ABSTRACT
In the shared less commonly taught language (LCTL) classroom, which brings together students from different institutions with diverse cultural and economic backgrounds, skills, personalities, gender identities, and abilities, the instructor's role goes beyond teaching content and skills. Providing these diverse voices with an inclusive space and opportunities to participate requires communicative and active learning strategies. Successful teaching in a multimodal format, including synchronous online and face-to-face, requires the use of selective learning materials and techniques as well as a learning environment in which students feel comfortable sharing information about themselves and the world.
This chapter focuses on teaching and learning strategies that maximize the ways shared LCTL courses promote intercultural communication and information exchanges. Further, it describes and analyzes course design choices, practice activities, nontraditional final projects, and teaching techniques and resources used in an Intermediate Romanian II language course at The Ohio State University. These choices and techniques allowed the instructor to actively engage diverse students in different modalities. Extracurricular student activities that promoted cultural events, social interaction, and building communities will also be discussed.
