Sponsors
University of Hawai'i National Foreign Language Resource
Center (NFLRC)
Michigan State University Center for Language Education and
Research (CLEAR)
Co-Sponsor
Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)
University of Hawai'i National Foreign Language Resource
Center (NFLRC)
The University of Hawai'i National Foreign Language Resource
Center engages in research and materials development projects and
conducts Summer Institutes for language professionals among its many
activities.
2007 PRAGMATICS & LANGUAGE LEARNING CONFERENCE
The NFLRC is pleased to be organizing and co-sponsoring the 17th
International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning (PLL) on
March 26-28, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawai'i. The University of
Hawai'i National Resource Center for East Asia (NRCEA) and the
Department of Second Language Studies (SLS) also serve as co-sponsors of
the event. The conference will address a broad range of topics in
pragmatics, discourse, interaction, and sociolinguistics in their
relation to second and foreign language learning, education, and use,
approached from a variety of theoretical and methodological
perspectives. Highlights will include plenary talks by Junko Mori
(University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Steven Talmy (University of
British Columbia), two invited colloquia, and two invited workshops.
Preregister by February 15, 2007 to enjoy special discount conference
rates.
2007 NFLRC SUMMER INSTITUTE: Developing Useful Evaluation Practices
in College Foreign Language Programs--May 28--June 6, 2007
This NFLRC Summer Institute is designed to help college foreign
language administrators and teachers engage in useful, practical, and
effective program evaluations to meet a variety of purposes. It takes
seriously the values, goals, and constraints that characterize college
language programs and will provide language educators with a
user-oriented approach to developing evaluations that maximize benefits
for language learners and teachers, while minimizing potential negative
consequences. It will also provide participants with tools and
strategies for making program evaluation a systematic and consistently
useful component of their FL departments.
The Institute will be run by Dr. John M. Norris (UH Dept. of Second
Language Studies), an expert in language program evaluation and
assessment. Activities over the 9-day institute will include lectures
and demonstrations, in-depth analyses of practical evaluation examples,
invited guest speakers (language evaluation experts), social events, and
extensive hands-on development and discussion of evaluation plans,
procedures, and instruments for immediate use in the participants'
specific program settings.
This workshop is intended for U.S. foreign language administrators
and teachers who are directly responsible for program evaluations in
their foreign language departments. It assumes no prior grounding in
program evaluation theory or practice, but it requires a willingness to
help increase evaluation capacity in college FL education. In order to
maximize the impact of this event across U.S. colleges, participants
will be purposefully selected to represent diverse FL program types,
based on size, languages taught, geography, and institutional status.
Partial financial support is available to all participants in the NFLRC
Summer Institute on a competitive and space-limited basis. Summer
Institute participants are also highly encouraged to participate in the
ADFL SUMMER SEMINAR WEST (directly following the Summer Institute in
Hawaii), where they will have opportunities to share their program
evaluation work.
APPLY TODAY! (DEADLINE--FEBRUARY 15, 2007)
For more details about the Summer Institute (including information
about affordable lodging options, fees, and more) or for the online
application form, visit our website.
2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING
The NFLRC is pleased to be a co-sponsor and on the organizing
committee of the 2nd International Conference on Task-based Language
Teaching to be held on September 20-22, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawai'i.
The theme of the 2007 conference is "TBLT: Putting Principles to
Work." Plenary speakers will include Kris Van Den Branden
(Katholieke Universiteit Lueven), Peter Robinson (Aoyama Gakuin
University), Peter Skehan (Chinese University of Hong Kong), and
Virginia Samuda (Lancaster University). We look forward to bringing
together both researchers and educators from around the world to learn
from one another's innovations in task-based language teaching. For
more information, visit the TBLT 2007 website.
NEW NFLRC PUBLICATIONS
NFLRC ADDS A THIRD ONLINE JOURNAL
Language Documentation & Conservation (LD&C) publishes its
inaugural issue in June 2007. LD&C becomes the only journal,
electronic or otherwise, exclusively dedicated to serving the needs of
linguists and language activists engaged in the essential work of
documenting the world's languages. While no reliable data exist
concerning the level of such documentation, a plausible estimate is that
fewer than 10% are well-documented, meaning that they have comprehensive
grammars, extensive dictionaries, and abundant texts in a variety of
genres and media. The remaining 90% are, to varying degrees,
underdocumented, or, for all intents and purposes, undocumented.
Moreover, the languages of the world are now faced with an extinction
crisis, the magnitude of which may well prove to be very large.
Consequently, there is an evident and urgent need to document the many
under/undocumented languages of the world, and, where appropriate, to
assist in their preservation.
Check out this new journal and our many other publications.
OUR ONLINE JOURNALS SOLICIT SUBMISSIONS
Language Learning & Technology is a refereed online journal,
jointly sponsored by the University of Hawai'i NFLRC and the
Michigan State University Center for Language Education and Research
(CLEAR). LLT focuses on issues related to technology and language
education. For more information on submission guidelines, visit the LLT
submissions page.
Language Documentation & Conservation is a fully refereed,
open-access journal sponsored by NFLRC and published exclusively in
electronic form by the University of Hawai'i Press. LD&C
publishes papers on all topics related to language documentation and
conservation. For more information on submission guidelines, visit the
LD&C submissions page.
Reading in a Foreign Language is a refereed online journal, jointly
sponsored by the University of Hawai'i NFLRC and the Department of
Second Language Studies. RFL serves as an excellent source for the
latest developments in the field, both theoretical and pedagogic,
including improving standards for foreign language reading. For more
information on submission guidelines, , visit the RFL submissions page.
COPYRIGHT 2007 University of Hawaii, National
Foreign Language Resource Center Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
Copyright 2007, Gale Group. All rights
reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
NOTE: All illustrations and photos have been removed from this article.