About Course

Teaching African Languages is part of a series of online courses developed for the National Online Less Commonly Taught Languages Teacher Training Initiative, a collaborative project of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Language Institute, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education International Research and Studies Program.  The course is designed for pre- or in-service instructors of African languages who have completed the two other courses developed for this project, Fundamentals of Language Teaching Methods and Introduction to the U.S. Educational System for Language Instructors.

The course was authored by Antonia Folarin Schleicher, with Modupe Olubyi and Dianna Murphy.

The purpose of Teaching African Languages is to expose new instructors to different issues that they will need to address and be familiar with as an African language instructor in the United States.  Participants in the course will learn about the history of African language pedagogy in the United States, and about resources for African language teachers.  Participants who were raised and educated in Africa will consider how to relate to American students.  The course addresses issues in teaching and assessing listening, speaking, writing and reading, and explores the applicability of certain instructional approaches (e.g., content-based instruction, the goal-based approach) to African language education.  The course ends with a lesson on teaching culture in African language classrooms.

Successful language teachers are open-minded and flexible in working with different kinds of students, and their different learning styles.  Remember that it is all about learning; our goal is to constantly ask the question: How can I help my students to learn the language that I am teaching them?

By the end of this course, participants are expected to:

• present information to an audience in a clear and precise manner.
• teach oral, listening, writing and reading skills in a language course.
• understand the variables that contribute to Second Language Acquisition (SLA), such as your role as the teacher, the role of input, the impact of formal instruction, type of interaction, learners’ strategies, tasks, evaluation, error correction, etc.  Participants will also understand current research that informs us of what learners do  with the foreign language they are exposed to, and not what instructors think or expect them to do (in other words, the cognitive processes involved in SLA).

Each lesson follows a consistent format:

• Think About Your Experiences (Think About Your Opinion, Your Reaction, Your Language): Questions to stimulate reflection and self-understanding, and to encourage intructors to apply ideas to their language, students and situation.
• Observe and Consider: Videotaped lectures or interviews with African language teachers and students. Clips are contextualized with pre-viewing question and accompanied by written transcripts.
• Read and Analyze. Readings that present new material or research findings. Some of the readings are original material written for the course; other outside readings are articles from academic journals or excerpts from scholarly monographs. Outside readings are given as PDFs for students to download.
• Check Your Understanding: Interactive online exercises that provide immediate feedback before moving on to the next topic or assignment. Responses to Check Your Understanding exercises are not saved.
• Final Assignments: Assignments to complete offline. Final assignments include desigining classroom activities and lesson plans, surveying your students, and learning more about professional organizations.