PACE Swap Shop: Turnin' Up the Heat with In-Class Activities

On December 1, 2014, the PACE Professional Development (PD) Peer Team held a second Swap Shop event. Swap Shops are short, informal opportunities for language instructors from all departments to share activities and learn from one another. The most recent event included instructors from Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.

The event began with Rasha El Helw, instructor of Beginning and Intermediate Arabic, presenting the curricular idea of a "Gallery Walk." In a gallery walk, instructors set up different stations around the room with discussion prompts which students explore and and respond to as they alternate between stations. This can serve as a good tool for for prompting discussion about readings, movies, or other class materials, while allowing students to remain active physically.

Next Minori Inada, instructor of Beginning Japanese, and Ayumi Mita, instructor of Beginning and Intermediate Japanese, presented their newly created Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA). IPAs are a type of assessment which gives students the opportunity to show their ability to use language skills in real-life situations. As a part of this IPA, students were asked to identify key pieces of information from Japanese event posters, discuss the event with a partner, and propose alternatives to attending that specific event. This allowed students to put their knowledge of Japanese vocabulary and grammar into practice and accurately showcase their understanding of the language.

Participants discussed these practices and how they could be further developed and applied. Thanks to those who were able to attend and collaborate! Stay tuned for more information about Swap Shops in Spring 2015!


The PACE Project is funded by a grant from The Language Flagship.