MBFLP's comming out event
with
Sandra Scherf

 Monterey Bay Foreign Language Project Makes Its Debut

The new California State University at Monterey held its first Monterey Bay Foreign Language Project workshop on March 7. Dr. Yoshiko Saito-Abbott and Tom Abbott, Japanese professors at CSU, helped to put this free workshop together for us. More than 100 World Language teachers came out to hear the energetic Sandra Scherf speak on Communication-Based Instruction. Sandra teaches French and Spanish, regular, honors, and AP at La Jolla high school. She is a dynamic teacher who manages to find time to inspire other language teachers even though she has five preps! She has won many prestigious awards for teaching, including the CLTA Hal Wingard Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rather than speak about communicative activities, she taught us Russian using communicative activities for three hours. The benefit of this technique was that we could truly understand each activity because we actually did it, not as teachers, but as students. It was refreshing to be placed in the shoes of my students because I was able to get a renewed sense of how they must feel in my class.

 
After her initial introduction, she conducted the entire workshop in the target language, Russian. Sandra used gestures, animal noises, pictures, overheads, videos, cognates, kinesthetic activities, and manipulatives to keep our attention and our comprehension high. We went though about seven activities that may be used in any language at any level. We left the workshop inspired and ready to implement some of the new strategies we had learned. I only wish we had had more time to get through some of the other activities she had planned for us. If I could have changed one thing about the workshop, it would have been to shorten each activity so that we would have had time to cover more.

If you are sorry you missed this exciting workshop, there is another opportunity to see Sandra in action this summer. CSU, Monterey Bay is hosting a Summer Institute: "Communication! Interaction! Excitement!: Make It Happen in Your Classroom!" by Sandra Scherf. The workshop series is open to all teachers, but enrollment is limited to 30 participants. It will be held at the CSU, Monterey Bay campus from June 15 - 19, 1998. The fee is $100 including materials and meals. Also, for an additional $250 you may earn two units of credit from CSUMB. The application deadline is May 1, 1998. Contact Dr. Yoshiko Saito-Abbot at (408) 582-3795 or MBFLP  at mbflp@monterey.edu for more information.