Denison: 'Learning from Textbook Mistakes and Moving On'

Denison University’s Department of Modern Languages welcomes Claudia Sánchez-Gutiérrez, assistant professor of Spanish at University of California, Davis, presenting “Learning from Textbook Mistakes and Moving On: Some Insights from L2 Vocabulary Research” at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 11, in Room 210 of Samson Talbot Hall (350 Ridge Road). This event is free and open to the public and local educators are welcome. For more information, contact Nausica Marcos Miguel at marcosn@denison.edu. Due to the extremely high cost of language textbooks, a growing number of language instructors have begun searching for alternative sources of pedagogical materials. This situation offers an opportunity to design new online resources that exceed the quality of current mainstream textbooks by better applying recent research findings in second language acquisition. Sánchez-Gutiérrez will present three examples of current textbook shortcomings, where she finds a mismatch between their approach of vocabulary teaching and what has been found to work best in recent research. From these examples, Sánchez-Gutiérrez will seek to open a discussion about how to remedy these flaws and produce better teaching materials.