Online Professional Development Center: for Teachers of Languages Other Than English (LOTE)

The LOTE CED Online professional Development Center includes five free self-guided professional development courses that help PreK-12 foreign language educators enhance their proficiency in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for Languages Other Than English (TEKS for LOTE).

The courses include:

• Change is Good! Innovation in LOTE Teaching and Learning: Familiarizes you with recent changes in LOTE instruction and learning and the 8 Guiding Principles that provided the foundation for state standards for language learners, the TEKS for LOTE.
• Progress Checkpoints: Defining Proficiency: Acquaints you with the five program goals (5 Cs) that form the foundation of the TEKS for LOTE: Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities. The interrelationship among the Cs is discussed and classroom-based examples are provided.
• Progress Checkpoints: Defining Proficiency: Familiarizes you with the characteristics of the novice, intermediate, and advanced proficiency levels and expectations for students at those levels.
• Learning Scenarios in the LOTE Classroom: Identifies characteristics of learning scenarios for the LOTE classroom as well as other strategies that can aid teachers in implementing standards for foreign language learners.
• Developing and Evaluating Performance-Based Assessment: Introduces differences in traditional and performance-based assessment tasks and illustrates how rubrics can be used to evaluate them, as well as to provide a roadmap for learning and instruction in the foreign language classroom.