Holiday Wishes from COTSEAL

Dear COTSEAL members,

As 2017 year draws to a close, we want to take a moment to thank you for your continued support to COTSEAL. From volunteering to participating at our events, your contributions matter to the development of our Southeast Asian language teaching. With the support of Cornell SEAP and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and many of SEA NRCs, we successfully held the Conference on Southeast Asian Teaching: New Directions last September. Many of our members reap the benefits from the workshop. We shared teaching materials and effective teaching strategies and mobilized to formalize our language specific organizations. We hope we will continue our collaboration to strengthen our field.

Wishing you a very Happy Holiday season and a peaceful and prosperous New Year!

COTSEAL Officers: Juliana Wijaya, Pittaya (Fon) Paladroi, and Agustini

ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines Workshop April 20-21, 2018

ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines Workshop for Southeast Asian Language Teachers

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, April 20-21, 2018

Sponsored by COTSEAL

You are invited to apply to participate in the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines Workshop for Southeast Asian Language Teachers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor April 20-21, 2018.

This two-day workshop will familiarize participants with the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, ACTFL Rating Scale, and the ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview Process, and the implications of proficiency for academic and professional purposes. It will include the application of proficiency for Southeast Asian language instruction and assessment, and how proficiency guidelines can be customized to address specific program needs and goals.

Upon completion of the workshop, there will be follow-up activities involving proficiency-based material development to support the integration of the ACTFL guidelines in Southeast Asian language teaching.

Priority will be given to those applicants who make a firm commitment to participate in the follow-up activities, and who have not yet received the ACTFL guidelines/OPI training.

Application should be submitted online at https://ucla.in/2BeP2lI by January 22, 2018.

To apply to participate in the ACTFL workshop, please submit:

1. A one page statement describing your background in teaching a Southeast Asian language and your commitment to apply the knowledge you gain from the ACTFL proficiency training to your language teaching.

2. Your CV covering your language teaching experience.  

With acceptance, your registration cost for the workshop is covered. 

To request funding for travel and accommodation

3. Submit a statement of need including information from your institution indicating what portion of the cost they can cover.  It is expected that participants from NRCs will seek travel funds from their institution, but if full funding is not available, they can also apply for travel support.

Active membership in COTSEAL is required to participate in the ACTFL workshop.

To renew or become a member please fill out this form:

http://cotseal.net/COTSEAL_membership_form.pdf

Questions should be addressed to COTSEAL@gmail.com

Report on the 2017 COTSEAL Conference on Southeast Asian Teaching: New Directions

An historic meeting of the Southeast Asian language teachers took place this year at the Conference on Southeast Asian Teaching: New Directions, on September 8-10, 2017 at Cornell University. 

The conference was hosted by Cornell’s Southeast Asian Program, and co-sponsored by Asian Studies and the Language Resource Center. This event is also part of a series of professional workshops that began at the University of California, Berkeley in 2015, which was co-sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies of University of California, Los Angeles, and the 2016 meeting, held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016, and sponsored by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison. All the three workshops were co-sponsored by Henry Luce Foundation. About 70 people registered to participate in the 2017 conference. It was one of a kind conference that included all the major stakeholders involved in the teaching of SEA languages in the U.S, namely, language teachers, academics, and grant organizations and administrators. The event not only served as a catalyst to foster a stronger sense of camaraderie among all language teachers, and collaboration among different universities, but also strengthen the field of teaching SEA languages.

The conference was a dynamic event packed with various activities that allowed participants to be involved and engaged. After the registration and welcoming lunch, the conference kicked off with the meetings of specific language groups. including Burmese, Khmer, Indonesian, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese. In this session, the participants discussed issues of relevance to their language of instruction and their interests. The next event was a thematic session in which the SEA language faculty at Cornell University shared their insights on implementing a one-credit hour jumpstart course. The highlight of the day was the keynote address entitled “Culturally Speaking: Intercultural Competence and Attaining Advanced L2 Proficiency” by Dr. Thomas Garza, UT Regents and University Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin.

The second day began with a session of language specific meetings followed by a series of presentations on COTSEAL Materials Development Project: Reflections. The COTSEAL content-based materials development project has been up and running since 2015 and supervised by Dr. Erlin Bernard, Pedagogy Coordinator for Less Commonly Taught Languages, University of Wisconsin-Madison. The afternoon section exhibited poster presentations, a follow up workshop by Dr. Thomas Garza on one of the most recent trends, backward curriculum design, and a series of presentations on the teaching of SEA languages. Dr. Ellen Rafferty, Emerita Professor of Indonesian Language and Culture, University of Wisconsin and the Language Director of Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI), ended the second day by giving a keynote address titled “Challenges and Potentials in the field of Southeast Asian Language Teaching: Reflections from SEASSI”. All participants were then invited to the dinner accompanied by live musical performances.

