News

Happy New Year!
24 January 2012

Welcome back. We hope that you are enjoying the end of a well deserved break. NCEA results are a big focus at the start of the year so why not process your Certificates of Excellence at the same time? The changes for this year are: new criteria for level 1; an earlier due date of 15 February 2012 and certificates are to be sent in digital format. So visit the above link, download the file, enter the required details, save it to your computer and attach this file to an email and send it to your Regional Officer. Please note: Most changes are in response to members' concerns.

Current 2011 NZALT members should all have received an email from us indicating that Polyglot is now available for you to download. The email includes the password that you will need to view it. Happy reading and Happy New Year!

We are pleased to announce that the work on splitting the L2/L3 vocabulary lists for French, German and Spanish has been undertaken and completed. These lists are now available on the NZQA website via the individual subject pages, under the section "Other resources". Many members had been requesting this and as a result of discussions on your behalf between NZALT and the Ministry of Education, this work has now been completed.

An international course on using Methodologies and Technologies to promote oral communication in Language Education will take place in the Northern Hemisphere summer. If you are interested in combining a trip to Europe and some Professional Development or interested in web 2.0 or intercultural teaching this may be of interest too. The course costs start from € 750

Just a reminder about Rotorua Conference in July 2012. The call for papers has been extended to 15 January 2012 so if you have not had time to think about presenting there is still time. You can also register for conference on the above link as well.

As mentioned in your Members' newsletter, the regional advisor service will no longer exist as at the end of the year. There is still time to make your feelings known to the powers that be and make a difference. NZALT has produced a letter template to help you to do this if you click the link above you can download it and read about the people you can lobby to.

French teachers - we have an updated membership form for our sister organisation, The New Zealand Association of French Teachers(NZAFT). Click the above link to download their 2012 membership form.

TPDL assists existing and new teachers of languages improve their language and culture knowledge and apply pedagogy that has a real and positive impact on student learning.

Teachers can gain internationally recognised language qualifications as well as accreditation in language teaching.

TPDL is a year-long programme funded by the Ministry of Education. More than one teacher per school may apply.

Up to 60 places are available for teachers of Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish and up to 20 places for teachers of Cook Islands Maori, Niuean, Samoan, Tongan and Tokelauan.

Native speakers of the language they are teaching may learn another language.

For enquiries and applications contact: TPDL Project Director Wendy Thomson w.thomson@auckland.ac.nz or 09 623 8899 ext 46310.

http://www.tki.org.nz/e/community/language/pdfs/tpdl_2010-12_brochure.pdf