Yale Center for Teaching and Learning

The Foreign Language Classroom

Because most language courses meet between three and five times a week, foreign language TFs will have, on average, three to five times the amount of face-to-face contact with students as will their colleagues who teach discussion or lab sections. This extra time in the classroom often means more preparation time for the TF, but also makes for one of the most rewarding teaching experiences out there.

The extended face time means that the student-teacher relationship is likely to be closer than in other courses: freshmen who are unfamiliar with large lecture courses are often relieved to have a teacher they can get to know, and often ask their language teachers to be their sophomore advisors. That’s a sword that cuts both ways, of course. If you have a great class, you get to enjoy that five days a week; if there are problems, then you’ll have ample opportunity to deal with them.

Administrative Issues: “L” levels, Working with the Team and with a Course Director, Student Absences, and Audio Programs

L1 through L5

Language courses are given a designation of L1-L5, depending on the level of knowledge expected of students enrolled in them.

“L” level

Course number

Equivalent course title

L1

110 (e.g., SPAN 110)

Elementary I

L2

120

Elementary II

L3

130

Intermediate I

L4

140

Intermediate II

L5

150-199

Advanced

Generally speaking, language and literature department courses or language council courses numbered 200-499 are not focused primarily on language learning per se, but rather on literature, history, film, etc. in the context of the relevant language area.

One Among Many

Language courses tend to comprise a number of sections (anywhere from two to twelve, though some of the less-commonly taught languages have one section only). There will likely be a Language Program Director, course chair or coordinator, or head instructor who provides the syllabus, quizzes, exams and, in some cases, lesson plans — though the TFs may be asked to contribute to these. But for the daily grind, you’ll be expected to provide your own written and oral activities and, in many cases, the lesson plans themselves. You needn’t come up with all of these on your own, though—keep in touch with the LPD and the other TFs and tap them for ideas. If your department doesn’t already have a folder or a Canvas page where TFs can leave copies of exercises that have worked in their sections, consider starting one.

Absences

Most courses have a firm policy on absences, usually permitting a maximum of three to six per semester. Intensive courses may allow even fewer. Because language courses weigh participation heavily (it often constitutes 30% or more of the grade), it’s important to explain this policy to your students on the first day of class, and to stick to it. Be especially careful if you’re teaching an early morning section (8:30 or 9:30). Students whose alarms seem to fail on a regular basis should be advised to switch to a later section.

Persistent student absence issues should be referred to your LPD or course chair, and may eventually warrant a conversation with the student’s residential college dean. Such a conversation might involve invoking cut restriction (see Chapter 7, “Attendance: Be There Or Be Cut”).

Audio Programs

Gone are the days when students trekked to the famed Language Lab to listen and practice speaking with language tapes. Yes, indeed, cassette tapes! These days, language materials are available online so students can access them from their own rooms. But you know how that is: you turn on your computer, check your email, play Angry Birds, buy a pair of boots on Craig’s List, and then it’s time for the language assignment—maybe after a nap.

Make sure you remind students to do these online assignments, and check their work regularly. Make sure, too, that they know where and how to access the audio program: is it on Canvas; on the Center for Language Study website; elsewhere? Also, listen to the audio program that students must interact with, even if you’re not required to; this will not only give you a better idea of what they may be tested on, but will also help you help them if they come to you with questions about the material.

In The Classroom: Meeting Frequency; Language Learners; Participation (Your Students’ and Yours), and Providing Feedback

The Daily Grind

If you’ve never taught a language course before, you might think that fifty minutes, five days a week, is a lot of time. It isn’t. You’ll have a ton of material to cover, so use those minutes wisely. It’s imperative that you plan each class carefully, allotting time for different activities that will reinforce reading, writing, aural comprehension, and oral proficiency. None but the most pedantic wants to do fifty minutes of grammar drills. (Agricolae, agricolarum, agricolis, agricolas, agricolis. Again, please!) Try to mix things up, using a variety both of fun and useful drills, exercises, games, and texts. Why read Le Monde when you can read Paris Match?

Your Young Charges

Language learners—especially in the first two years of instruction—tend to be extremely diverse in terms of proficiency. A first-year course may have students who have never studied the language sitting next to those who took it for four years in high school but just barely missed passing the proficiency exam. To complicate matters, unless you are teaching in a department with specialized courses (such as Hindi, Korean or Spanish for “heritage speakers”), native speakers with underdeveloped writing skills but perfect speaking abilities may be placed in lower-level classes so that they can “catch up.” A mix of different levels is thus unavoidable, and the TF’s task of balancing the needs of all her students can be tricky.

