Language Centres at a Crossroads

Dr Samuel Lagier is a scientist and a comedian working on communication, collaboration and creativity. He runs SamSpeaksScience, dedicated to help researchers talk about their work. Sam holds a PhD in neuroscience, joined the TEDxLausanne team for 6 years as a curator, coach and host and has been practicing, teaching and performing improvised comedy for 15 years.

Abstract: Exploring the unknown

Very few people would put improvised comedy and science together. Yet a little digging can reveal unexpected, exciting and useful parallels. Like languages, play and laughter are attractors, bringing people together, providing a sense of belonging and building communities. For young academics, often uprooted, finding a “home”, a safe space, is invaluable to help them face the challenges of the early academic career.
Regardless of your knowledge of academic research, regardless of your experience with improvised comedy, regardless of your community, we’ll explore the power of play, together.

Mark Critchley is Director of the Centre for Foreign Language Study at Durham University, and current Chair of the Association of University Language Communities in the UK & Ireland (AULC). 

Jocelyn Wyburd is Director of the Language Centre at the University of Cambridge, and a former Chair of the University Council for Modern Languages (UCML) in the UK.

Abstract: Evolution of University Internationalisation Strategies and Language Policies: Opportunities and challenges for Language Centres

Mark Critchley, Jocelyn Wyburd, Neil McLean & Ana de Medeiros

Language centres have an opportunity to influence university internationalisation strategies, whilst at the same time encouraging Universities to become genuinely multilingual and multicultural institutions that reflect the diversity of their staff and their students.

This presentation will discuss the opportunities for language centres to play a leading role in evolving narratives of internationalisation in their respective universities across Europe. These opportunities will involve language centres in playing their part in institutional cultural change within their universities. Meanwhile language centres have opportunities to review their own practices within new institutional strategic and policy frameworks, as vehicles to support both traditional teaching and novel language learning opportunities, with newly defined roles for language teachers and in supporting new spaces in which we can draw together all the linguistic and inter-cultural endeavours that can and should define any ‘global’ University.

Maria Teresa Zanola

President of the Conseil Européen pour les Langues/European Language Council (CEL/ELC). Full Professor, French Language and Translation, Department of Language Sciences and Foreign Literatures, Università Cattolica, Milan. President of the University Language Service Committee. President of the Panlatin Network of Terminology – Realiter. Former President of the Italian Association for Terminology Ass.I.Term (2010-2016). 

Sarah Breslin

Since October 2013, Sarah Breslin has been the Executive Director of the European Centre for Modern Languages, an institution of the Council of Europe, based in Graz, Austria. A passionate linguist with a thorough understanding of both policy and practice in language education and general education, Sarah has worked in a range of sectors and countries since she graduated with first class Honours in French and German from the University of Glasgow in 1986. After training to become a language teacher, Sarah worked for 15 years in Catalonia as an EFL teacher and became the first Director of Studies and then Director of a prestigious language school in Tarragona. She then moved into Higher Education, where she was Head of Modern Languages in the Faculty of Tourism and teacher of English and German.

On returning to the UK, she worked for 4 years in further education, teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and Spanish, before becoming Head of International and EU programmes. Before taking up post as Director at SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages at the University of Strathclyde, Sarah worked for the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) where her focus was on education policy both at UK and EU level, as well as cross-border qualification recognition. Sarah recently achieved her Doctorate degree focusing on the contribution of the ECML to the professional growth of language teacher educators. 

Anne Chateau

Anne Chateau has worked in a university context in France for 30 years and has been in charge of several responsibilities, such as ‘Head of the Language Department’ at the Science Faculty, and then coordinator of the language policy for the scientific university of Nancy (from 1998 to 2003). She then became the director of Nancy 2 university self-access center in 2009, and when the 4 universities of Lorraine merged to become the University of Lorraine, was elected Director of the ‘UFR Lansad’ (Unité de Formations et de Recherche - LANgues pour Spécialistes d’Autres Disciplines) in 2014. She holds a PhD in the didactics of English for specific purposes. Learners’ autonomy being one of the major paradigms in language learning, and self-access centers (SACs) one of the privileged places where the autonomy of the learners can be developed, her research work has focused on that area for a long time. She has been CercleS Secretary General since November 2019. 

