Language and Literature Conference

Peter Smagorinsky (smago who-is-at peachnet.campus.mci.net)
Tue, 25 Aug 1998 10:10:57 -0400

>IAIMTE
>FIRST CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
>
> SECOND CONFERENCE
>IMPROVEMENT OF LEARNING & TEACHING
>OF LANGUAGE & LITERATURE
>JULY 14TH -16TH 1999
>AMSTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
>
>Divided as we are by our distinct languages and cultures, we do share a
common concern: the quality of the teaching and learning of language and
literature, mostly in mother tongues or mainstream languages. Throughout
the world, educati-on systems are confronted with major challenges.
Societal demands for literacy and communicative competence are growing. At
the same time there is an increase of the cultural and linguistic
heteroge-neity of school popula-tions. In response to these trends,
promi-sing research and develop-ment in the learning and teaching of mother
tongues is done in many countries .... in splendid isolation. A pity, for
natio-nal work in the improve-ment of language education can profit
enormously from interna-tio-nal exchange. This, in a nutshell, is the
mission of the IAIMTE: the Inter-national Association for the Improve-ment
of Mother Tongue Educati-on.
>
>The first conference in 1997 was quite a success, because of the small
scale, the high level of interaction, and the large range of different
languages and educational cultures. Afterwards, the members agreed upon the
format being for the conference the same, with some slight differences.
This implies that again we strive for a small but varied group of
participants, from different countries, with different mother tongues.
>
>Hereby we invite you to participate in a small scale conference for
specialists in the teaching & learning of language and literature. The main
aim of the conference is to exchange theory, research, curricular
developments and best practice in education, teacher education and
in-service training. We would like to gather specialists in the field of
'mother tongue education', in elementary, secondary and higher education.
The conference aims at an international exchange and interaction and is
meant to be an international platform for language and education
researchers and practitioners, including Ph.D. students, to present their
research and reflections for an international audience.
>The nature of the conference will be interactive: each participant will be
involved in presenting, demonstrating, discussing.
>For the 1999 conference, we especially invite you to contribute to Group
Sessions of Round Tables on curricular movements in different countries
(i.e. new text book structures, the role of centrally stated key
qualifications, trends of nationalisation and/or internationalisation in
Literature Teaching). We would like to organise thematic sessions from
different countries, in order to shed light on differences and similarities
in different educational contexts.
>
>CONFERENCE DOMAINS
>1. Theory of good practice
>2. Research of/for good practice
>3. Descriptions of best practice programmes/curricula
>a. in schools
>b. in teacher training
>c. in in-service training
>
>CONFERENCE THEMES
>1. Reading
>2. Writing
>3. Speaking & Listening
>4. Literature, Fiction, Film and other media
>5. Language Awareness and Language Teaching
>6. Educational policy: relationship between first, second and mainstream
languages in learning and teaching
>Quality of text books in mother tongue teaching
>
>If you would like to receive the IAIMTE brochure: more information will be
provided by Gert Rijlaarsdam, rijlaars who-is-at ilo.uva.nl.
>Or visit the IAIMTE-site for more in information, registration forms etc.:
>http://www.ilo.uva.nl/html/conferenties.html
>