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Monday, April 25, 2016

Professional Development Events for 2016-2017 - Your Feedback is Needed!

As we wrap up the Spring semester, the PACE Project professional development team would love to hear from you about your experiences with professional development events this year, and your needs and interests for the next academic year. Please take a few minutes to complete a short survey. We greatly appreciate your feedback as we plan for next year. The survey should take no more than five minutes to complete and is compatible with mobile devices.

DCL: Now on Elevator

The newly updated Digital Content Library (DCL) Elevator is now online at a new address: dcl.elevator.umn.edu and ready to use. The DCL Elevator houses nearly 300,000 objects from many collections for use in teaching and research, including over 1000 foreign language films in the Language Center Collection.

Improvements include:
  • Unlimited storage (at no cost to units or individuals)
  • Capacity to store virtually any file (images, video, audio, 3D files, PDFs, etc.)
  • Better video quality in video streams improves projection experience in classrooms
  • Ability to watch videos, explore images, or manipulate 3D objects whether using a phone, a tablet, or a computer
  • Searchable content in Moodle
  • Customizable media drawers can be shared with individuals, groups, classes, and now people outside the University
The original DCL site will remain available for the transitional period. All existing collections have been transferred to the new site. Please note: Any new materials will be uploaded exclusively to dcl.elevator.umn.edu.

PACE: Curriculum Design through a Principled Approach to Listening: A Hands-On Workshop

Friday, May 20, 2016
9:00 - 4:00 p.m.
Jones 35
Register Online (required)

The PACE Project will facilitate an all-day event on May 20 for language instructors and coordinators to examine the role of listening in the language curriculum, to determine guiding principles for attending to listening, and to begin the process of revising the curriculum to integrate listening systematically, based on these principles.

The workshop will begin with a discussion of principles for the integration of listening in the curriculum. Participants will generate a list of principles meant to develop student listening proficiency. They will apply these principles to their own curriculum. They will locate appropriate materials and develop activities to guide students through them. At the end of the day, participants will demonstrate one activity that serves as an example of the principled approach to listening proficiency and that will represent a start toward a more comprehensive systematic attention to listening in a revised curriculum.

This event is free and open to all CLA foreign language instructors. Please register in advance, since lunch will be provided. If you are unable to register online, please email elsie@umn.edu.

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

Monday, April 18, 2016

TandemPlus Film Festival

This week TandemPlus is hosting its first annual film festival. We are screening three films: Ip Man, and Entre les Murs / The Class and Pan's Labyrinth.


Ip Man (Chinese)
The life story of Yip Man, the first person to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun.
Monday, April 18, 2016, 6:00 p.m. in Nicholson Hall 145


Entre les Murs / The Class (French)
Semi-autobiographical film about a French Language and Literature teacher in inner city Paris.
Tuesday, April 19, 2016, 6:00 p.m. in Nicholson Hall 345

Pan's Labyrinth (Spanish)
In Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world.
Wednesday, April 20, 2016, 6:00 p.m. in Nicholson Hall 345