Funded Projects
| Project Title | Overview of the Project |
|---|---|
| Interdisciplinary Teacher Educaiton Program for Health Professionals Susan Crabb Social Work $2000.00 |
It is my goal to imporove my knowledge of teaching so that I can become a better teacher. The Interdisciplinary Teacher Education Program will provide me with an opportunity to learn about adult learning and adult learning theory. I will also study curriculum development, the development of syllabi, teaching objectives and how to write test questions. My learning will help me ensure that I am providing the rigor that is expected at the University of Michigan. |
| Breaking the Hispanic Stereotype. Exploration and Dissemination of Other Cultures: The Pre-Hispanic Arhuaco of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia Tatiana Calixto LSA - Romance Languages and Literatures $2000.00 |
Learning about ancestral cultures like that of the Arhuaco in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia would add to a more integral notion of a Pan-Hispanic World. It seems that the dominant societies, and Spanish language textbooks have constructed ideas of "the Hispanic World" omitting pre-Hispanic cultures that exist today, and that follow a way of life different from that of the main societies. Using an apprenticeship-practice approach to gain knowledge of the Arhuaco culture, this project aims to educate the University community, and to contribute to our development of cross-cultural competence by disseminating the Arhuaco way of life as a representative of these non-Hispanic cultures. |
| Online Interactive Language Exercises for Introductory Chinese Jinyi Li LSA $1800.00 |
I am seeking a grant to develop the Online Interactive language Exercises for Introductory Chinese, a program with the objective of providing students with listening and speaking exercise, in addition to their normal written assignments. I aim to enhance the first year Chinese students' ability to listen and comprehend and to enhance speaking accuracy without an instructor. The online interactive language exercises for introductory Chinese will be based on a series of Rich Internet Applications (free for educational uses) provided by the Center for language Education and Research at Michigan State University. I am requesting $1,800 to purchase the required multimedia material and to hire a student assistant. |
| Reducing fossilization among advanced language learners through introspection, online corpora, and targeted exercise Roann Altman LSA $2000.00 |
The goal of the proposal is to find my participation as a presenter at the AILA [International Association of Applied Linguistics] World Congress in Beijing at the end of August 2011. The workshop is part of the Learner Autonomy in Language Learning strand. The focus of the workshop will be on identifying difficulty areas that advanced language learners have and showing how the use of freely available online language corpora (e.g. MICASE/MICUSP, COCA) can help learners decide which forms to use based on native speaker preferences. Presenting at AILA provides an exceptional professional development opportunity: (1) I will be able to use materials developed for the workshop in my classes; (2) as I become more proficient using the online corpora myself, I will be better able to guide my students in their use; (3) I will gain experience converting my materials to PowerPoint and incorporating online links into the presentation; (4) I will be immersed for one week in the most current key issues in the field of Applied Linguistics; (5) I will be able to network with applied linguists and English language teachers from around the world; and (6) experiencing the Chinese language and culture will enrich my experience as a teaching at the ELI, where most students in my classes are from China. |
