2023 Summer Language Institute attendees showing their artwork from a communicative cultural activity.
Summer Language Institute
The Summer Language Institute supports K-16 language practitioners seeking to employ contemporary, research-supported best practices for world language instruction in their classrooms. Specifically, the Summer Language Institute will focus on equipping pre- and in-service foreign/world language, heritage language, immersion, and ESL/EFL educators with training on how to both modify existing curricula and create new course materials that adhere to ACTFL World-Readiness Standards for Learning Languages. The Summer Language Institute runs in person every summer for three days, hosted at the University of Cincinnati.
The CEDAR Language Resource Center is excited to host the 2025 Summer Language Institute on June 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The theme spanning all three days is "Local Classrooms, Global Communities."
Focal Areas:
- Language Education as a bridge to global citizenship: Encouraging intercultural competence, supporting immersive classrooms, strengthening multilingual proficiency and supporting heritage and indigenous languages.
- Curricular Innovation and Pedagogical shifts: Real-world applications in the classroom; communicative-based assessments; interdisciplinary collaboration.
- Impact of Technology: Expanding the use of digital platforms; raising awareness about disparities in the classroom and encouraging cross-district collaborations, seals of biliteracy.
Keynote speakers:
- Cassandra Glynn, PhD: (https://www.concordiacollege.edu/directories/faculty-staff/details/dr-cassandra-glynn/)
- Julio Torres, PhD: (https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/juliotorres/)
Past SLI Themes and Keynote Speakers
Summer 2024: "Engagement and Motivation in the Language Classroom"
The CEDAR Language Resource Center is excited to host the 2024 Summer Language Institute on August 5th, 6th, and 7th. The theme spanning all three days is "Engagement and Motivation in the Language Classroom."
- August 5th: Nurturing the Roots of Student Engagement, Kate Grovergrys
- August 6th: Beyond Borders: Cultivating a Global Mindset for a Connected World, Ying Jin
- August 7th: Technology and Classroom Management: Suggestions and Solutions, Roundtable Discussion Facilitated by Kathleen Shelton
- August 7th: Culture in the Language Classroom, Ke Peng, PhD
- August 8th: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Language Classroom, Milton Alan Turner
- August 9th: Creating a Communicative Language Classroom, Claudia Fernández, PhD
Ke Peng, PhD
Dr. Peng is a Professor of Chinese and the Director of Chinese Flagship at Western Kentucky University. Dr. Peng was awarded the 2022 Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award from the Kentucky World Language Association. She is the coordinator of the Chinese Program in the Department of World Languages. Dr. Peng has over 20 years of teaching experience and has served as the college team leader for the STARTALK Master Teacher Program. Her research interests include pedagogy, teacher training and program evaluation as well as literacy development and cultural education in the Chinese language classroom. Recent research from Dr. Peng can be found in Journal of International Chinese Language Education, The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Language Teaching, and the Journal of Chinese Language Teaching.
Milton Alan Turner
Mr. Turner is a French and Spanish teacher at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, Ohio with over 35 years of teaching experience. He was awarded the U.S. Innovative Educator award by Microsoft in 2011, the Ohio World Language Teacher of the Year in 2014, and St. Ignatius’ Trailblazer award in 2020. Mr. Turner currently serves on the Ohio Foreign Language Association board as Editor for Electronic Media and is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee Member for ACTFL, as well as a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Commission Member for the American Association of Teachers of French.
Claudia Fernández, PhD
Dr. Fernández is a Clinical Associate Professor and Director of the Spanish Basic Language Program in Hispanic and Italian Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). With more than 20 years of language teaching experience, Dr. Fernández' research interests are in the area of task-based language teaching, materials development, and input processing. She is the co-editor of Using Language Learning Materials: Theory and Practice (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), the co-author of the task-based textbooks Aula en acción (Klett World Languages) and the author of "What is and what is not comprehension-based communicative language teaching?" (Klett World Languages, to appear). She is the current recipient of the Teaching Recognition Program award at UIC for excellence in teaching.