Bio:

Alecia Davis-Hellmers is a high school French teacher with a background in French literature, politics, and linguistics. She has taught French 1 through AP French, in addition to English 2, AP U.S. Government, and AP Research. She is passionate about connecting her students to the wider Francophone world through internet-inspired projects.

Title:

Digital Media Literacy in the L2 Classroom

Abstract:

Many students today largely engage in reading in their L1 through digital texts - websites, social media posts, comments and captions - over traditional print texts. By incorporating similar digital texts in the L2 in our world language classrooms, we can provide comprehensible authentic resources that are relevant to our students’ interests and lives. Additionally, not only do these texts allow us to develop their reading abilities in the L2, the use of these digital texts also allows us the opportunity to develop and support digital media literacy skills in the L2 - such as being able to navigate online platforms in the L2 or thinking critically about why certain content has been posted. The purpose of this session is to share already-created digital media reading resources, as well as to provide guidance on how to select social media texts and build tasks that help develop both L2 reading and digital media literacy.