CLC Pedagogy Talks
CLC Pedagogy Talks aim to cover a diverse range of topics and presenters. To foster discussion and community we encourage attending via Zoom at the scheduled time as much as possible, but each session will be recorded for those who cannot attend. All workshops are held online and are limited to University of Chicago faculty and staff unless otherwise noted. Contact Nick Swinehart at nswinehart@uchicago.edu for Zoom info.
Autumn 2024
Academic Tech Tools for Language Instruction
Join us ATS for an overview of tech tools that can support your teaching, from Canvas sites and annotation activities to AI chatbots and course blogs. We’ll highlight use cases from UChicago language instructors to spark ideas for your own teaching, provide resources for your consideration, and offer individual consultation times to discuss the right implementation for you. Tools we will cover include, but are not limited to:
- Analyzing authentic texts and collaborative translation with social annotation (Hypothes.is)
- Sharing cultural artifacts to spark informal discussion using course blogs
- Using chat software to promote discussion and create a live database of frequently asked student questions (Ed Discussion)
- Conversation practice and sample text to critique with Generative AI
For those interested in exploring further, consultations will be available after the session or by appointment.
Framework for Evaluating Large Language Models’ Capabilities for Teachers of Low-Resourced Languages
- Tuesday, October 22, 1:00-2:00pm
- Led by Nick Swinehart (Language Center), Phuong Nguyen (Office of Language Assessment), and Ellen Yeh (Columbia College Chicago)
- This paper presents a framework that language instructors can use to determine a large language model (LLM) chatbot’s ability to generate and analyze the target language in ways related to language teaching, along with results from piloting this framework with 30 instructors of 20 high- and low-resourced languages (Besacier et al., 2014). Within this framework, instructors elicit a series of tasks related to language teaching (e.g., summarizing a text, generating a short dialogue, and generating genre-specific texts) from an AI chatbot and evaluate the responses’ accuracy and usefulness for their teaching using a four-point Likert scale. Descriptive analysis was performed on the responses from the pilot study to examine the interactions among the type of language, the complexity of the task, and the performance of the task. This framework helps language instructors have a better understanding of precisely what LLMs can and cannot do in their language, which languages are currently being left out of the “AI revolution,” and how to monitor improvements over time.
Tour of UChicago’s Recording Studios: Lightboard, Podcast, and One-Button
- Thursday, October 31, 11:00am-12:00pm
- Led by UChicago AV Services staff
- In-person: Meet at the TechBar Studio, first floor of Regenstein Library
- Interested in learning how you and your students can use media to enhance language learning? Come to Academic Technology Solutions’ space in the Regenstein Library to see how you can create videos for your learners using our self-service, easy-to-use OneButton Studio or work with our AV team to produce professional quality reference videos in our lightboard studio. We’ll also offer information about how you and your students can use our podcasting studio to explore language learning to both facilitate and demonstrate learning. This session will include examples of innovative uses of some of these tools by UChicago language instructors and will allow you to see the studios in action. For those interested in exploring further, consultations will be available after the session or by appointment.
Generative AI in Language Courses: Tools, Uses, Successes, Challenges
- Thursday, November 7, 3-4pm
- Led by Nick Swinehart (Language Center)
- This session will combine a 1) brief presentation on some tools and uses of AI in language teaching and 2) a roundtable discussion where instructors can share challenges, solutions, and frustrations related to generated AI with their peers.
Writers’ Use of Noun Phrase Complexity and Its Implications for Language Teaching and Test Design
- Wednesday, November 13, 2:30-3:30pm
- Led by Phuong Nguyen (Office of Language Assessment)
- In this presentation, Phuong Nguyen will discuss her research that is currently under review for publication in the Journal of English for Academic Purposes. Research has shown that the use of noun phrases is a salient characteristic favored in academic writing (Biber & Gray, 2011; Biber et al., 2011; Parkinson & Musgrave, 2014). Although studies have examined the structures of noun phrases, further research is needed to deepen our understanding of noun phrase complexity and inform the instructional contents of academic writing courses. In response to this need and the call for more empirical evidence for the developmental stages for complexity features proposed by Biber et al. (2011), this study aimed to investigate differences in the use of noun modifiers among second language learners of English at varying proficiency levels. A corpus consisting of 286 essays, written by international students in response to an English integrated writing placement test, was analyzed for grammatical structures of noun phrases. Results indicated that more proficient writers employed significantly more attributive adjectives, prepositional phrases, finite relative clauses with non-animate head nouns, and nonfinite relative clauses. This paper provides implications for both academic writing instruction and the development of writing assessment criteria, demonstrating the benefits of corpus linguistic research in language course design and test development.