Today is the last day of the conference and many of the participants are already rushing to the airport to fly back home. I decided to stay and leave on Saturday. I had the chance to listen to the last keynote speaker, Rita Franceschini, from the Free University of Bozen, in Italy. She talked about future research opportunities on multilingualism.
According to Rita, areas that need further research include:
1. Historical aspects of multilingualism;
2. Multilingualism in business and the use of linguae francae;
3. Sociolinguistics dimensions, such as majority language speakers use (parts of) languages of minorities;
4. Multilingualism in the individual, especially how 4 to 14 year olds acquire two, three or more languages as well as learners in a more advanced age; continued studies on the acquisition of a third language (or fourth language) and the effects on those languages already mastered;
5. Computer mediated communication, investigating, for example, which methods non-native speakers of English, who dominate the internet, use to be understood worldwide, how problems in expressing oneself are overcome and which approach(es) is (are) taken towards cultural assumptions.
Well, I have to say that it was a very intense and tiring week but it was worth giving up my last week of holidays. Besides keeping up-to-date with the new findings in my area and making new contacts, it also motivated me to keep on reading and writing. It is quite easy to leave it for second plan once you’ve finished (part of) your postgraduate studies and have the hectic life of a primary school teacher (which, by the way, restarts next week.)
David Barton’s presentation on multilingual literacy practices on Flickr was very interesting and the crowded room was not disappointed. He showed how multimodal elements are an essential part of new literacy practices, especially by multilingual users of Web 2.0 and Flickr, an online photo (and now video) management and sharing application. David showed the case of a Spanish-speaker user of Flickr who uses both her first language and English to write the title and caption of the photos she publishes.He also analyzed her profile presentation, other users’ comments on her photos and how she responded to them. He pointed out that Flickr offers new opportunities for those interested in studying semantics in this digital context. Just search for family on the Flickr site, for example, and will you find unimaginable and diverse associations between photos and the concept of family. If you want to find out more about Web 2.0, I strongly recommend that you check out this video.
The symposium I attended in the afternoon was also related with language learning and technology. Teletandem Brazil is government-funded project from Sao Paulo State University (Unesp) which promotes collaborative language learning between students from Unesp interested in learning languages such as English, Italian, Spanish and German and native speakers of these languages who are interested in learning Portuguese. The difference between traditional tandem and this new concept of teletandem is the presence of a teacher mediator and obviously the digital context. It was very interesting to note how new language learning strategies are being used in this new digital context as well as the computer mediated communication that takes place in this conversation.
Wednesday is traditionally the “day off” of the AILA conferences but the morning was very well spent at the meeting of the research network on autonomy in language learning. The ReN, as it is called, focused on the links between identity, motivation and autonomy. There were a variety of papers, most of them focusing on the Asian context. It was a great opportunity to meet people from different parts of the world interested in the area.
Tuesday has been so far the greatest moment of this conference for me. The symposium on language learning strategies (LLS) I attended was mediated by Karen Schramm and Rebecca L. Oxford. Rebecca is one of the greatest authorities on LLS and I used mostly her work to support my undergraduate end-of-course dissertation, back in 2003 in Brazil. Her presentation on digital age learning strategies linked perfectly with my interest in both fields – computer assisted language learning (CALL) and language learning strategies (and autonomy language learning in a broader sense). Rebecca used Prensky’s terminology (2005) to point out that digital natives use different learning strategies when compared to digital immigrants. Digital natives here being the generation who was born with access to ICT from a very early age, as opposed to digital immigrants who witnessed the implementation and use of technology in people’s everyday life. Rebecca highlighted the ability of multitasking, seeking multisensory learning and social networking with people from around the world. Finally, she claimed that “young learners are not only able to describe their learning strategies but can (and should) actively learn new ones” and encouraged the participants to be involved in more research on technology-enhanced L2 learning strategies.
The day ended with the Beijing night at the University of Essen, where AILA presented the next conference venue in 2011. The most applauded part was certainly the host’s statement that buildings will be within 5-minute walking distance from one to the other, unlike Essen’s two different venues located in opposite sides of the city.
Second day in Essen and Monday was a very busy day with too many presentations to choose from. Sometimes you just wished you could be in more than one place at the same time.
One of the presentations I found very interesting was the one presented by Ariovaldo Pereira, a lecturer at the Universidade Estadual de Goias, in central Brasil. He showed how conservative and prejudicial Brazilian EFL textbooks are. They very often present families that are ideal and unrealistic (conventional mother-father-children constitution vs single-parents or alternative models), stereotyped image of the woman as uneducated, and issues that are not relevant to the books’ audience – teenagers and pre-teenagers.
Another highlight of the day was the keynote of Jim Cummins, from the University of Toronto, where he addressed the importance of valuing multilingualism and diverse backgrounds in the classroom rather than pathologizing immigrant students’ home language as a cause of underachievement. He also pointed out the importance of language policy in respecting and promoting these community languages.
First day in Essen for the AILA 2008 conference and couldn’t hide the excitement of taking part in such a big event. After feeling a complete idiot with my total lack of knowledge of the German language, despite my great-great-grandparents’ Deutsch blood running in my veins and clearly displayed on my face, I managed to find my hotel, grab something to eat and head to the conference’s opening. No language barriers are difficult enough for a willing linguist!
The opening keynote was led by Neville Alexander who talked about the current linguistic situation of Africa and the African Academy of Languages‘ realization in 2004 that colonial language should not replace the local languages. According to him, language policy is no longer seen as some irrelevant neutral feature of state administration but as an integral aspect of social policy in general. He also claimed that applied linguists should research and gather evidence of the impact of language policy on the economy and vice-versa.
The day couldn’t have ended in a better way: plenty of canapés, wine, good conversation and a comfortable bed after today’s ordeal of travelling from Stansted Airport to Düsseldorf Weeze.
