Our instructor, Brandon "Bastien" Locke, presents each of us with our "Certificates of Completion" at our celebration dinner.

 

Teacher Seminars' participants put closure on their 10 days together by sharing their IPA units with each other.

Today marks the end of our 10-day seminar together. We have all learned a lot, from each other, from guest presenters, and of course, from our visits to the Language Villages. We spent much of the morning sitting in the sun and listening to our colleagues as they shared their IPA topics with our group. It was great to hear how all of the topics presented throughout the course came together in the form of articulated thematic-based curriculum units, from the essential questions to the interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational tasks, to the integrated of the National Standards. Our group is dispersing with solid curricular plans in place and we definitely enjoyed listening to each other’s ideas. Likewise, the group benefitted from asking questions of and offering suggestions to their colleagues. This sharing was very powerful. Our challenge now will be to bring back this new knowledge that we have gained from this course, and put it into practice in our classrooms. Seeing CLV in action has inspired us to bring a little bit of CLV back home with us, and hopefully inspire our students with some of the valuable strategies and activities that work so well at the Language Villages. 

 

The 2009 Teacher Seminars program came to a close with our last meal together – a celebration dinner in the form of a 4-course Italian banquet. It was a time to celebrate with each other for one last time, putting closure on our time together. It was a time to reflect on the intensity of the seminar, the rich conversations and discussions with each other , the obvious growth and learning that took place, and the celebration of accomplishments, specifically the IPA units.

“The real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust

“I, too, am enjoying this journey where you are showing us ‘landscapes’ through new eyes.” - Wencke, college German Instructor from Utah