LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

'Workshops to Go': Call for Bids 2007/8 - deadline extended

Proposals are invited for this year’s Workshop to Go programme. Workshops dealing with key themes for this year include assessment, supporting new staff and engaging with employers will be particularly welcome. The successful applicant will be required to produce a training pack and run two regional training sessions for HE staff. Participants at the workshop will then be expected to 'cascade' the training within their institutions.

Multimedia language learning survey and the chance to win an iPod!
We are conducting a survey on behalf of the University of Ulster, Centre of Excellence in Multimedia Language Learning. We are interested in the many ways that technology is employed in language teaching and learning, in particular, the use that is being made of dedicated digital facilities.

Cascading good practice: 'Workshop to go' project, 2007

The Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies is inviting bids to develop training packs for enhancing staff and students in the relevant subject areas. The successful applicant will be required to produce a training pack and run two regional training sessions for HE staff. Participants at the workshop will then be expected to 'cascade' the training within their institutions.

Speaking across frontiers - promoting the independent use of synchronous voice conferencing by scattered groups of Open University language learners
During the past two years The Open University has opened its synchronous audio-visual conferencing system to language students for use in independent study partnerships. This paper explores the ways in which language students scattered throughout the UK and other European countries have received and are making use of this opportunity to speak to one another and share images independently over the Internet. It also considers the University initiatives required to promote and provide pedagogical support for these independent partnerships.

Intercultural communicative competence in telecollaborative foreign language learning
This paper is an introduction of the rationale and research design of an intercultural exchange project between English as Foreign Language learners in Taiwan and Chinese as Foreign Language learners in the UK by using internet-mediated social software tools including instant messengers, wikis and emails. The rationale is based on an intercultural approach to foreign language learning. The detail of the research design including internet tools used, participants, tasks, procedures and the theoretical framework for data analysis will be discussed.

Online teaching skills for language tutors

Online teachers need different skills than those normally employed by tutors trained to teach languages in a face-to-face classroom and they also require different skills compared to online teachers of other subjects. Research shows that the medium influences the form of communication and interaction (see e.g. Hutchby 2001). The asynchronicity of communication in written conferencing and the lack of non-verbal clues in audio-conferencing are examples of new challenges for online language tutors.

Teaching Area Studies in the age of the Internet (5 May 06)
Event date: 5 May, 2006
Location: Senate House, Malet Street, University of London