LINGUIST List 14.1799

Fri Jun 27 2003

Calls: Semantics/Pragmatics; Applied Ling/English

Editor for this issue: Marie Klopfenstein <marielinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. diabruck, DiaBruck 2003
2. phil_chappell, Thailand TESOL International Conference

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 Call for Participation
 Call for Demos and Project Descriptions

 DiaBruck 2003

 SEVENTH WORKSHOP ON THE SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS OF DIALOGUE (SEMDIAL)

 Saarland University
 Sept 4th-6th 2003

 http://www.coli.uni-sb.de/diabruck/

 Endorsed by SIGSEM
 http://www.sigsem.org/
 the ACL Special interest Group in Computational Semantics

 Endorsed by SIGdial
 http://www.sigdial.org/
 the ACL Special interest Group in Discourse and Dialogue

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DiaBruck 2003 will be the seventh in a series of workshops that aims
to bring together researchers working on the semantics and pragmatics
of dialogues in fields such as artificial intelligence, formal
semantics and pragmatics, computational linguistics, philosophy, and
psychology.

The following keynote speakers have accepted our invitation, one more
invited talk is being arranged:

 * Nicholas Asher, University of Austin, Texas
 * Andreas Herzig, IRIT - Universit� Paul Sabatier, France

There will also be a tutorial addressing good practice in
empirically-based dialogue research.

For a list of accepted papers, see the DiaBruck website.


REGISTRATION

The registration process has started, see the DiaBruck website. Note
that the early registration deadline with a reduced fee is July 31
2003.


DEMOS AND PROJECT NOTES

We invite abstracts describing software demonstrations and/or actual
projects relevant to the semantics and pragmatics of dialogues.


SUBMISSION PROCEDURE:

Authors should submit a two page abstract including names,
affiliation, address, and e-mail. The abstracts should be submitted
electronically (in postscript, pdf, html or ascii) via the DiaBruck
website http://www.coli.uni-sb.de/diabruck/ (under "Submission of
demos and posters"). Submissions have to be in English, which is the
workshop language.

Selection will be made on the basis of relevance to the workshop. The
accepted abstracts will be published in the workshop proceedings and
will get space for presenting posters during the workshop.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Demo and project abstracts due: July 11 2003
Acceptance notice: July 20 2003
Early registration deadline: July 31 2003
Final version due: August 4 2003
Workshop dates: September 4-6 2003

PROGRAM COMMITTEE:

Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova (chair), Jonathan Ginzburg (co-chair), Anton
Benz, Barbara Di Eugenio, Bonnie Webber, Colin Matheson, David Traum,
Hannes Rieser, Henk Zeevat, Jan Alexandersson, Johan Bos, Manfred
Pinkal, Mary McGee Wood, Massimo Poesio, Michael Strube, Robin Cooper,
Stina Ericsson

ORGANIZATION:

The workshop will take place in Hotel Scheidberg in Wallerfangen,
about half an hour away from Saarbruecken.

The local organizers are Ivana Kruijff-Korbayova, Bettina Klingner and
Claudia Kosny.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

News about the conference are being posted on the workshop's Web page
at http://www.coli.uni-sb.de/diabruck/ For further information you can
also mail to diabruckcoli.uni-sb.de.

Information about Saarland: http://www.english.saarland.de/
Information about the Saarland University: http://www.uni-saarland.de/
Information about the conference location: http://www.hotel-scheidberg.de/

Previous workshops in the SEMDIAL series include:
(see also http://cswww.essex.ac.uk/semdial/ )

MunDial'97 (Munich)
 (http://www.cis.uni-muenchen.de/sil/workshop/dialogwsh.html)
Twendial'98 (Twente)
 (http://parlevink.cs.utwente.nl/Conferences/twlt13.html)
Amstelogue'99 (Amsterdam)
 (http://cf.hum.uva.nl/computerlinguistiek/amstelog/ )
Gotalog'00 (Gothenburg)
 (http://www.ling.gu.se/gotalog)
Bidialog'01 (Bielefeld)
 (http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/BIDIALOG)
EDILOG'02 (Edinburgh)
 (http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/edilog/)
 