Sabina Schaffner

Sabina Schaffner has been the Director of the UZH and ETH Zurich Language Center since 2005. She holds a Teaching Diploma for French and Russian, a doctorate in Russian Literature, and a Master’s degree in Coaching and Organisational Development. From 2008 until 2018, Sabina was (co-)president of the Association of Language Centres at Swiss Higher Education Institutions SSH-CHES and is a member of the Swiss professional association of coaches BSO. Since November 2019, she has been President of CercleS. Along with her managerial job at the Language Center, Sabina has worked as a coach and trainer in higher education for organisational development, leadership, and management.

Abstract: CORONA EXPERIENCE: THE WAYS FORWARD

This keynote panel focuses on political aspects of the distance and dual/hybrid mode language teaching and learning at universities and language-focused institutions. Since didactic aspects of distance and dual/hybrid modes of teaching and learning will be actively discussed in workshops or during presentations, the panelists from European institutions will address the issues of the political implications for language Centres and for institutions involved in language teaching and learning in general, and in Higher Education in particular.

Dr Joan-Tomàs Pujolà holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is a senior lecturer at the Department of Linguistic and Literary Education of the Faculty of Education, University of Barcelona (UB). His research focuses on various topics related to Computer Assisted Language Learning. Recently, he has been working on researching innovative methodologies to improve the teaching and learning of foreign languages such as the implementation of mobile learning, PLEs, flipped classroom, and gamification. He is also currently collaborating on two Erasmus + projects: ProPIC that focuses on the use of technology for Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and PRINTeL which aims to promote innovation in teaching & learning developing teachers' digital competence.

Abstract: From adaptation to integration of ICTs in the “new normality” of language teaching

The COVID-19 pandemic in Europe in March 2020 generated an education crisis. Overnight, most educational institutions were forced to transform from face-to-face to online teaching. This caused disruption, destabilization and disorganization across all levels and sectors of the education system; it was complete mayhem. Nevertheless, teachers made strenuous efforts to adapt to the new teaching situation, more often than not struggling with technical and pedagogical issues.
As this temporary disturbance has been slowly disappearing, now is the time to reflect upon this abrupt transformation that found most of us unprepared and to start thinking about how to cope with the new language teaching reality if we are to continue teaching online.

This plenary session will tackle such issues, promoting the idea that rather than adapting to technologies language teachers should think how to integrate them meaningfully in their (new) teaching context.

Catherine Walter is a teacher, researcher and materials writer. She is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Oxford, where much of her researched focused on second language reading. She is the Series Adviser for the Oxford University Press series Navigate, and the co-author with Michael Swan of the Oxford English Grammar Course series. Catherine is a past President of IATEFL and an advocate of inclusion in the language classroom.

Abstract: Questioning practice in the teaching of reading

Second language reading lessons tend to follow a fairly standard pattern, one that makes assumptions about what students need to learn. This talk will challenge those assumptions, and will argue for a change of focus. The language centre classroom needs to prepare students for the texts they will encounter outside that classroom, and especially in their subject areas. By looking at how effective readers read, and at the features of different kinds of academic text, I will propose principles and activities that focus more sharply on skills that can give students and teachers a better return for their time. 

Vijay Bhatia retired as Professor from the Department of English, City University of Hong Kong is now a Visiting Professor at the Hellenic American University in Athens, and an Adjunct Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He was also the founding President of LSP and Professional Communication Association for the Asia-Pacific Rim. Some of his research projects include Analyzing Genre-bending in Corporate Disclosure Documents, and International Arbitration Practice: A Discourse Analytical Study, in which he led research teams from more than 20 countries. Three of his books, Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings (1993) and Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-based View, (2004) and Critical Genre Analysis: Interdiscursive Performance in Professional Practice (2017) are widely used in genre theory and practice.

Abstract: Critical Genre Perspective on Electronically Mediated English for Professional Communication

Critical Genre Theory (Bhatia, 2017) has been instrumental in widening the scope of applied linguistics to include areas such as organizational, management and corporate practices, translation and interpretation, and even information and visual designing within its purview. It has gone beyond its primary concern to analyze and understand discursive practices in various academic and professional contexts to integrate discursive and professional practices in order to account for interdiscursive performance in specific contexts. Drawing on one of the key aspects of critical genre theory, that is, Interdiscursivity as appropriation of generic resources across genres, professional practices, and disciplinary cultures, I would like to argue for and illustrate its use in the design and implementation of English for Academic and/or Professional Communication Programmes in today’s digitally-mediated professional world.