Participation

Your primary goal should be to motivate students to use the language that you’re teaching them, but they can’t do that if you do all of the talking. Set the tone and get those lips a-movin’ by starting section with a short activity that immediately gets the students to speak. Ask them questions about their plans for the weekend (use the future tense!) or about what they did the night before (past tense!), or about why they’re drooling on their desks (present tense!). Sometimes, simply having students read a short text or tongue twister out loud to practice pronunciation will set the mood for the whole section. During class, try to keep the da/nyet questions to a minimum, as your students are probably already familiar with those words.

Keep Your Tongue Out of It

Most language courses require that the use of English, both by you and your students, be kept to a bare minimum, if permitted at all. The more the students speak and hear the target language, the better off they are. This is not always easy to accomplish, but it’s important that you establish this as a rule from the very first day. Are you a native speaker of the language you’re going to teach? You’re not exempt here: in fact, some research shows that TFs who are native speakers of the target language tend to use more English than native speakers of English.

Some language programs go for 100% foreign language immersion starting with Day One. Other programs allow the use English throughout the semester—when necessary—to make important announcements or to make absolutely sure that an assignment is understood. Check with your LPD to see what’s appropriate for your section.

Feedback

As a language TF, you have the unique opportunity to provide your students with constant feedback on their performance. Instead of just one paper due at the end of the semester, regularly scheduled quizzes, exams and compositions are a part of nearly every language classroom. This constant flow of written work gives you the opportunity to jot down a few tips, suggestions for improvement, and comments about the content of the work. In addition, you should give your students more formal feedback about their overall performance, if not every few weeks, then at least once at midterm. Students will appreciate it if you set time aside to discuss their progress with them or issue them a midterm report based on the grades that they have received thus far and on their class participation. As an added benefit, students who receive regular feedback on their standing in class rarely have negative comments or complaints about their final grades.

Reinforcing Classroom Learning: Office Hours, Language Tables, Tutoring, and the Center for Language Study

Office Hours

Being available for office hours is perhaps even more important for language courses than for other courses. Check with your LPD or course coordinator to see if your language program has an office hour requirement (frequency, length, or location). In any case, try to be available at least one hour every week to meet with your students, especially if you run class entirely in the target language; point out to your students that office hours are a good time to ask clarifying questions in English.

Language Tables

One of the best ways for students to get extra speaking and comprehension practice is at language tables. These meet several days a week for lunch, coffee, or dinner in various residential colleges, local coffee shops or other campus locations, and allow anyone who’s interested to practice their speaking and listening skills informally. Stress to your students the usefulness of this practice, though you might also want to mention that the ability level is likely to be even more disparate than in class. Your department will usually post a list of the tables as soon as the schedule is arranged (usually by the third week in the semester). Again, as with office hours, some language programs require that TFs host a language table, or ask for volunteer hosts, so check with your LPD or course chair.

Tutoring

You do not (and should not!) have to teach students who are having a particularly hard time on an individual basis. Of course, that is what office hours are for, and some of the most rewarding TF experiences include helping a struggling student through regular office hour meetings. But, if you find yourself meeting students for extensive beyond-the-classroom help, or if you feel a student would benefit from peer tutoring, advise him or her to request a tutor through “Foreign Language Tutoring” page on the CLS web site (http://cls.yale.edu/foreign-language-tutoring). Yale undergraduates whose teachers confirm their enrollment in a language course may request free, one-on-one tutoring with a CLS tutor, for up to ten hours per semester. Any Yale student — whether undergraduate, graduate or professional — may attend free, weekly CLS-sponsored Chinese, French and Spanish tutoring drop-in sessions. In addition, some language programs offer in-house tutoring; check with your LPD or course coordinator.

The Center for Language Study

The Center for Language Study coordinates resources for the several dozen languages taught at Yale and the dozen courses Yale shares, via distance learning technology, with other Ivy League universities. The center, located at 370 Temple Street, houses classrooms and multipurpose rooms equipped with state-of-the art technology, including a recording studio, study and meeting rooms, a media library, a multimedia lab, and a wealth of audiovisual technologies that provide students and faculty with access to media from different countries. Not sure how to use this stuff? Fear not. The CLS provides on-hand assistance with all your questions, and even has grants for TFs with a hankering to develop a language-specific program or technology. You are able to reserve a CLS room for special class sessions, or on a regular basis. You’ll get the most out of the CLS if you visit well before you start to teach, and peruse its web site (cls.yale.edu).