 

Thailand TESOL International Conference 

Date: 29-Jan-2004 - 31-Jan-2004
Location: Khon Kaen (Northeastern Thailand), Thailand
Contact: Chaleosri Pibulchol
Contact Email: chalpsm.swu.ac.th 
Meeting URL: http://thaitesol.org

Linguistic Sub-field: Applied Linguistics
Subject Language: English

Meeting Description:

The 24th Annual Thailand TESOL International Conference
ELT 2004: Prioritising Teacher Development

The implementation of educational reforms in Thailand over the last
three years has posed an unprecedented challenge to teachers, teacher
trainers, supervisors, policy makers and educators. This reform
includes the adoption of new curriculum standards, a shift from
teacher-centred to learner-centred practice; and a move from
centralised to decentralised curricula. The result is the need for
teachers to develop new school-based curricula based on the national
curriculum standards, and to prepare teaching and learning materials,
integrating a variety of content, and focusing on cultural as well as
subject areas and current issues.

These new reforms require that information technology and the mass
media be made an integral part of learning and teaching both in and
out of class. Traditional classroom teaching and learning practices
need to be transformed into more dynamic learning arenas that cover
relevant, real world contexts. This includes promoting project work,
interactive online learning, English camps, self-access learning and
many other educational innovations that promote learner involvement
and learner autonomy. The ultimate aims are to assist students in
developing levels of English language proficiency that will enable
them to function as quality professionals on par with other English
speakers on the highly competitive international stage.

These changes require teachers, teacher trainers, supervisors,
educators and policy makers to reflect upon and assess the
effectiveness of our own practices, identifying weaknesses, strengths
and opportunities in order to prioritize professional development
strategies and set up frameworks for professional development
schemes. A key point of departure is to reflect on current praxis and
set developmental paths based upon these critical reflections. Thus,
the aim of the Thailand TESOL 2004 conference is to provide two broad
forums; first, to explore ways to initiate and sustain critical,
reflective professional development paths, and second, to explore ways
to develop appropriate methodology and materials. Importantly,
exploring these forums will require the interest and participation of
practicing teachers as well as those responsible for creating
professional development programs.

The conference will provide these forums through specifically
targeting the following areas:

- teacher education and development
- curriculum development and syllabus design
- innovative approaches toward learner-centredness
- accelerated learning and creative methodology
- new ways of teaching vocabulary and grammar through integrated
program designs
- content-based, text-based and genre-based material preparation and
programming
- ESP, EAP and EOP programs
- authentic assessment schemes
- classroom-based action research projects
- IT applications
- innovation and leadership in ELT

Conference Objectives

1. To explore ways for teachers, teacher trainers, supervisors, policy
makers, educators, curriculum developers and administrators to develop
professional development paths that promote the ability to adapt to
the changes within the Thai educational and foreign language
curricula,
2. To investigate innovative ways for English language teachers,
teacher trainers, supervisors, policy makers, educators, curriculum
developers and administrators to develop and adapt appropriate
school-based curricula, methodologies and materials development
processes that will support the achievement of the educational reform
objectives. This includes:

- developing teachers' language proficiency as well as their students'
- coping with the variety of student interests, learning styles, needs
and motivations to learn
- striving to move the language proficiency levels of students closer
to internationally acceptable standards
- enhancing the ability of our students to participate critically in
English medium environments, especially enhancing critical literacy
levels
- providing a closer affiliation between the classroom and the outside
world
- promoting the ideal of lifelong learning amongst both teachers and
students

Language of Conference
English, however a few selected parallel sessions will be held in
Thai.

Participants
Approximately 1000 ELT teachers and educators from Thailand, the Asia
Pacific region and many other regions of the international TESOL
community.

Deadline for submission of proposals: July 15, 2003