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Mini-Grant Recipients for 2008 |
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The FLTC funded six projects this year that incorporate the use
of the latest technologies into existing foreign lan-guage courses
to achieve specific learning objectives. Grant recipients included
five faculty members. A description of funded projects, in the words
of the recipients, follows:
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Supporting
Students' Listening Skills and Language Learning Through Video Animations
by Pierluigi Erbaggio |
My
project consists of the creation of a series of six short films
created with anima-tion software. These videos will present situa-tions
involving a small group of characters and will be used in my ITA1010
class primarily for listening com-prehension exercises and to increase
vocabulary acquisition. It is important to stress, though, that
videos are generally a very flexible tool, and the series of animated
videos I create with my project will lend itself for use as prompts
for work-ing with other skills. For example, the videos may be used
as starting points for productive speaking activities, or they could
be used as models for writing tasks. Additionally, the scripts may
be exploited for improving reading skills. |
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Arab
Women Through Literature by Annie C. Higgins |
Literature lends itself well to the use of audio and visual materials,
both for the texts themselves and for back-ground contexts. The
oral tradition in early Arabic literature makes it authentic for
today's student to experience hearing, rather than reading, literature
as its composer produced it. I propose to develop podcasts which
will reproduce some aspects of this early oral tradition, and will
create a multi-dimensional atmosphere for entering the environment
of other works. In addition, the students will be pro-ducers themselves,
creating podcasts that incorporate ideas from the literature, and
involve members of the Wayne State University community. These podcasts
will be available on our website, with the students' permission,
and will demonstrate a unique aspect of our Department's engagement
with the larger sphere of the university.
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Enhancing
The Polish Curriculum By Making "Let's Learn Polish" Available
Online by Alina Klin |
| "Let's
Learn Polish" is a set of 30 half-hour lessons with exercises
and was pro-duced in 1996. These lessons remain the only in-depth
video materials professionally made for learning Polish. None of
the books currently available for learning Polish (with the ex-ception
of one) have video components (or websites with such materials).
During 30 very well-produced and entertain-ing lessons, students
get to know the Grzegorzewski family, their daily life, problems
and joys, as well as Polish traditions. The series applies the communicative
approach to language learning, at the end of each lesson there is
a segment where the most important phrases are isolated and presented
to the student, so the student can repeat them (and read them too).
This project involves making the series "Let's Learn Polish"
available to WSU students from a Blackboard site. |
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Russian
Listening Comprehension: Computer-based Learning Using Online Video
Materials for Advanced Students by Laura Kline |
Last
summer I created an online listening comprehension course for students
of Rus-sian which is now in effect. Students work through episodes
of the popular Russian series "ErelashT on Blackboard with
the help of Russian-language vocabulary lists and interactive exercises
to test listening comprehension. After six or eight episodes there
is a cumulative quiz on Blackboard. At the end of the course, students
take an online final. This course was offered during the past Fall
and Winter semesters, and has been extremely successful for students
at the 2nd- and 3rd-year levels. I would create a similar course
for more advanced students. As in last year's project, there would
be online vocabulary lists and audio recordings, exercises, quiz-zes,
and tests. Technology would allow the Russian pro-gram to enrich
its course offerings without significantly in-creasing faculty teaching
loads. |
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Visual
Enhancement of Ancient Religions Course by Matthew Schwartz |
I
propose to develop several visual presentations which will enhance
my History of Ancient Religions course. The project would include:
(a) pictures of ancient Athenian art or architecture of religious
content, as indeed most Athenian art was. This would help to build
up a lecture on Pausanius's second-century journey through Greece
and the many reli-gious buildings, shrines, statues and the like
that he visited; (b) pictures of the recent archaeological excavations
in the Old City of Jerusalem which include extensive new findings
on the Temple site plus what may be King David's palace; and (c)
Early Christian art, which would greatly appeal to the many students
who learn well visually and bring a reality and a sense of presence
that would exceed what can be done using only lectures or readings.
This work would be useful for any his-tory or literature class that
touches on the period as well as for my ancient religions class.
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