Call for Proposals
Integrating Well-Being Education in the Language Classroom
In today’s busy and fast-paced world, ensuring students’ well-being is crucial for nurturing a positive learning environment and supporting their academic success. Teaching well-being in the classroom is one of the essential keys to equip students with the tools to build resilience, manage stress, and cultivate a healthy, balanced life. Well-being education includes the physical, mental, emotional, and social dimensions of health, encouraging a holistic approach that enhances both personal and academic success. Incorporating well-being into the language classroom allows students tounderstand, manage, and express their emotions, and practice and express sympathy, as a part of developing interpersonal skills. Language instructors play a critical role in this process by modeling healthy habits and creating safe, supportive learning environments. We further welcome enriching, low-stress activities beyond traditional language classroom methods, aimed at enhancing students’ mental and emotional well-being.
For this year’s IU Foreign/Second Language Share Fair, we invite presentations that showcase innovative approaches to integrating well-being education into language classrooms.
Possible themes include (but are not limited to):
- Social Connection: What activities or projects do you implement to build a strong sense of community, encourage teamwork, and help students build supportive peer relationships?
- Combating procrastination: In what creative ways could you design assignments and projects to combat procrastination and promote student well-being by encouraging timely engagement and reducing stress?
- Physical Wellness and Healthy Habits: How do you introduce and build vocabulary and grammar regarding health and well-being: food, exercise, illnesses, mental health, etc.? How do you promote physical health in your language classroom, whether through movement breaks, discussions on nutrition, or promoting good work and sleep habits?
- Mindfulness and Emotional Regulation: How do you incorporate mindfulness practices, or gratitude journaling into the language classroom to help students manage?
- Developing Emotional Intelligence: How do you encourage students to understand and manage their emotions, practice empathy, and develop interpersonal skills?
- Digital Well-Being: How do you address the positive and negative impacts of technology on language students’ mental and physical health, and what practices do you promote for maintaining digital balance and positive engagement?
- Inclusive and Accessible Well-Being Practices: How do you ensure that well-being education is accessible to all students, including those with diverse needs and backgrounds?
- Assessment and Reflection for Well-Being Growth: What tools or strategies do you use to assess well-being, and how do you encourage students to reflect on their well-being journey as a part of your language class?