Deborah Reisinger, Visiting Assistant Professor
Romance Studies, Arts & Sciences
Instructors who divide their time between teaching and coursework often complain of spending hours developing practical, creative activities for class. To assist them we developed the Directory of Elementary Language Activities for Instructors at Duke Web site (de l’aide, or “help” in French) with over 200 language instruction activities. The site provides both new and veteran teachers with model communicative activities that address the 4 skills and 5 Cs, thus reducing time spent on lesson plans while at the same time training instructors in best practices. Instructors may search under warm-ups, grammar, vocabulary, and culture to find activities that help teach the basic elementary language sequence. An instructor may also submit her own activities and be credited on the site, a feature designed to reward teachers for innovative practices.