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Recent News

From the Language Center Director: The Return of Tip of the Day
Welcome to a new academic year, starting with a semester that will be primarily remote for the Language Center, and for many of you. As a way of providing connection, we are bringing back the Tip of the Day blog. The plan is to continue to describe manageable chunks or tips that support online or remote learning environments. The primary focus will be the teaching and learning of languages, but these tips may be useful for more general audiences as well. We are aiming to publish three posts per week.

Who are University of Minnesota Arabic Students?
The goal of the Proficiency Assessment for Curricular Enhancement (PACE) project, which collected second language proficiency test data between 2014 and 2017, was to learn more about second language learners at the University of Minnesota and what methods and experiences are effective in helping them improve their proficiency in a second language. In an effort to share some insights from the PACE data, the Language Center is publishing the first in a series of short articles that will highlight some of the findings of PACE researchers. We hope that these articles will provide information useful to instructors today.

TandemPlus Fall 2020: Face-to-Face registration is open!
Looking for an opportunity to improve your target language skills this fall? The TandemPlus Face-to-Face program registration for the Fall 2020 semester is now open! Through TandemPlus, learners have the opportunity to be paired with a language partner for a one-on-one exchange of language and culture. Partners are matched based on their native and target language preferences. This long-standing program is free and voluntary; partners have the autonomy to decide when and how often they meet together throughout the semester. The only requirement is that half of the time partners spend together is conducted in each language.

Tip of the Day to Return
As we welcome students and instructors to the Fall 2020 semester, the Language Center will resume publishing Tip of the Day, which shares short and simple ideas for teaching online! The topics of these tips are based on the experience of LC staff, as well as ideas received from language instructors.

Welcome Week Sessions: Materials now available
In partnerships with French and Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch and LATIS, the Language Center offered three plenary sessions during Welcome Week that focused on technologies and instructional strategies to enhance instructor presence and increase opportunities for student engagement and success in language courses. The sessions were led by Dan Soneson and Adolfo Carrillo Cabello from the Language Center, and Shana Crosson from LATIS. Over 90 instructors participated in these sessions. Materials from the sessions, including video recordings, presentation slides, and list of resources are now available in an open access Canvas Site.
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