LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Teaching sociolinguistics to undergraduates (16 Nov 06)
Event date: 16 November, 2006
Location: Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University

Promoting and evaluating the use of the ELP (9 Feb 2004)
Event date: 9 February, 2004
Location: CILT,

BBC's Voices season
As part of the BBC's Voices season that will run through 2005, they are broadcasting a series of programmes about regional dialects on Radio 4. They have also created a website with interesting links including a discussion of bilingualism (17th August 2005).

Learning languages 'boosts brain'
An article on the BBC news website, 13th October 2004, reports that learning a second language "boosts" brain-power.

Head teachers call for compulsory languages
A BBC article, on 13th Oct 2003, reports that head teacher have said Foreign languages should be compulsory for sixth formers doing the diploma that is set to replace A-levels and GCSEs.

Languages tough out hard times
An article in the Australian, on 15th October 2003, discusses the status of various languages in Australian Higher Education.

Multilingualism
Multilingualism is the norm in the world, monolingualism is an exception. Language and nationalism, language dominance, language loss and shift are characteristics of multilingual nations, in particular those with a colonial history.

Bilingualism / multilingualism
The approach to the topic will depend on the target audience. Students of Linguistics do not necessarily have an indepth knowledge of a foreign language, which can make it more difficult for them to understand what it means to be bilingual/multilingual. They may benefit from an approach which stresses the similarities between being bidialectal and bilingual. Students of Modern Languages are often better able to understand what it means to use two or more languages in daily life. With these students it is possible and preferable to study concrete examples of bilingual speech.