Educational Vision
The design promotes the WSMC mission and programs.
Thumbnail of a Group function.
"My teaching vision is ever-evolving, but one thing never changes—my commitment to help students find their path to academic and career success."
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
World Studies Media Center, 2012.
by Ted Stahl, St. Louis University
Vision for a 21st-century Foreign Language Curriculum
I envision a culturally responsive, proficiency-oriented, student-centered curriculum that empowers learners to achieve linguistic proficiency, critical thinking, and global engagement. My approach integrates technology, media, and experiential learning to provide transformative educational experiences. As an instructional leader, I strive to inspire educators to embrace innovation, invest in professional growth, and create dynamic, inclusive learning environments.
Empowering Students & Teachers Through Innovation
My goal is to enhance and diversify language learning through digital media, telecollaboration, and immersive instructional design. By connecting students with native-speaking peers abroad, I cultivate meaningful cross-cultural interactions that reflect deeper learning principles. Just as I seek to empower students, I also work to support and motivate fellow educators to remain actively engaged in their pedagogical development.
Internationalization Vision for Higher Education
In today's increasingly globalized society, higher learning institutions have a responsibility to provide students with opportunities to learn about the world.
My vision for internationalizing U.S. secondary and post-secondary schools focuses on bringing global engagement and collaborative learning into the classroom. Through cooperative teaching partnerships with EFL instructors abroad, EFL and language teachers can cultivate optimal immersion scenarios for their students. When teachers learn to develop mutually beneficial relationships with peer colleagues abroad, they can create new transcultural learning communities that enable language teachers and students to benefit from the partnership linkages. They gain something of immense value while giving something back and disseminating the institution's name and brand abroad.
Integrating High-Impact Teaching Practices
I employ a hybrid pedagogical model that blends constructivist, cognitive, behaviorist, and humanistic approaches. Language is a human function, and immersion and practice are fundamental to second language acquisition. Therefore, my teaching leverages technology, social media, and interactive experiences to create a rich, engaging, and transformative curriculum.
In today’s digital world, students expect learning to be visual, interactive, accessible, and retrievable. While lectures and textbooks retain their value, education must also evolve to incorporate modern learning strategies that reflect how students engage with the world.
Internationalizing Higher Education
Higher education has a responsibility to prepare students for an interconnected world. My vision for internationalization focuses on bringing global engagement into the classroom through strategic partnerships with EFL instructors abroad. By fostering these transcultural learning communities, educators and students alike gain invaluable insights while strengthening institutional visibility and impact
Bridging Language Learning with Career-Readiness
Foreign language education should extend beyond linguistic proficiency to real-world applications across diverse professional fields. My curriculum connects language learning with careers in healthcare, law, business, social work, education, and the arts, ensuring that students see the tangible value of multilingualism in their professional lives.
Through interdisciplinary projects, service-learning, and digital media production, students engage in translation, interpreting, global business communication, and cross-cultural problem-solving. These experiences not only enhance employability but also help students discover the culturally responsive purpose of language learning in a globalized world.
My teaching portfolio reflects this approach, showcasing high-impact learning experiences such as:
- Subtitling and overdubbing projects in translation and media studies.
- Medical interpreting and courtroom translation simulations.
- Global virtual exchanges with professionals in Spanish-speaking countries.
By integrating experiential learning and career-oriented instruction, I empower students to use language as a tool for cultural competence, social responsibility, and professional advancement.
Educational Vision in Practice: Experiential Learning & Project-Based Instruction
A compelling example of my experiential, interdisciplinary approach is my court interpreting and medical translation coursework, where I designed subtitling and overdubbing projects to provide students with real-world translation challenges.
Project Example:
- Students worked in groups to subtitle courtroom trial scenes, applying legal terminology and real-time interpretation skills.
- Using Adobe Premiere and digital media tools, students created professionally formatted subtitles and analyzed their translations in comparison with the original script.
- This high-impact, hands-on approach fostered collaboration, deep engagement, and professional skill development.
These production-based activities empower students to create portfolio-worthy projects, demonstrating competencies in translation, interpreting, and multimedia literacy.
A Vision of Empowerment & Excellence
My vision for education is clear: empower students, support teachers, and elevate curriculum quality by fostering engaging, innovative, and challenging learning experiences. I strive to cultivate proficient language learners, critical thinkers, and globally conscious citizens by integrating technology, cultural immersion, and interdisciplinary methodologies.