The Massachusetts Foreign Language Association (MaFLA) held its 52nd Annual Conference October 24-26 in Springfield, MA, entitled “LevelUP Your Language Education.” The conference drew about 500 participants, and had over 100 presenters.
Global Language’s lecturer Nilma Dominique played a key role in making Portuguese more visible in the organization, and was encouraged to do so by the MaFLA President, who appointed her to the organization’s Board a year ago. At the conference, MaFLA’s members voted to renew her position for 4 more years.
At this year’s conference, Portuguese had its own strand for the first time, with five 60-minute sessions and a 3-hour workshop. These sessions dealt with various topics related to foreign language classroom practice, from the construction of communicative strategies in the Portuguese classroom, to the use of applications and social media. Nilma Dominique presented a session on intercultural communication and moderated all the other presentations in the Portuguese strand.
Dominique reported that one of the highlights of the Portuguese strand was the workshop on teaching heritage and foreign language learners in mixed classrooms. She looks forward to working more closely with teachers of Portuguese, so that they can share their experiences and continue their mission by exploring new opportunities for professional development with the purpose of keeping abreast of the developments in our field.
Below: Portuguese language presenters at the conference.
