NZALT Professional Development Opportunities

NZALT Professional Development Award

Members of three years or more can apply for financial assistance for a conference, a project, professional development or research. Decided in October each year, the awards may apply to the current or following year's professional activity. Amounts awarded will depend on the funds available.

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Speak Up Award for Primary & Intermediate Language Teachers

Current members who teach at Primary or Intermediate level can apply for financial assistance for a language proficiency course. Decided in March and October each year, the awards may apply to the current or previous year's professional activity.

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NZALT Special Project Award

NZALT offers a Special Project Award to assist Language Associations in a language project or specific professional development programme for its members.

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LangSems in 2011

LangSems are regionally organised professional development days, held in a non-conference year. Local branches of NZALT organise the events of the day and invite language teachers from their region to attend. To see the dates for LangSem in your region this year, consult the Calendar of NZALT Events. To enquire about a LangSem in your region, please contact your Regional Officer.

Friday 08 July - Victoria at VUW Faculty of Education, Karori Campus (Teacher’s College, Karori).

Saturday 13 August - Massey in New Plymouth. NZALT AGM

Friday 16 September - Waikato, Hamilton Airport Motor Inn,

Friday 11 November Otago/Southland LangSem, University of Otago College of Education, Information and Registration Form

$150,000 Professional learning fund established for language teachers

Language Perfect, a New Zealand based company trading internationally with an award winning language learning platform used by 75% of New Zealand high school language students, has committed $150,000 over three years to a global professional learning fund for teachers of languages. The New Zealand Association of Language Teachers (NZALT), a non-profit professional organisation that promotes languages and languages education in New Zealand, has successfully secured $15,000 for teachers in New Zealand from this fund. These funds will be managed independently by NZALT. Through this arrangement with NZALT, Language Perfect is also offering teachers across the country free access to the software for personal use over the next 12 months.

Adèle Scott, President of NZALT, and senior lecturer at Massey University is currently undertaking doctoral study which examines the professional learning opportunities for teachers of languages. Access to opportunities such as the one available through this new fund will no doubt be welcomed by the language teaching community.

The joint venture between NZALT and Language Perfect comes at a time when Dr. Pita Sharples is advocating, through a Cultural Competency programme, “for teachers to study tikanga Māori and te reo during their university studies, training courses and at school” (The Dominion Post 10 June, 2011 p. A6). The Language Perfect software could support teachers across the country to increase their knowledge of Māori vocabulary, as much as it supports teachers and learners of 11 different languages already.

Craig Smith, 22 year-old founder of Language Perfect, believes that anything we can do to help teachers’ professional learning is going to be good for our country. He feels that teachers are extremely generous with their time and are the heart of our society.

Every month Language Perfect runs a competition called the World Languages League. Next month Te Reo Māori is one of the featured languages in conjunction with Te Wiki o Te Reo (Māori Language Week). The software will be available free to the general public for Māori Language Week, and everyone is invited to compete. They can also take this opportunity to try out other languages in preparation for the Rugby World Cup.

For more information contact:
Craig Smith - Founder, Language Perfect.
craig@languageperfect.co.nz
+64 27 715 0113

Adèle Scott - President, New Zealand Association of Language Teachers
a.j.scott@massey.ac.nz
+64 27 237 8916

Language Advisers

Contact details for the National Language Advisers

Regional Language Facilitators

Contact details for the Regional Language Facilitators

Specific Language Associations

For contact details for the Chinese, French, German, Japanese and Spanish Language Associations

Go here

NZALT Certificates of Excellence

These prestigious certificates are available to be awarded to your high achievers (Years 11 - 13). They are great for raising the profile of languages in your school. For further details and a Certificate of Excellence request form that you can download.

Go here.

Student Competitions

These are an annual event. See Events / Student Competitions for details of this year's competition.