Training
Professional Development Workshops
The Vanderbilt Center for Languages hosts professional development workshops for language educators across a wide range of topics. Open to faculty and graduate students across the university, the workshops invite external experts to share thought-provoking ideas about language education. We also will reference a variety of other workshops held outside of Vanderbilt.
University of Chicago Summer 2024 Mellon Workshops
In June 2016 the University of Chicago Language Center (CLC) received a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for the project “Transforming Language Instruction at the University of Chicago and Beyond: Collaborative Curricula and Professional Development.” The grant, initially awarded for five years but now extended until June 2024, began as a way to increase learner access to less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) and support those language instructors through professional development.
Teaching Aids
Language Panda
Vanderbilt Center for Languages is the home for Language Panda, a crowd-sourced, searchable database for teaching foreign languages with digital resources. Language Panda began in 2015 when graduate students at the center set out to address an emerging issue in the field of foreign language teaching: As communication has taken an increasingly digital form, there is a growing need for lessons that practice technology-based interactions.
In the spirit of digital humanities and public scholarship, Language Panda provides a forum for sharing how digital pedagogy is being practiced across a variety of campuses and institutions. The webpage currently features projects in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, and Chinese, and we invite contributions from experienced and novice instructors, K-12 teachers, and higher education professors.
Graduate affiliates at the center moderate and maintain the site, which allows our graduate students to develop WordPress skills, learn about new tools, and share lesson plans that practice key vocabulary and grammar, facilitate cultural competence, and provide digital evidence of student learning.
To browse the project database or to submit your own materials, please visit Language Panda.
The projects on Language Panda are designed according to ACTFL standards. If you are interested in submitting an activity to Language Panda, please use this lesson plan template to help create your project, articulate your learning objectives, and describe your lesson outcomes.