ELTWeekly Issue#22, Worldwide ELT events

Interactive Technologies and Games: Education, Health and Disability, Nottingham Trent University, October 27

Call for papers

The aim of the conference is to bring together academics and practitioners to showcase practice and to show how research ideas and outcomes can be mainstreamed. It will introduce a wider audience to key findings and products from research and will illustrate how practice feeds back into and informs research. Joint academic-practitioner papers are welcomed; the conference will create a forum for two-way communication between the academic and practitioner communities.

Compulsory and post-compulsory education is included within ‘education’. An emphasis will be placed on practical applications and guides to where currently available training resources and tools can be found and used.

A selection of papers will be published electronically in full, so presentations will be limited to 10 minutes for the key findings, with time for questions from the floor.

This is a cross-disciplinary conference which aims to give equal weight to the three themes to enable researchers and practitioners to learn from and cross-fertilise with other disciplines. Papers and exhibits which demonstrate adaption between the themes are particularly sought. It is not necessary to present a paper in order to exhibit.

It is hoped that Computers and Education will publish a special edition with selected papers from the conference in 2010.

Topics that will be covered by the conference, but not limited to, include:

Education

• Social and collaborative aspects of interactive technology
• Raising aspirations and achievement through interactive technologies and games-based learning
• Interactive learning tools and environments resources, e.g. Flash, podcasts, simulations, mobile games, Web 2.0 tool etc
• Implementation and ethical issues associated with games-based learning
• Learning theory, universal design and assessment in interactive technology-based learning
• Best practices in the use of interactive and innovative technologies for learning

Health

• GBL approaches to patient education
• Using contemporary games controllers to create new opportunities in health and rehabilitation applications (e.g., applications for Wii Fit, Wii Mote)
• GBL and virtual and enhanced environments for clinical assessment (e.g. after stroke)
• GBL and virtual environments for treatment (e.g. of phobias, ADHA, post-traumatic stress disorders, Amblyopia, etc
• ‘Modding’ for health
• Patient created content in serious games

Disability

• Approaches to making VE, computer and video games accessible by all
• Assistive technologies for people with disabilities and elderly people
• Practical applications of VE and serious games for the education of people with disabilities and elderly people (in e.g. work preparation, travel training)
• Location based services for navigation and reconnection of people with disabilities
• Art and music rehabilitation in 3D multisensory environments
• The engagement potential of serious games for young people at risk of social exclusion (e.g., offenders, those with learning disabilities)
• Design for All
• Including people with disabilities in the design of serious games, assistive technologies and VE.

Submissions
Those wishing to present papers should send abstracts, to a maximum of 500 words. For those hoping to exhibit, a 300-word (maximum) outline is required. The deadline for submissions is Friday 26 June, 2009 to be sent to, karen.krelle@ntu.ac.uk.

Final copies of accepted papers are required by Wednesday 30 September 2009.
There is a conference fee of £60 (concessions £30).

Important dates
Draft submission: 26 June 2009
Notice of paper acceptance: 31 July 2009
Final paper submission: 30 September 2009
Final Conference registration: 12 October 2009
Conference: 27 October 2009

For further details and pre-registration, please visit: http://www.ntu.ac.uk/cels/outreach/events/61435.html

NEW SOUNDS 2010: Sixth International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech, Pozna?, Poland, May 1-3, 2010

We are happy to announce that the Sixth International Symposium on the Acquisition of Second Language Speech New Sounds 2010 will take place on 1-3 May 2010 in Pozna?, Poland. The Symposium will be organised by theSchool of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Pozna? and will continue the tradition of the conferences on the acquisition of foreign language speech, organized originally by Allan James and Jonathan Leather.

The conference will cover a variety of themes related to the acquisition of a foreign language phonology, including among others:

· speech perception and speech production

· theories of acquisition of L2 phonology

· phonetics and phonology in SLA

· acquisition of second language phonotactics

· multilingualism and the acquisition of third language phonology

· the application of new technologies

· neuro- and psycholinguistic aspects of phonological acquisition.

Proposals of papers and posters related to the acquisition of second language speech are invited. The deadline for abstract submission is 1st December 2009. The submissions will be reviewed by our International Advisory Board. Invited plenary speakers are:

James Flege (University of Alabama at Birmingham, Professor Emeritus)
Allan James (University of Klagenfurt)
Martha Young-Scholten (Newcastle University).

Looking forward to seeing you in Pozna? in 2010!

New Sounds 2010 Organising Committee

Katarzyna Dziubalska-Ko?aczyk

Magdalena Wrembel

Ma?gorzata Kul

For further details and pre-registration, please visit:  http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/newsounds/

Second International Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence, Tucson, Arizona, January 29-31, 2010

Conference Theme: Aiming for “The Third Place:” Intercultural Competence through Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

Keynote Speaker: Claire Kramsch, Ph.D. – University of California, Berkeley

Claire Kramsch is Professor of German and Foreign Language Acquisition at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founding Director of the Berkeley Language Center. Among her many publications is an edited volume, Language Acquisition and Language Socialization: Ecological Perspectives (Advances in Applied Linguistics Series, Continuum International, 2003); most recently she completed a manuscript on The Multilingual Subject. Her awards include the ACTFL Nelson Brooks Award for the teaching of culture; the MLA Kenneth Mildenberger Prize for Outstanding Research in the teaching of foreign languages and literatures; the Goethe Medal; the MLA Distinguished Service Award; and a UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award. Dr. Kramsch is past President of the American Association of Applied Linguistics, was co-editor of the journal Applied Linguistics and serves on CERCLL’s National Advisory Board.

Description:

Intercultural competence is [the ability] “to see relationships between different cultures – both internal and external to a society – and to mediate, that is interpret each in terms of the other, either for themselves or for other people.” It also encompasses the ability to critically or analytically understand that one’s “own and other cultures’” perspective is culturally determined rather than natural.

-Michael Byram, Professor, University of Durham

Globalization, having brought individuals in contact with one another at an unprecedented scale, has also brought forth a general challenge to traditionally recognized boundaries of nation, language, race, gender, and class. The challenge moves in two directions simultaneously: on the one hand, distinctions that were unnoticeable before have been rendered visible, and in the opposite direction, similarities across traditional boundaries have been recognized. The end result in both cases is that boundaries of social practice are being re-negotiated, re-assessed, and re-considered. For those living within this rapidly changing social landscape, intercultural competence–as defined by Michael Byram above–is a necessary skill, and the cultivation of such intercultural individuals falls on the shoulders of today’s educators. They should provide students with opportunities to help them define and design for themselves their “third place” or “third culture,” a sphere of interculturality that enables language students to take an insider’s view as well as an outsider’s view on both their first and second cultures. It is this ability to find/establish/adopt this third place that is at the very core of intercultural competence.

The conference aims to bring researchers and practitioners across languages, levels and settings to discuss and share research, theory, and best practices and foster meaningful professional dialogue on issues related to Intercultural Competence teaching and learning.

Strands:

• Intercultural Competence and Theory
• Intercultural Competence and Classroom Instruction
• Making Intercultural Competence Instruction Possible
• Intercultural Competence and International Education
• Intercultural Competence and the Global World
• Intercultural Competence and Media Representation
• Intercultural Competence and Language Practice
• Assessing Intercultural Competence
• Critical Considerations of Intercultural Competence

Proposal Types: Proposals are being accepted for papers, posters, and pre-/post-conference workshops. Please see the Proposals page for full details.