From the Prez

he IALLT '07 meeting at Tufts is happening soon. Host Ed Dente has been coordinating all the details with the regional and IALLT teams for a year, and everything is falling into place. This has been an impressive process.

Sessions for "The Next Revolution in Learning Language Technology" commence on Tuesday, June 19 with excellent workshop offerings. Various NERALLT members will be presenting at IALLT, and you will have an opportunity to network with colleagues and vendors from around the globe. Social events include a dinner banquet at UMass Boston on Friday, June 22nd and a Tufts gala closing session/light dinner on the 23rd. Both these events require prior registration.

Please join NERALLT friends at the regional luncheon and business meeting on Thursday, June 21. Lunch is from 12-1 in the DeWitt-McPhie Dining Center. The Business Meeting will be held in Pearson Hall, Room 106 (Pearson Chemical Laboratory) from 1:10 PM to 2:30 PM. (Non-registrants attending the Business Meeting may lunch at the Tufts Campus Center or bring your brown bag lunch to the business meeting)

At the Business Meeting, Mary Morrisard- Larkin will present the election slate for NERALLT's future Board, which will take charge beginning July 1. Please come and vote!! E-mail Mary at mmorrisa@holycross.edu if you have any questions regarding the election, or wish to nominate someone for a position. The deadline for nominations is Friday, June 8th. Board positions are listed on our website: http://www.nerallt.unh.edu/members/bylaws.html

Kudos to Ed and to his team at Tufts: Paul Tringale (Conference Bureau Director); Joel De Los Santos (Conference Bureau Registration Guru); Tony Sulprizio (Director of ITS); Mark Sullivan (ITS); and Rosita Velazquez (Language Media Center).

A Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡shout-outÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ also goes to the NERALLT logistics committeeÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡Cindy Bravo, Mary Simone and Mary Morrisard-Larkin (IALLT Programming Committee) for providing much needed support to make this event a huge success.

IALLT Board and Council Members have also been heavily involved--Claire Bartlett (President), Barbara Sawhill (President-Elect), Mike Ledgerwood,(Program Chair) and Sharon Scinicariello (Publicity Coordinator).

As my term as president expires, I want to thank you all for your wisdom and assistance over the last two years. I have enjoyed getting to know you and working with you.

I wish NERALLT much success in the coming years, and look forward to working with the new Board.

See you soon.

Debra

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Contents

From the Prez
Fall 2007 Meeting
Keyboard Help by Irene Starr
IALLT to help fund Keynote Speakers
Job Opportunity
Position Sought
Report from the Fringes
And Finally

NERALLT President: Debra Mandel
Guest Newsletter Ed: Dick House

NERALLTÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s Fall Meeting: October 25-26, 2007

St. MichaelsÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s College, Colchester, VT http://www.smcvt.edu/

Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡Web 2.0: Participatory Strategies for Language LearningÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡

Spider ManÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s web is not the only net with which to catch students and facultyÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s attention! Come, share, and learn about Web 2.0, its many facets and pedagogical uses to entice teaching and learning of languages. And who can resist the beauties of Vermont in the Fall?!!!

Hosts: John Graves, Susan Breeyear, Saint MichaelÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s College, VT (jgraves@smcvt.edu)

Program Chair: Audrey Sartiaux, Director of the Language Center, Union College, NY (sartiaua@union.edu)

Committee Member: Barbara Lindsey, Director of the Multimedia Language Center, Uconn, CT (barbara.lindsey@uconn.edu)

Watch out for the Call for Papers to be sent out in June!

Keyboard Help is a Starr Product!

Irene Starr, now a Math Adjunct at Holyoke Community College, reports that her KeyBoard Help web site, www.starr.net/is/type/kbh.html, was mentioned as a cool site on www.fark.com on January 14th, which resulted in over 53,000 hits the next day. The site, first posted in July 2000, had its millionth hit on May 9th.

KeyBoard Help is recommended on the Google FAQ site and in the Google Directory.

Way to go, Irene!!!!

IALLT Keynote Speaker Grant Proposal is Approved

A new IALLT grant will provide IALLTÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s regional organizations with the opportunity to invite non-IALLT keynote speakers to future meetings, and give them help with some compensation.

The decision reads as follows:

Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡IALLT will fund a total of two exceptional speakers per year for regional group conferences. Each regional group may receive this funding no more than once per calendar year. The regional group must submit a request to the IALLT board including a brief biography of the speaker, a short abstract of the presentation, and a budget. The speaker cannot be a member of the regional group making the request nor be working/residing within that regional group.

The spirit of this grant is that the proposed keynote speaker might be someone from outside of IALLT, or an IALLT member from a non-contiguous regional group for whom the costs associated with his/her travel (transportation, lodging fees, honoraria, etc) might present a financial burden to the regional group.

