A new approach to training and evaluating world languages online instructors
The rapid growth in online world language programs in the United States coupled with the widespread implementation of virtual teaching in response to COVID-19 have pushed the field to reconceive instruction. Virtual learning creates unique challenges for instructors, who need to ensure that their students have adequate interaction with their peers, their professor, and native speakers of the language. Even with a growing demand for online language courses, there are few tools that evaluate the training and assessment of online language instructors.
In Online World Language Instruction Training and Assessment, authors Carmen King Ramírez, Barbara A. Lafford, and James E. Wermers fill that gap, providing a critical pedagogical approach to computer-assisted language learning (CALL) teacher education (CTE). By combining best CTE training and evaluation practices with assessment tools, the authors explain how teachers can integrate technology to build successful online programs. Their ecological, holistic approach addresses all facets of learning online—including pressing challenges of moving courses online, teacher training, developing core competencies and skills, instructions for assessment and self-evaluation, goal setting, and the normalization of critical CTE practices in an increasingly digital environment.
The authors propose new solutions to teacher training challenges, providing extensive rubrics and tools that can equitably assess online language instructor skills, the training they receive, the assessment process they undergo, and the instruments used for instructor assessment. A list of CALL and CTE resources (available on the Press’s website) further supports readers’ successful adaptation to an everchanging learning environment.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Challenges of Moving Online
2. CALL Teacher Education for Online Environments
3. Online Language Instructor Training Challenges and Strategies
4. Core Competencies and Skills for Online Language Instructors
5. Online Language Instructor Assessment
6. Instruments for the Assessment of Online Language Instructors
7. Self-Evaluation Practices in Formative Assessment
8. The Mentoring Relationship in Formative Assessment Processes
9. Debriefing and Goal Setting in Instructor Assessment
10. An Ecological Approach to the Normalization of a Critical CTE
Appendix A: Checklists for Online Language Instructor Training and Assessment
Appendix B: Rubrics for Evaluation of Online Language Instructor Training and Assessment
Appendix C: Online Language Instructor Student Evaluation Rubric and Modular Rubric
Bibliography
Glossary
Reviews
"When COVID forced language educators to abandon the physical classroom, they had no standards to train them to teach online. The authors have remedied this deficiency by providing an eminently practical and ecologically sound guide to building a CALL training program–preparing teachers to teach language successfully online, and then be fairly evaluated. The appendix provides eleven checklists and rubrics to instruct administrators, supervisors, trainers, and teachers how to meet the online challenge. The language field is indebted to the book's authors both now and well into the future."—Robert J. Blake, Distinguished Professor of Spanish (emeritus) and director of the Davis Language Center UC Davis
"Online World Language Instruction Training and Assessment is an excellent, timely guide to online language instruction for instructors and supervisors. It is thoroughly founded in CALL research and takes into account the most recent pandemic-induced changes in online education. The book's focus on equity as well as the consistent message that online education should be developed, researched, and assessed in its own right rather than in comparison to F2F instruction are much appreciated. These foci make this book a must-read for language department chairs."—Senta Goertler, director of the German Basic Language Program, Michigan State University
"As many of us have scrambled unprepared to transition from face-to-face to online teaching in haste, this well-researched and practical book provides the 21st century language teacher, teacher trainer, supervisor, and administrator with much-needed focus, guidance, theoretical background, and practical application to ensure online language best-practice instruction and assessment within the realm of critical pedagogy. This book is a timely, indispensable, and transformative contribution to online language education."—Lourdes Sánchez-López, professor of Spanish, University of Alabama at Birmingham
"[R]amírez et al.'s volume has unpacked the complexities of CTE for online language teachers through an ecological lens."—Language Learning & Technology
About the Author
Carmen King Ramírez is an associate professor of Spanish and the director of the Online Spanish Program at the University of Arizona. She has published work on CALL and languages for specific purposes, designed and launched numerous online Spanish programs, and hosts the academic podcast series, World Languages 21. She coedited the volume Transferable Skills for the 21st Century: Preparing Students for the Workplace through World Languages for Specific Purposes with Barbara A. Lafford.
Barbara A. Lafford is a professor emerita of Spanish at Arizona State University who has published widely on CALL, Spanish sociolinguistics, second language acquisition, and languages for specific purposes. She has coauthored, edited, or coedited fourteen volumes, including Spanish Second Language Acquisition and The Art of Teaching Spanish (both published by Georgetown University Press).
James E. Wermers is a clinical faculty member in the humanities at Arizona State University and formerly coordinated training, development, and deployment of digital pedagogy and initiatives in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts.
