University Teaching

I have three opportunities to teach this semester. The first is part of a LANG course through the Language Research Centre. Open to senior undergrads and graduate students, this block week course offers lectures on the theme “Global Issues in Language Teaching and Learning”.  For more information, check out http://arts.ucalgary.ca/lrc/. I will be teaching on Wednesday: “Global Schooling Solutions for Linguistic Diversity”.

The second course I am teaching is a section of GERMAN 202 Beginner German. I look forward to teaching university students interested in acquiring a second language. I hope to integrate drama, film, music and technology where suitable.

The third course is a teacher preparation course. I will provide one weekly seminar to students in their first year of an after-degree program. The course is still in development and I am part of a larger team, so I look forward to learning more about it this month.

Language Research Centre

Over the course of my M.A. and Ph.D., I have had numerous opportunities to attend lectures at the Language Research Centre (LRC) of the University of Calgary. Topics range from language acquisition to theoretical linguistics to educational or social issues within the fields language teaching and language learning. This April I attended a symposium on Adult Language Learning for International Adult Learner’s Week. I decided to write an article for teachers in the journal Notos based on that event. This article goes beyond reporting the event and involves tracking down the research behind the claims made by panel members. The article has been accepted for publication and should appear in September. Once it is, I am hoping to provide a link.

Publications

Publications are encouraged, but it takes considerable time to get an article from idea to reality. My experience has been quite varied. With my Heritage Language Journal article, I responded to a call for papers in January 2008, submitted the first draft in September of that year, received feedback in 2009 and it was published in 2010. This week, an article stemming from my pilot study last year was published. This came out of a presentation I made in August 2010, which was written up as a first draft in September 2010. I received feedback in January 2011 and immediately the opportunity to edit and have the final article published online in time for the annual gathering of German teachers February 25-27, 2011 in Oakville, Ontario. Have a look at these two articles (www.heritagelanguages.org volume 7 #2 and www.forumdeutsch.ca volume 19 #1).  I can be contacted for feedback at rahdress {at} ucalgary.ca.

Update: The full citations for these articles are:

Dressler, R. (2010). “There is no space for being German”: Portraits of willing and reluctant Heritage Language Learners of German. Heritage Language Journal, 7(2), 162-182. Retrieved from www.heritagelanguages.org

Dressler, R. (2011). German-English bilingual programs: Transitioning to a dual immersion model? Forum Deutsch, 19(1), 11-22. Retrieved from http://www.forumdeutsch.ca/f/nf30catg