Program Description

Study at home and participate with Auburn University students in a program designed to join on-campus classes and distance learners through streaming video.

The course work combines 9 hours of second language theory and practice taught by an associate professor with 25 years of experience in a high school foreign language classroom and 15 hours of Spanish / French language, linguistic, and literature courses. All courses involve readings, lectures, discussions, oral presentations of instructional activities, reports, exams and projects. Students complete 12 hours of Spanish / French during two summers abroad.Ú The remaining 3 hours of Spanish / French are taught in a distance format during one academic semester. One 3 hour course in Literacy and Inquiry is required where students create and publish a WebQuest for Spanish / French students.Ú Finally, students will plan and carry out a project in their own classrooms during CTSE 8986, Field Project. This program can be completed during five academic semesters and two summers.  The French option for the Ed.S. degree is offered without Alabama certification.

Readings and exams will be delivered via E-Reserves and WebCT.

Lecture/discussions/presentations will involve two-way interaction and will be delivered as synchronous streaming video; distance students will participate in discussions via electronic chat. Two video cameras will be used in the classroom to stream the lecture/discussion. One camera will focus on the instructor and one will focus on the students in the classroom. The instructor will view a computer screen to receive questions or comments typed by distance students.

Students will submit oral presentations as videotapes. The tapes will be captured and posted as streaming video files that other students and the instructor will view asynchronously.  Written reports will be sent to the instructor as Power Point files along with a script.  These will be presented during regularly scheduled classes.

The use of message boards will allow more time for students to ask questions about the presentations and lectures than would be possible in a traditional course. WebCT will be used for submission of student papers. 

CTSE courses will be offered fall, spring and summer in the sequence listed below for a cohort group.  A new cohort group will begin in the fall of each academic year.

In CTSE7540/7546 we evaluate and investigate foreign language teaching effectiveness with an emphasis on current instruments and models of assessment appropriate for communicative competence and proficiency in all four skills.

In CTSE 7530/36 we look at the theory and professed standards that the foreign language profession would like to see as the organizing principles for curriculum development with a special emphasis on reading.  We will learn to fit theory to practice as we create interdiscplinary thematic units for middle and secondary school students.

In CTSE 7520/26 we investigate practices for teaching culture through the target language.  We also use the tools of ethnography to study cultural perspectives in the native and target culture.  A study abroad experience is embedded within this course.

The final CTSE course, 8986 Field Project, will be completed during fall semester of the student¡s last year in the program.Ú During this semester, students investigate a problem that occurs within their own practice.ÚAfter reviewing the literature pertaining to the problem, students form hypotheses concerning their problem, plan an intervention and collect the data.Ú They analyze and interpret the results of their intervention and write a summary of the project following approved guidelines.Ú Finally, they orally defend the results of the field project.