The conference ended on the third day after a sequence of presentations focusing on distance learning, especially Tagalog, Thai and Khmer, and different rounds of reports from six language groups. The representatives from all language groups shared their working goals and showed their commitment to the idea of institutionalizing the professional language organizations.

This was followed by a strategic meeting involving the directors or representatives from 10 different National Southeast Asian Centers. The other participants also included 8 representatives from NON-NRC institutions that offer SEA languages, representatives from different language groups, COTSEAL president, Dr. Juliana Wijaya and SEASSI Director and Language Director, Dr. Mike Cullinane, and Prof. Ellen Rafferty. Included among the participants was Ms. Helena Kolenda from Henry Luce Foundation and Prof. Katherine Bowie, the President of the Association of Asian Studies, who attended the meeting to address issues related to funding and identify areas of collaboration.

Follow this link for photos from the 2017 conference.

Academic Position Posting: Vietnamese Language Lecturer at Columbia University

Academic Position

Vietnamese Language Lecturer

Columbia University

Deadline: September 15, 2017

Web announcement: academicjobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=65075

The Vietnamese Language Program of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures invites applications for a full-time lecturer position in modern Vietnamese, beginning fall 2018. Responsibilities include teaching first-year through fourth-year modern Vietnamese. We are particularly interested in an engaging instructor willing to work collaboratively with other Columbia faculty and staff in developing Vietnamese studies at Columbia. Applicants should have extensive experience in teaching Vietnamese at the university-level to native speakers of English, demonstrated exceptional teaching achievement at all levels (level 1 through level 4) with both heritage and non-heritage learners, and familiarity with instructional technology.

Call for Papers: 3rd International Conference on Heritage/Community Languages

Call for Papers

Third International Conference on Heritage/Community Languages   

Deadline: September 30, 2017

UCLA

February 16-17, 2018

Web announcement: http://international.ucla.edu/nhlrc/events/conference/3rd/call

The Third International Conference on Heritage/Community Languages will focus on heritage/community language studies as a multidisciplinary field, impacting a variety of educational contexts. Submissions are welcomed from disciplines including but not limited to anthropology, applied linguistics, assessment, bilingualism, demographics, education, linguistics, policy, psychology, and sociology. 

Please provide a 400-word (maximum) abstract of your paper, panel, poster session and a 50-word (maximum) summary.

Call for Proposals for COTSEAL-Sponsored AAS 2018 Panel: Extended Deadline

The deadline for proposals for a COTSEAL-sponsored panel at the 2018 AAS Conference has been extended to July 28, 2017.

Please see this post for more details.  Please submit your proposal to Pauli Sandjaja.

Southeast Asian Language: New Directions (deadline extended)

Call for Proposals for Presentations/Posters/Roundtables

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

September 8-10, 2017

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO WEDNESDAY JUNE 21!

All Southeast Asian language teaching professionals are invited to submit proposals for presentations, posters, or roundtables focused on innovations, curriculum development, and research on pedagogy and assessment for Burmese, Filipino, Indonesian, Khmer, Thai, Vietnamese and/or other Southeast Asian languages. Topics of interests include (but are not limited to): language structure, acquisition, methodology, technology, instruction strategies, content-based lessons, or heritage language learners.

See the NEW conference website: https://agh955.wixsite.com/sealangconference for details.

Prospective presenters and conference participants must complete the application and pre-registration FORM. Abstracts of 300-500 words must follow the guidelines below and should include a title, the language(s) being addressed, and a short description of the purpose and content of the proposed poster, presentation, or roundtable. Travel funding may be available.

Posters

The main text of the poster should be in English except for illustrations on the teaching/research language(s).

• Poster session participants place materials such as pictures, data, graphs, diagrams and narrative text on boards that are usually 4 x 8 feet
• Presenters of a poster will be expected to be in attendance on Saturday, September 9 2017 in order to explain their poster and to hand out any supplemental materials they may have prepared.

Presentations

• Paper presentations/talks should be 20 minutes long and must be in English except for examples presented in the talk or in audio-visuals
• Presentations will be scheduled across all three days of the conference and may be group thematically or by language

Roundtables

• Roundtable proposals may submitted by individuals or groups of language professionals
• Please indicate in the abstract if the topic is intended to address a language-specific topic and audience, or if it is a thematic discussion that cuts across more than one Southeast Asian language.

Important Dates

Deadline for Abstract submission: June 15, 2017

Notification of Acceptance: July 8, 2017

Conference Dates: September 8-10, 2017

Call for Proposals for COTSEAL-Sponsored Panel at AAS 2018

COTSEAL is seeking for paper proposals to be presented at COTSEAL-sponsored panel at  the 2018 Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in Washington DC, March 22-25, 2018.

COTSEAL is recruiting 4 panelists working on different Southeast Asian Languages to form a panel on the broad topic of "Communicating Content: Linking Southeast Asian Language Instruction to Area Studies."

