Powerful Strategies for Maximizing COMPREHENSIBLE INPUT in the Target Language (Grades 6-12)

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You've heard the expectations for today's world language classroom: stay 90% in the target language, engage all learners, embed lessons with meaningful cultural content, get your students speaking and writing accurately but let go of the way you were taught grammar. Today's professional standards set a high bar for world language teachers. This seminar will go beyond talking about topics by showing you HOW to utilize the techniques and strategies yourself. In this seminar, award-winning world language teacher Jan Holter Kittok models comprehensible input mini lessons that will engage you through experiential learning as a novice language learner – the same principles that are easily adapted to work with higher language levels. Every strategy is followed by research-based insights and step-by-step explanations so you can immediately adapt ideas to your classroom – any age group, any language or any language level.

You will leave this seminar with an extensive world language teacher digital resource handbook and dozens of strategies and timesaving planning templates you will be able to use immediately to increase the level of comprehensible input in all your world language classes.

My professional journey as a world language educator has led me to many places and people at just the right time. Throughout the seminar, I will be sharing the many "Aha moments" I have learned along the way with the hope that these insights will also guide you in your journey. My lessons are drawn from a variety of teaching experiences: positions in elementary, secondary and college classrooms, immersion camps, study abroad programs, administration and teacher training.

In one of my "Aha" moments, I was teaching an advanced high school Spanish class, starting a unit on the work of Pablo Picasso and the Spanish Civil War. I asked the class to start listing everything they knew about Spain. Expecting to fill a whiteboard with bullet points, I was flabbergasted when the group could barely create a meager list of mostly superficial cultural items. What cultural content had my colleagues and I been presenting to these students in the several years we had them in our program? Why hadn't we been teaching them about the target culture, building a solid foundation of background knowledge so they could interpret and understand deeper cultural content? Why did we wait to teach these topics at the upper levels when our colleagues who teach English Language Learners teach content in the learners' new language from the start? The answer: world language teachers didn't see it as possible.

I have designed this seminar to share with you the very best ways I have discovered and developed over the course of my teaching career to increase the level of comprehensible input in every language level. I will share with you very practical ways to lower the affective filter and make the target language more understandable from the first day students enter your world language classroom. I'll share proven ways you can teach content in the target language from the very beginning of level 1. The strategies I share with you will not only boost your students' proficiency in the target language but will also expand their background knowledge of target culture as well. Teachers of any grade, any level and any language will be able to use these strategies immediately when they return to their classroom.

P.S. I invite you to grab your professional passport and join me for an idea-packed day trip. Leave room in your bag to return with oodles of fresh, practical ideas.

Extensive Digital Resource Handbook Each participant will receive an extensive digital resource handbook giving you access to countless strategies. The handbook includes:

For in-person seminars, registrants will also receive a printed copy of the resource handbook as long as their registration is received in the BER office at least 15 calendar days before the event.

Consultation Available Jan Holter Kittok will be available for consultation regarding your questions and the unique needs of your own world language program.

Semester Credit Option Up to four graduate level professional development credits are available with an additional fee and completion of follow-up practicum activities. Details for direct enrollment with University of Massachusetts Global, a nonprofit affiliate, will be available at this program.

Meet Inservice Requirements Participants of both the Live Online Seminar and those completing the Recorded Version online can receive a certificate of participation that may be used to verify five continuing education hours. State CEUs are available for both versions of the course. For specific details, visit www.ber.org/ceus.

What you'll learn

• Dozens of ideas to increase the level of comprehensible input (CI) in the target language
• Classroom-tested techniques to achieve ACTFL's goal of 90% use of the target language from the very first day of class … Increase communicative proficiency in the target language at every level
• Easy-to-implement lesson plan designs to both maximize comprehensible input AND create a bridge to scaffolded speaking and writing activities
• New and innovative ideas to increase the cultural content of your curriculum … Teach geography, history, biography, and other global knowledge topics in the target language