Online and Distance Education Commons^™

Student Centered Language Teaching: A Focus On Student Identity, Rachel Mano

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio is a compilation of essays that describe what the writer has come to see as essential topics in second language acquisition. It begins with a professional environment piece, and then a teaching philosophy statement focused on student identity and interaction in the classroom. This is followed by an essay on observations of teaching. The next two sections focus on pragmatic resistance among advanced learners and the importance of preparing learners for peer interaction. The portfolio concludes with an annotated bibliography outlining the main concepts associated with Communicative Language Teaching, a method that is commonly employed in second language …

Pragmatics In Game Activities, Humor, And Technology In Second Language Learning, Zachary Brandon Brown

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This portfolio compiles work the author explored and developed during the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). It encompasses a range of experiences from teaching abroad and at USU, insights from the observation of other classrooms, and reflections from studies in the MSLT program.

Three distinct sections comprise the portfolio: teaching perspectives, research perspectives, and an annotated bibliography. The teaching perspectives detail beliefs regarding games, computer technology, humor, and pragmatics and how they influence second language learning based on the author’s personal experiences. The research perspectives and annotated bibliography elaborate further on those topics …

Teachers’ Stories About Teaching: Collaborative Dialogues As Open Educational Resources, Ekaterina Arshavskaya

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

This paper examines the nature of teacher learning through a social-constructivist perspective and describes instructional strategies utilized with teachers during an international teaching assistants’ (ITAs’) training workshop offered at the Utah State University (USU). The strategy used involved eliciting and structuring exemplary teachers’ stories about teaching to serve as a basis for class discussions and other assignments. These teachers’ stories, recorded on video, were then shared online through the university website and YouTube. In this way, new teachers gained access to co-constructed and pedagogically appropriate teacher knowledge represented by authentic teachers’ voices.