This theme is wide enough to include different kinds of language, linguistic, pedagogy 

and Southeast Asian area study perspectives and discussions.

The topics may include but are not limited to:

- Language and cultures

- Language and media

- Language and politics

- Language and the environment

- Content-based curriculum and instruction

- Language across the curriculum

- Integrated language and cultural awareness classes

- Jump-start classes connecting language and area study classes

The panel organizer is Desiana Pauli Sandjaja sandjaja@uw.edu. Please email Pauli your title and abstract by July 28, 2017.

Please also be aware that AAS does not allow people to participate as presenter, chair or discussant in more than one panel (being an organizer doesn't count).

To prepare for your proposal please check the AAS website:

http://www.asian-studies.org/Conferences/AAS-Annual-Conference/Conference-Menu/Call-for-Proposals-Preparing-your-Proposal

Further questions about COTSEAL-sponsored panel can be addressed to the panel organizer and COTSEAL officers.

Chulalongkorn Summer School of Southeast Asian Linguistics, June 5-16, 2017

Registration for the Chulalongkorn Summer School of Southeast Asian Linguistics  is open until 30 April 2017. The summer school will be held from 5 – 16  June 2017 at Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand.

To register, see http://www.arts.chula.ac.th/chulasealing2017/registration

The summer school will provide participants with a general overlook on Southeast Asia as a linguistic area, and theoretical discussion and methodological training in Southeast Asian linguistics, as well as practical knowledge on language situations and language policy in the ASEAN region.

Participants will choose to attend three of the nine courses taught by prominent linguists. Here are the course listings:

- David Bradley (La Trobe University)
   Language Policy and the Sociolinguistics of Language Endangerment in Southeast Asia
- David Peterson (Dartmouth College)
   Language Documentation in the Context of Southeast Asia
- James A. Matisoff (University of California, Berkeley)
   The Tibeto-Burman Language Family in Areal Southeast Asian Perspective
- James N. Stanford (Dartmouth College)
   Variation in Indigenous Southeast Asian Languages
- John Whitman (Cornell University)
   Microparametric Variation and Historical Change in Southeast Asian Languages
- Marc Brunelle (University of Ottawa) and James Kirby (University of Edinburgh)
   The Synchrony and Diachrony of Tonation in Southeast Asia
- Nick Enfield (University of Sydney)
  Mainland Southeast Asian Languages in Global Perspective
- Pittayawat Pittayaporn (Chulalongkorn University) and Weera Ostapirat (Mahidol University)
   Comparative Kra-Dai
- Umberto Ansaldo (University of Hong Kong)
  Language Contact and Contact Languages in SEA
- Walter Bisang (University of Mainz)
  Grammaticalization in East and Mainland Southeast Asian Languages

The summer school will be accompanied by the lecture series “Past, Present, and Future of Southeast Asian Linguistics” which will take place during 5 – 16 June in the evening. It will comprise 5 special public lectures on pertinent issues in Southeast Asian linguistics by world-class scholars.

COTSEAL Business Meeting Minutes from AAS 2017 Now Online

You can view the minutes from the March 17, 2017 COTSEAL Business Meeting here. The minutes from this recent meeting include the full COTSEAL financial report for 2017, and a detailed report on the 2016 COTSEAL teacher training workshop.

Minutes from previous meetings can be viewed at:

http://cotseal.net/business.html

COTSEAL Business Meeting Agenda at AAS in Toronto, Friday, March 17, 2017

COTSEAL Business Meeting Agenda

Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting,

Rosedale Room, Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel

Friday, March 17, 2017 7:30-9:00 am

1. Financial report by Sheila Zamar, COTSEAL Secretary

2. COTSEAL Workshop 2 at UW-Madison in May 2016 by Jolanda Pandin, COTSEAL Vice-President (Pittaya Paladroi-Shane, incoming COTSEAL Vice-President)

3. COTSEAL website by Frank Smith, COTSEAL President (Sheila Zamar)

4. Introduction of 2017-2020 COTSEAL Officers by Sheila Zamar

5. Reviving the JSEALT journal. by Sheila Zamar

6. Title VI current and future funding on Group Project Abroad (GPA) by Abby Cohn

7. Upcoming Workshop 3 at Cornell on September 8-10, 2017 by Abby Cohn

Save the Date: Third COTSEAL Teacher Training Workshop at Cornell, Sept. 8-10, 2017

Save the date!  Please mark your calendars.

Southeast Asian Language Teaching: New Directions Cornell University, Ithaca NY
September 8-10, 2017
Friday September 8 noon - Sunday September 10 noon

Talks and panels on topics of interest across the languages of the region as well as about specific languages, including reports from the Content-based Instruction Working groups from the workshop last year at UW-Madison.

Some travel funds will be available for participating language teachers.

This website will have information soon: http://conf.ling.cornell.edu/SEAlang/

Questions can be addressed to SEALangTeaching@gmail.com