InTASC STANDARD 10: ​The teacher seeks appropriate leadership roles and opportunities to

take responsibility for student learning, to collaborate with learners, families, colleagues, other
school professionals, and community members to ensure learner growth, and to advance the
profession.
Name of Artifact: ​ACTFL receipt
Course:​ FL 664 - Second Language Acquisition Theory and Practice
​ all 2017
Date: F
TESOL Standards Addressed: ​5a
Rationale:
While enrolled in Second Language Acquisition, I joined the American Council on the
Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), a national organization with the mission of supporting
teachers and students in language teaching and learning. A cognitive study by revealed that “the
‘social’ and ‘personal self’ are closely related and that we derive our self image from the groups
we belong to” (p. 2115).​ ACTFL has been one of the main sources of my professional
development this year, and it continues to mold me into a better language teacher. I have
included a collage as the artifact for this standard which best describes how ACTFL allowed me
the opportunity to collaborate with other professionals to advance in my profession. Professional
development is one of the institutionalized practices that provide opportunities for educators to
acquire tools and habits that can help them better meet the evolving and varied needs of their
students. ACTFL afforded me the opportunity to develop professionally by communicating with
me by means of emails to encourage me to make use of the teacher mentoring program for
teachers, like myself, within the first five years of their practice. Another collaboration activity
was being a member of a special interest groups, community-college leadership.
While enrolled in this organization, I had other benefits which included language
publication subscriptions, professional development opportunities, online exclusive information,
access to a career center, and discounts. My membership included receiving information related
to fields that I had pre-selected as being of interest. I could become a part of special interest
groups (SIG) like the African-American SIG. This group, in particular, focused on the problems
facing the African-American student. In essence, receiving information from such a group would
allow me to take responsibility for student learning in my own classroom since all of the students
that I teach are African-American. SIGs like this enable me to teach the whole child, since they
can awaken me to both internal and external factors that affect student ability to learn. The
community college group offered information to help prepare me for leadership at the
community college level. Hence, membership in ACTFL prepared me by giving me insight into
student learning at a variety of levels. Since I intend to progress to the community college level
next, this group is of help to me at every stage.
Being a part of ACTFL not only exposed me to useful information about how students
learn, but it taught me the benefits of such research. I relay these benefits, such as improved
cognition and improved performance in other academic areas, to my students to make Spanish
more practical. Because the organization also has a website and a social networking page, it
gives me access to information researched by professionals and an opportunity to communicate
with them directly, hence allowing me to collaborate with other professionals. Networking
opportunities include conferences and workshops, where I am able to hear my colleagues’
professional opinions, research, and receive motivation to continue in my own endeavors. This
professional organization is a support system like no other with an immeasurable amount of
resources that cannot be exhausted.

References
Morrison, Samantha, Decety, Jean, & Molenberghs, Pascal. (2012). The Neuroscience of Group
Membership. ​Neuropsychologia,​ ​50​(8), 2114-2120.