A brown bag for language instructors
Friday, February 20, 2026, 12:00 – 1:00 pm
254 Van Hise Hall; Register here
This brown bag, an informal space for language educators to connect across departments and programs, will feature presentations by graduate teaching assistants of different languages who will share successful classroom activities and highlight examples of innovative pedagogical strategies. After the brief presentations, attendees will be invited to join an open discussion.
Presentations
Immersive Learning
Saheed Ganiyu (Yorùbá), African Cultural Studies
In his presentation, Saheed will discuss an immersive learning strategy in which learners role-play real life scenarios they can relate to. The goal of the activities is to make language learning more authentic and relevant by incorporating students’ experiences and cultures into classroom activities.
Wimmelbooks: Linguistic and Cultural Richness
Patricia Haberkorn (German), Doctoral Program in Second Language Acquisition
and Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+
Wimmelbooks include text-free, detail-rich pictures that can foster authentic communication, vocabulary growth, and interaction at any L2 level. In this presentation, Patricia will share how Wimmelbooks can be used for describing, storytelling, and collaborative tasks while supporting intercultural learning.
Rap in the Language Classroom
Berit Skogen (Norwegian) and Clara Vigener (German), Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+
In this presentation, Berit and Clara will discuss ways of incorporating rap as authentic material in the language classroom and will share examples they have successfully implemented in their own teaching.
Beyond Audio: Activating Language with Muted Media
Gabriela Swic (French), Department of French and Italian
Videotexts are useful multimodal tools which allow language learners to become familiar with central themes in the content. Audio is often seen as a fundamental factor; however, well-structured activities beginning with muted media improve student concentration and navigate them to distinguish the main ideas. In this presentation, Gabriela will introduce silent viewing as a strong foundation for stimulating language at the beginning of multi-step activities which gradually lead to watching the video with sound.
Sponsor: University of Wisconsin–Madison Language Institute
Contact: Jana Martin
The UW-Madison Language Institute is committed to inclusive and accessible programming. To request an accommodation for this event, please contact Language Institute associate director Jana Martin at least three business days in advance.