Gaining momentum – 2020 projects
2019 was a busy year, and lot of groundwork was done. 2020 is truly excited as some major projects are gaining momentum and first tangible outcomes are happening.
Co-Design Project
After completion of the CeLTA Labs survey, the call for our exciting Co-Design project has gone out. As we plan for the group’s first monthly meeting in February, I look forward to the first concrete changes in the 6 rooms that currently constitute the CeLTA Labs. We start with these three co-design activities during the first three sessions:
1. User scenarios
2. Group sketching
3. Prototyping
More information can be found on the project page: https://celta.msu.edu/co-design/
In the meantime, our glass doors arrived and we have successfully turned an underutilized storage room in a multi-purpose room for meetings, zoom calls, group work, small CLS classes, etc. We just have to remove the last few items to make even more space…
Strategic Plan
After our summer retreat to rewrite our mission and vision statements, we are now embarking on finalizing our 5-year strategic plan in February 2020. It will lead to more transparency, clarity, and focus in where we aim to be in the coming year.
New positions
We are hiring an assistant director and a new assistant professor in CeLTA’s MA program. Go to https://hr.msu.edu/employment/ and search for CeLTA.
Research and Conferences
With multiple research projects going on, it’s an exciting time to be in CeLTA. From our undergraduate survey on why students take languages (and more importantly, why not) to our co-design study, from the language for specific purposes study to work on Less Commonly Taught Languages and Indigenous Languages, many research projects have left the preparation phase and are happening in 2020.
I am particularly honored to have been invited as a signature speaker at MIT this year and to go on a lecture tour through Germany to talk about language learning spaces this spring. I also look forward an exciting conference year in the U.S. and three conferences in Europe.
IALLT
In 2019 I transitioned into the role of past-president after 2 year as president-elect and 2 years as president. The workload has become significantly less (yay!), so I can work on some projects. We are in the process of finalizing a partnership and MoU between the AKS and IALLT, and I look forward to serving as IALLT-AKS Liaison.
I am also excited that IALLT will take place in New Orleans next year. Mark your calendars!
Book Project
I look forward to more focused work on my book project about physical language learning spaces in a digital world. Because of the move to MSU and the changes in CeLTA it has been hard to find enough time to make significant progress. Now that we are hiring and that routines have been established I am finding more time to write everyday. I even found time to write a blog post again!
