The “Development Course” is a cross between teaching leadership and business development. This framework could raise the question: why would a world language teacher need to understand program development? The course is designed in a way that answers this question! Below are the results of my rigorous groundwork to meet the final study requirements of the FLT 817 Program Development Course. The course study requirements ended with two of my major projects: Program Development Project and the FLEx Conference.
The Lavender Jade Community-Based Language School
For this project, two roles were required, Participant and Observer. Details on conducting interviews, including questions, procedure, creating transcripts, and analysis was provided in Dr. Lanier’s Assignment Guidelines. The MAFLT program exposes students to the real-world environment, where colleagues of diverse ethnicities and languages must work together. My peer and I capitalized on each other’s strengths to create a scholarly paper and technically-sound proposal, which was submitted to the target community-based school.
| Participant Peer | Observer Toni Stillman | Participant and Observer |
|---|---|---|
| Leads the data collection process, beginning with Local Peer, Team, and Leadership interviews. | Responsible for literature review, thematic data analysis, and the functional role of writing, revising, and compiling the report. | Identify important features of the program, compare it with the needs of students and other stakeholders, and respond to those needs appropriately. point out the strengths or lack of strength and come up with a proposal to submit to the community-based school. |
Qualitative Analysis with Atlas.ti
Dr. Lanier introduced us to the Atlas t.i software. It was selected as the resource to conduct qualitative analyses on our transcript documentation. This tool allows for coding and documentation by Participant and Observer. We investigated themes about curriculum design. We identifed areas of strengths and weakness of the organization’s curriculum, as measured by ACTFL, HSK, JLPT standards. Please review the report below:
Foreign Language Excellence Exchange
FLEX Conference
Our cohort worked together with Dr. Lanier to plan and carry out a virtual conference. It was the role of students to select our own themes and topics, write conference proposals, and present on own topics related to “FL teacher development, teacher leadership, and excellence in FL teaching.” Although unable to attend the live-online conference, I participated by submitting my video presentation. Click the thumbnail to observe.
Teaching Portfolio for Toni Stillman 