Week fourteen diary

On Tuesday we met to assess our "multi-language seminar" after re-reading Marshall's article on a program very similar to ours and another piece that describes the NASILP program.  I was pleased to hear that for the most part students have found value in the format of the seminar, and surprised that at least a couple of them found it more work than a typical language class (which I take to be a good thing). One student had some concrete suggestions on how to improve the course in the future, specifically focusing more on helping students to become self-directed early on rather than assuming that they are already self-directed. She suggested moving some of the readings on motivation and learner strategies earlier in the course. She also mentioned that she would find it helpful to learn more about advanced-level strategies that might differ from those she learned earlier in her language study. I don't know if there is any literature on that, so now I have a small literature review project to work on! I asked her what strategies she thinks she's used that are specific to her level but she couldn't think of any at that moment. I suggested that she use the final paper as an opportunity to review her learner diaries to see if she could figure out which strategies she had used and how effective they were, and she seemed interested in that idea. I'm excited to see what she comes up with!