In this newsletter

New MA TESOL curriculum offers teaching & linguistics tracks

Revised TESL certificate develops teaching competence in seven courses

Applied Linguistics $PEAK OUT activist working group receives PSU President's Diversity mini-grant award 

Faculty Corner: John Hellermann's trip to Japan, March 2019

Where in the World are our Alumni?

Teaching & Linguistics Tracks

We are excited to announce the new PSU MA TESOL, with two tracks to help students pursue their individual goals. In both tracks, students gain skills and sensitivities to work effectively with people from different cultures and to encourage positive change in societies.

Our curriculum revisions are the result of nearly five years of work. We analyzed needs, reviewed professional guidelines, and compared curricula of other programs. Many of you may have completed surveys or participated in interviews or focus groups as we gathered data from current students, employers, and graduates near and far. The revisions are moving through the university approval system this term, and we plan to start offering the new curriculum in Fall 2019.

The Teaching Track is designed for students who are interested in teaching English in the US or abroad. The courses provide a solid foundation in language structure, identity and culture, and teaching methodology to prepare students for working with diverse groups of learners in a variety of settings. This track also includes a teaching practicum, a research course, a language-in-use elective, and a culminating portfolio or thesis. Those with prior teaching experience have more coursework options.

The Applied Linguistics Track is designed for those interested in language-related careers such as dialectic coaching, computational linguistics, linguistics research, immigrant services, interpretation and translation, and literacy program administration. This track combines foundational work in language structure and identity with flexible coursework in language education and Applied Linguistics electives. All students also complete a culminating portfolio or thesis.

If you're considering the MA TESOL, please click here to receive more details about the new program and upcoming information sessions. Click here for the new course requirements.

Apply now for the fall - secure your spot while space is available.

We are very pleased to introduce our new, streamlined TESL certificate program, an effective way to get your teaching credentials with just 28-credits (7 classes). The new program is scheduled to start in Fall 2019. It focuses on the essentials of teaching ESL/EFL for beginning and experienced teachers alike. The certificate provides a foundation in linguistics, grammar, second language acquisition, and intercultural understanding along with a focus on teaching methods and a supervised practicum. Click here for the new program requirements.

If you’re considering the TESL certificate, please click here to receive more details about the new program and upcoming information sessions.

Apply now for the fall. You may apply to PSU as an undergraduate or as a postbaccalaureate student using the online admission application.

$PEAK OUT is a collaborative public engagement art project that collects individual messages of diverse histories, languages, and experiences, and presents them in a powerful, unified message to stop injustice. Participants consider how money talks and silences voices and then create messages they want amplified. These messages will be included in a final installation of laser-cut currency displayed in a PSU art gallery in Spring 2020.

Participants who are able are encouraged to donate their own dollar bill to write on; however, no one will be excluded thanks to our PSU President’s Diversity Mini-grant. Transforming individual statements and drawings into a collective artwork is compelling. Cutting legal tender is a bold metaphor for disrupting institutionalized, systemic oppression. The power of this exhibit is in the numbers of bills; what touches the heart is each handwritten expression. $PEAK OUT challenges contributors and viewers to consider whose voices dominate in society, how power is perpetuated, and how individuals working together can take heart and take action to disrupt systemic inequity because they are not alone.

Why would applied linguists engage in art? It’s one way of doing Activist Applied Linguistics! Plus, the impact of being involved in the process of this project has been unexpected, surprising, and multifaceted on personal, critical, and intellectual levels. For more information or to get involved contact:

voices.speakout.against.violence@gmail.com

If you're an alum, fill out this survey and let us know where you are!

1-2 PM UCB 335

Because I am adviser for a grant they are working on, Dr. David Aline (PSU alum) and Dr. Yuri Hosoda invited me to their university (Kanagawa University in Yokohama) to facilitate a three-day workshop on ‘Second Language Peer Discussions’. Here are the first cherry blossoms I spotted in Yokohama.

This meant that I left Portland for Tokyo the afternoon of my winter term final exam, arrived in chilly Yokohama about 2 days later, finished grading the papers and exams and then launched the workshop on Monday. I did have one day between grading and the workshop to take in the lovely Sankeien Garden (三溪園) in Yokohama on the sunniest day of the trip.

The three-day workshop was attended by seven faculty members from local universities and three graduate students. The purpose of the three-day workshop was to help one another hone our skills in a particular type of pragmatics analysis called and "conversation analysis". Six of us brought video recordings and transcripts of those recordings and we analyzed each contributor's recordings (small groups of peers speaking a second language--English or Japanese) for two and a half hours.

The purpose of the three-day workshop was to help one another hone our skills in a particular type of pragmatics analysis called "conversation analysis". Six of us brought video recordings and transcripts of those recordings and we analyzed each contributor's recordings (small groups of peers speaking a second language--English or Japanese) for two and a half hours.

I brought some recordings of small group interactions from the grant project I am working on with Yo-an Lee of Sogang University in Seoul (and Adam Okoye and Lilly Poole at Portland State). That grant project is called Building Connected Discourse in Korean and English. As the title suggests, we are looking at ways that participants make coherence in small group spoken interaction and how that may develop over time in learners of a language.

I returned to Portland on Friday and had a lovely couple days to clean up the garden, get my syllabus together for spring term. And here we are, in week four of the term.

See you around,
John