Dear ILTAC seminar participants,

Thanks again for participating in the seminar facilitated by Angela Scarino and Michelle Kohler on Teaching, learning and assessment of language/s learning with an intercultural orientation on Saturday 19 September.

The event was a huge success. Angela and Michelle’s very thought-provoking presentation encouraged us to look at language and culture in profoundly different ways and generated that wonderful spark of interest and engagement in all of us. We are keen to continue the conversation and have to this end updated padlet so that your comments and questions can be easily shared with the group including Angela and Michelle. We encourage you to interact or build on each other’s comments, first because we have much to share in terms of experience and expertise but also to identify recurrent themes or questions in view of hosting a follow up Q and A with Michelle and Angela in the weeks to come.

We are very much looking forward to continuing the conversation.

All the best,

Etsuko and Diane

The link to the padlet will be posted here as soon as it is available

INSTITUTE OF MODERN LANGUAGES RESEARCH

School of Advanced Study • University of London

Decolonising Modern Languages: A Symposium for Sharing Practices and Ideas

8-11 September 2020

Online

https://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/events/event/22797

All times are in BST

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Topic: Teaching, learning and assessment of language/s learning within an intercultural orientation

Date: 19 September 2020

Time: 10am-12noon (AEST)

Guest facilitators: Angela Scarino and Michelle Kohler

Registration essential. Free event. Please register early as numbers capped at 50.

The seminar is generously supported by the Asia Institute and the School of Languages and Linguistics of the University of Melbourne.

In this interactive online seminar we draw upon an ongoing program of research at the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures at the University of South Australia to consider the enactment of languages learning and assessment within an intercultural orientation. We begin with a discussion of different paradigms in relation to this orientation as they have evolved in different contexts (Byram 2012; Byram et al 2018; Kramsch 2011, 2014; Liddicoat & Scarino 2013, 2020; Kearney 2016) and what these imply for practice. We then present an elaboration of the hermeneutically inspired orientation with which we work (Liddicoat & Scarino 2013), focussed on the interpretation and creation of meaning and recognising the situatedness and subjectivities of the participants in the exchange. We foreground design considerations for both curriculum/program design and assessment. We then critically consider, together with seminar participants, a range of examples from the work of teachers (in particular see Kohler in press) in different languages at different levels to illustrate the design principles. We draw implications for further research and development work.

The process will include a combination of brief presentation with discussions, joint problematisation of issues, critical discussion of exemplars provided, on-going ‘chat’ and Q&A.

Pre-reading

Participants are invited to engage with selected readings and form questions to be forwarded to the moderators prior to the session.

Liddicoat, A. J., & Scarino, A. (2013). Intercultural language teaching and learning. United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell, Ch. 8 Assessing.

Scarino, A. (2014). Learning as reciprocal, interpretive meaning-making. A view from collaborative research into the professional learning of teachers of languages. The Modern Language Journal (Special Issue), 98(1), 386-401. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2014.12068.x

Scarino, A., Kohler, M. & Liddicoat, A.J. (forthcoming) Assessing intercultural mediation in language teaching and learning: a focus on interpretation, reflection and reflexivity, in Proceedings of the AILA Research Network on Intercultural Mediation.

References

Byram, M. (2012). Conceptualizing intercultural (communicative) competence and intercultural citizenship. In J. Jackson (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication (pp. 85-97). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Byram, M., & Wagner, M. (2018). Making a difference: Language teaching for intercultural and international dialogue. Foreign Language Annals(51), 140-151.

Kearney, E. (2016). Intercultural Learning in Modern Language Education: Expanding Meaning-Making Potentials. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Kohler, M. (In press). Developing intercultural language learning, Palgrave MacMillan: United Kingdom.

Kramsch, C. (2011). The symbolic dimensions of the intercultural. Language Teaching, 44(3), 354-367.

Kramsch, C. (2014). Teaching foreign languages in an era of globalization: Introduction. The Modern Language Journal, 98, 296-311.

Liddicoat, A. J., & Scarino, A. (2013). Intercultural language teaching and learning. United Kingdom: Wiley-Blackwell.

Liddicoat, A. J., & Scarino, A. (2020). Assessing intercultural language learning. In J. Jackson (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication (Second ed., pp. 395-410). New York: Routledge.

Moderators

Angela Scarino is Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics and Director of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, University of South Australia. Her research expertise is in languages education in linguistically and culturally diverse societies, second language learning within an intercultural orientation and second language teacher education. She has been a Chief Investigator on a range of research grants. She has worked in diverse contexts beyond Australia, including Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, France and New Zealand. She is currently the Chair of the Multicultural Education and Languages Committee, a committee that advises the Minister for Education on languages and multicultural education in South Australia.

Michelle Kohler is Senior Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, University of South Australia. Her areas of expertise include mediation, intercultural perspectives on second language teaching and learning, languages curriculum and assessment, and language policy and planning. Michelle is particularly interested in praxis and has worked extensively with teachers of languages across all levels of education, using participatory action research. She is the author of Teachers as mediators in the foreign language classroom (Multilingual Matters), and President Elect of the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA).

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Joseph Lo Bianco and Larissa Aronin, eds, Dominant Language Constellations: A New Perspective on Multilingualism, Springer, October 2020. https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030523350

This volume is dedicated to the concept and several applications of Dominant Language Constellations (DLC), by which it advances understanding of current multilingualism through addition of a novel perspective from which to view contemporary language use and acquisition. Many chapters feature educational and social settings across large parts of the world– Africa, Australia, Europe, North America (Canada and the USA) and Southeast Asia. The volume can serve as supplementary reading for courses on multilingualism, sociolinguistics, language policy and planning, educational linguistics, Second and Third Language Acquisition. 

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A monograph by our LCNAU former secretary, Sarah Reed, has been published by Peter Lang. Her work, which is entitled Translating Cultural Identity: French Translations of Australian Crime Fiction, demonstrates the ways in which markers of Australian cultural identity are transferred into French, and examines what is lost, but also found or indeed reforged, in a process of transcreation.  Publication details can be found at:

https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/64342.

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Please note also the publication by Routledge of an important new study by two of our committee members, Chantal Crozet and Adriana Diaz.  Their work, entitled Tertiary Language Teacher-Researchers Between Ethics and Politics: Silent Voices, Unseized Spaces, focuses on the need to engage critically with the question of language teacher identity, agency and responsibility in light of an ever changing global socio-political and cultural landscape.

For more details, go to:

https://www.routledge.com/Tertiary-Language-Teacher-Researchers-Between-Ethics-and-Politics-Silent/Crozet-Diaz/p/book/9781138584556

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Memberships for the 2020 calendar year are now open.  This call for membership only applies to those who are not yet members of LCNAU or to former members whose membership has lapsed. If you wish to join/rejoin LCNAU, you can benefit from a reduced rate, as all joining fees have been abolished.  Rates for 2020 are $75 (full) or $40 (concessional).  Please enquire if you are unsure of your current membership status or eligibility for concessional rates. You can contact the LCNAU Treasurer Kayoko Enomoto here.

In the transition phase from Financial year to Calendar year membership, all current members (those who held membership for the 2019-2020 financial year) have had their membership automatically extended until December 31 2020 and need to take no further action.

Join or renew here.