October 28, 2019

12:00-1:00 — Performing Arts and Humanities Building room 107

Reenvisioning Multilinguals’ English: Acquisition and Education Perspectives

Lourdes Ortega (Georgetown University)

Two thirds of the world’s speakers of English are second-language users and thus by definition bi/multilingual. All too often, their communication repertoires are construed as deficient and their multilingual prowess is erased. A wealth of knowledge from language acquisition by children and adults and from social theories in education can help us envision a new kind of multilingual English competence. I will argue that this kind of competence is continuous, probabilistic and gradient, and it is not limited by strictly linguistic or purely monolingual standards. I will then explore the pedagogical mindset that can help educators reaffirm multilinguals’ English competence and success.

Lourdes Ortega is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University and Convener of the Initiative for Multilingual Studies. She is best known for an award-winning meta-analysis of second language instruction published in 2000, a best-seller graduate-level textbook Understanding Second Language Acquisition (Routledge 2009, translated into Mandarin in 2016), and since 2010 for championing a bilingual and social justice turn in her field of second language acquisition. Her latest book is The Handbook of Bilingualism with Cambridge University Press (co-edited in 2019 with Annick De Houwer).

12 November 12, 2019

12:00-1:00 — Performing Arts and Humanities Building room 229

Emotional Turn in Second Language Teacher Education: Prospects and Possibilities

Peter De Costa (Michigan State University)

Following the sociocultural turn in teacher emotion research and the broader and deepening interest in affect within adjacent fields of psychology, second language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and linguistic anthropology, I explore second language (L2) teacher emotions from a positive psychology and critical perspective. The former perspective draws on recent developments in positive teacher psychology research, while the latter takes into account the sociopolitical dimensions of language teacher education. Importantly, both lines of research consider the ecologies in which teachers are embedded. To illustrate the vibrant and burgeoning language teacher emotion research agenda, I elaborate on three recently published studies. The presentation closes with a discussion of implications for pedagogy, policy and research.

Peter De Costa (PhD) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and Languages and the Department of Teacher Education at Michigan State University. His primary areas of research are identity and ideology in SLA.  His work has appeared in numerous international journals in the areas of applied linguistics and language education.  Together with colleagues, he has recently co-edited special journal issues on scalar approaches to language learning and teaching, teacher identity, study abroad research methodologies, and World Englishes and second language acquisition. He is the author of The Power of Identity and Ideology in Language Learning (Springer, 2016) and editor of Ethics in Applied Linguistics Research (Routledge, 2016). He is the co-editor of the journal TESOL Quarterly.

November 16, 2019

9:00-12:00 — Sherman Hall A wing Room 121

Pre-registration required, please click here to register.

 Workshop on Fanfiction in the Classroom

Shannon Sauro (UMBC)

Do you or your students love Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or Twilight?  How about Naruto, Inuyasha or Fairy Tail?  Or maybe Pokéman, Call of Duty, or Assassin’s Creed?  Do you wish you could use them in your teaching?  This free half-day workshop introduces the use of fanfiction for language and literature teaching. Participants will engage in learning-through-doing modules developed by the FanTALES project including an overview of fan fiction and common genres and tropes, tools and techniques for searching fan fiction archives, and in-class short-form fan fiction writing.  The workshop is designed for in-service and pre-service language teachers at the middle and high school levels but is open to all who are interested. No previous experience with fanfiction is necessary. Pre-registration required. 

Shannon Sauro is a specialist in technologically mediated language teaching and learning and second language literacy.  A faculty member in the UMBC TESOL program, her areas of research include the intersection of online fan practices and language learning and teaching, and the role of virtual exchange/telecollaboration in language teacher education.  She recently co-edited a special journal issue on CALL in the digital wilds as well as the books CALL for Mobility (Peter Lang, 2018; with Joanna Pitura) and The Handbook of Technology and Second Language Teaching and Learning (Wiley, 2017; with Carol A. Chapelle).  She is a past president of the Computer-Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO) and currently communications officer for UNICollaboration, an international organization for virtual exchange.

November 20, 2019

4:30-5:30 — Sherman Hall A wing Room 110

A Conversation with a Master Language Teacher

Sara Bruun (Ringsjö School, Höör, Sweden)

The use of digital tools opens up the classroom to the whole world. With programs such as Skype and FlipGrid students all over the globe are able to meet, speak, and work together in real-time.  Digital tools transform teaching, and by using them wisely you can take your students far beyond text- and workbooks or struggles with vocabulary tests. They are able to “travel” and actually see what it is like in other parts of the world. These days, when some borders are being closed, it is important that we teach our students about different cultures and raise awareness about the world around us. A brief presentation serves as the foundation for a practice-based conversation about language teaching in the 21st century.

Sara Bruun is an award-winning language teacher, author, and lecturer from Sweden. She teaches English at a secondary school in Höör where she is also a development manager.  Her work was awarded the European Language Label by the European Commission in 2015.  In 2016, she received the outstanding achievement award for compulsory and upper-secondary school modern language teaching from the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities (Kungliga vitterhetsakademien).  She was recognized in 2017 as Sweden’s Teacher of the Year for Educational Technology.  She is the author of two books, Klassrummet möter världen: Autentiskt, tematiskt och digitalt (The Classroom Meets the World: Authentically, Thematically, and Digitally) and Digitala arbetssätt i klassrummet: Att våga ta språnget (Digital Practices in the Classroom: Daring to Take the Leap).