Funding requests may be submitted as follows: May 07 for a Fall 07 meeting and November 07 for a Spring 08 meeting. The regional group must agree to secure the permission of the speaker to record and distribute the presentation which will then available on the IALLT website as a member benefit. IALLT will reimburse the Regional Group for the promised funding amount -after- the event has passed and when the audio/video files are made available for use on the IALLT website.Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡

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Job Opportunity

Position Title:  Faculty Lecturer - French Language
http://web.bryant.edu/~humanres/595.htm

Date Posted:  April 23, 2006

Description:

Lecturer in French. Open Field. MA required, PhD preferred. A strong commitment to and demonstrated experience in language teaching required.

Ability to teach Italian desirable. Opportunity to participate in the development of a Modern Languages program.  Candidates should becommitted to maintaining excellence in teaching.

Bryant University is a selective 4-year, residential university with a strong tradition in business education and developing strengths in the liberal arts. We offer a choice number of BA programs, as well as undergraduate and graduate degrees in business and information
technology.

We are located 15 minutes northwest of Providence, one hour from Boston, and three hours from New York City. The University serves approximately 3,000 undergraduates and 500 graduate (Masters-level) students.

Review of applications begins on May 25, 2007, and will continue until the position is filled. Questions concerning the position can be directed to Terri Hasseler at thassele@bryant.edu.

 Application Process:

Forward a letter of application, current vita, and a list of three references to the Human Resources Office-WEB #595, Bryant University,
1150 Douglas Pike, Smithfield, RI  02917.  Materials may be submitted electronically (Word or PDF attachments) to humanresources@bryant.edu.

Bryant University is an EEO/AA employer and an institution committed to diversifying its staff.

This job listing was provided by:
Eunwook "Enoch" Park
Instructional Technology Specialist
Bryant University
Box 51, 1150 Douglas Pike, Smithfield, RI 02917
Email : epark (at) bryant (dot) edu Tel: 401-232-6740

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Language Laboratory Consulting Services Offered

I have a full-time, tenure track position as Language Lab Director and Associate Professor of Modern Languages at Roxbury Community Colleges. During my first year on campus, I learned hands-on how to maintain, staff, train and oversee use of our 27 station Sanako 300 networked lab with dedicated server. I also completed A+ Hardware training at the New Horizons Computer Institute in Waltham.

IÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡m up for nearly any task: troubleshooting, researching and evaluating curricular offerings, media management and development consultation, evaluating student and faculty usage patterns, enhancing efficient and pedagogically sound use of technology.

Before landing my current position, I was an interactive curriculum developer for a best-selling childrenÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s ESOL package. IÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡m used to working with budgets and technology of all shapes and sizes, with a special interest in platforms using music for second language learning.

Susan E. Kalt, Ph.D.
149 Birch Street
Roslindale, MA 02131
617-309-9744

Report from the Fringes

NERALLT goes to NEALLT

The Language Learning Space:  Real and Virtual Uses
NEALLT 2007

The fact that this yearÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s NEALLT Conference took place at Cornell University provided me with the perfect motivation for attending.  My graduate degree is from Cornell and my family lives only 35 miles away from Ithaca, New York.  Sort of Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡three for the price of one.Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡  Four, really, since Nina Garrett delivered the Keynote Address and one could hardly miss the opportunity to hear her in one of her last few Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡officialÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ addresses in her role as Director of the Yale University Center for Language Study.

NinaÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡s address was the sort of Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡think pieceÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ for which she is known.  Her main line of thought was that CALL should not merely react to the latest Second Language Theories, but should be as Ôø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡outside the boxÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ creative as possible, laying the groundwork for pedagogical approaches which donÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡t necessarily exist at the moment.  This logic was born out when one attended some of the workshops and sessions which exemplified a wide range of collaborative learning approaches, nearly all of which touch on culture, and surprisingly many of which contained methods of monitoring grammar and vocabulary learning at the same.  These were mostly dynamo-ed by the interests of individual instructors.

Unlike the theme oriented approach of NERALLT meetings, NEALLT conferences occur only once a year and tend to be somewhat more eclectic, even to the point of having two and three simultaneous presentations per session.  Thus, there is a certain degree of challenge involved with attending, since one frequently might wish to be in two places at once.  Presentations on Wikis, blogs, podcasts, and even cell phones used in language teaching all provided individual insight. 

If one takes a look at the Conference Program (start at www.neallt.org), a great many possibilities present themselves.  A Google search for many of these items yields a wider array of information.  Feel free also to email me at rhouse@cisunix.unh.edu and IÔø‡Ôø‡Ôø‡ll be glad to offer my own observations.

One last thought:  the members of NEALLT are every bit as collegial and congenial as those of NERALLT.  I would very much endorse attendence at one of their conferences.

- Dick House