Bella Cohen
Adjunct Faculty
- Office
- McCone Building
- Tel
- (831) 320-7775
- bacohen@middlebury.edu
Professor Bella A. Cohen has over 37 years of experience in the US and abroad in the fields of foreign language teaching, testing, teacher training, optimized and adaptive-to-needs curriculum development, and management (across languages). She also developed new approaches in teaching and assessing performance. She has worked for institutions such as the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center, where she implemented quality assurance and train-the-trainer processes for resident and non-resident DLIFLC teachers, and the United States Secret Service in Washington, D.C. where she facilitated cross-cultural dialogue between the US and Russia.
Since 2018, she has taught at the Middlebury Institute, where her American and foreign students learn skills integration, just-in-time grammar, vocabulary in meaningful contexts and many methods she developed. She has also created entrance, mid-course, and final tests for different modalities focusing on current issues and meaningful topics such as security, politics, nonproliferation, etc.
She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships:
- Performance Awards, Defense Language Institute, every year, 1990 through 2014.
- Commandant’s Coins of Excellence, Defense Language Institute, 1991, 2014.
- Award for Excellence in Teaching, Kiwanis Club of Monterey, 1997.
- Instructor of the Year, Defense Language Institute, 1997.
- Army Training and Doctrine (TRADOC) Instructor of the Year nominee, 1997.
Courses Taught
RULA 8328
GoSpeakFluentRussianOptimized
Course Description
To increase the level of language proficiency in Speaking, Listening and Reading, using writing as an enabling skill. Introduce students to different cultural aspects of life in Russia and to promote better understanding of Russian people and their mentality. To increase student ability to accurately use the language in a variety of meaningful situations, especially in the environment pertaining to their future professional lives. To understand and analyze current situation in Russia and its place on the world arena.
Terms Taught
RULA 8393
Current
Strategic Russian Mastery
Course Description
Students will be exposed to a variety of current meaningful topics through reading and listening. Discussions will follow. Accuracy will be addressed alongside with fluency. Dynamic assessment will be employed. Understanding and analyzing socio cultural situations through real events and authentic materials and situations will be introduced.
Through exposure to authentic language the students will increase the level of language proficiency across language modalities. Through meaningful tasks the students will apply the acquired authentic language to a variety of situations, personalizing what they have learned.
The goals and objectives will be to raise student awareness in different cultural aspects of life in Russia and to promote better understanding of Russian people and their mentality by introducing a variety of authentic complex situations. Current situation in Russia and its place on the world arena will be addressed.
Terms Taught
Academic Degrees
Maurice Thorez Institute of Foreign Languages, Moscow, USSR (Also known as Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Language). Master of Arts Degree, 1979
Publications
Willis, D., & Willis, J. (2007). Doing Task-based Teaching. Oxford University Press. (contributed)
Cohen, B. (2003). Diagnostic assessment at the superior-distinguished threshold. Msi Press.
Cohen, B. (2003, Spring). DA: A unique tool for combining successful foreign language teaching and testing in the near future; front page dialog. ACTR letter.