design

December 2, 2021

Instructional design represents the systematic process of designing, developing, and delivering instruction aimed to make meaningful impact in the life of learners. One essential element of a strong course is ensuring that learning objectives, content, activities, and assessment strategies are aligned in a coherent instructional design. This webinar provides a valuable tool for helping heritage language practitioners intentionally plan that alignment through unit/course mapping. The participants will gain operational skills in writing measurable learning objectives based on Bloom’s taxonomy of action verbs. The backward instructional design model will also be examined.

The session is specifically designed for language teachers who are designing and delivering heritage language courses. The concept of alignment addressed in the workshop applies to all academic disciplines and diverse online learning and classroom environments. The webinar is structured as a call for a change session, where the presenters introduce the concept and provide the opportunity for participants to work in small groups with facilitators to start planning their unit/course map and measurable learning objectives.

Webinar 3: Technology-Infused Curriculum: Necessity or Opportunity?

January 20, 2022

Heritage language learners are profoundly impacted by technology in nearly every aspect of their lives. The use of readily available hardware devices, combined with permanent access to the global network, have become a lifestyle of K-12 students, specifically in light of the global pandemic. As it seems unlikely that this trend will be significantly altered, and that educators and parents can detach their students/children from the excessive use of technology, there are promising research-based initiatives that suggest rethinking the use of technology and online content that learners are exposed to on a daily basis.

Taking a technology-based lifestyle of students into account, this webinar highlights proven online instructional strategies, methods, and practices for implementing technological tools that may serve as a catalyst for learning success. The webinar is dedicated to technology-driven pedagogical concepts focused on the process of language learning, such as the T-Pack model and Community of Inquiry (e.g., teaching and social presence). Participants will be introduced to the implementation of a variety of online teaching methods, techniques, and tools tailored to developing fundamental language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), including phonology, semantics, and grammar.

Finally, a model of an immersive 360/VR video learning environment, routed in the contextual learning framework, will be demonstrated. Immersive VR video-based language lessons provide a high level of auditory, spatial, and visual immersion that consequently leads to emotional immersion of learners into the subject matter.

Webinar 4: Parental Roles in the Process of Heritage Language Learning

March 3, 2022

A child’s linguistic and cultural development is a result not solely of school endeavors. It is equally influenced by parental guidance, upbringing, and encouragement. Heritage language learning strongly implies cultural and ethnic values which seem to be the core of family identity. In this webinar the presenters will share instructional practices, methods, and curricular components that are purposefully designed to involve parents in the process of learning their heritage language online. The parental role and support in a child’s efforts to master a heritage language is critical, as a strong reason for learning a heritage language is to establish close-knit ties with family members (or social groups) who are typically fluent in the language of their origin and strongly connected to the cultural context of another country.

Joint efforts of parents and teachers lead not only to a higher learning motivation. They also promote family relationships and mutual understanding that take place through educational conversations between parents and children. As advocates for a holistic learning approach, in this webinar the presenters will additionally address the role of classroom peers in learning who, along with parents and teachers, are critical for achieving success.