CLS Brown Bag Series: Guest Speaker Stacey Katz Bourns: Connecting Language and Content within Course Design

“Language teaching” has evolved significantly over the past few decades, presenting exciting opportunities for lower-division course designers and instructors. Long-held beliefs about the pedagogy and purpose of beginning and intermediate classes, however, can hinder innovation and need to be addressed. 

 

This presentation grapples with the following questions: What should we expect students to learn in lower-division classes? How can we provide students with meaningful – or even transformative – experiences? How can faculty’s areas of interest and expertise enrich course planning and content at all levels of instruction? And how do we implement the tenets of Backward Design (Wiggins and McTighe) to create courses and lesson plans that reflect our goals?

 

Bio:

Stacey Katz Bourns is Professor of Cultures, Societies and Global Studies and the Director of the World Languages Center at Northeastern University. She conducts research within the areas of French syntax/pragmatics, applied linguistics, and curriculum development. She is a member of the ADFL Executive Committee and is the former president of the AAUSC. Her most recent book, Perspectives on Teaching Language and Content, co-authored with Cheryl Krueger and Nicole Mills, was published by Yale University Press in 2020.