LINGUIST List 23.702 Fri Feb 10 2012 Confs: Applied Linguistics/Luxembourg Editor for this issue: Amy Brunett <brunettlinguistlist.org> LINGUIST is pleased to announce the launch of an exciting new feature: Easy Abstracts! Easy Abs is a free abstract submission and review facility designed to help conference organizers and reviewers accept and process abstracts online. Just go to: http://www.linguistlist.org/confcustom, and begin your conference customization process today! With Easy Abstracts, submission and review will be as easy as 1-2-3! Directory         1.     Nancy Morys , Multilingualism - Chance and Challenge Message 1: Multilingualism - Chance and Challenge Date: 10-Feb-2012 From: Nancy Morys <nancy.morysuni.lu> Subject: Multilingualism - Chance and Challenge E-mail this message to a friend Multilingualism - Chance and Challenge Date: 21-Jun-2012 - 22-Jun-2012 Location: University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg Contact: Nancy Morys Contact Email: < click here to access email > Meeting URL: http://www.mehrsprachigkeit-als-chance.eu Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics Meeting Description: Multilingualism - Chance and Challenge. Fourth international conference on challenges and opportunities of multilingualism in the fields of school and teacher training Multilingualism is both a desirable aim in terms of educational policy and common reality in European classrooms of all levels. Linguistically and culturally heterogeneous groups of learners are perfectly normal. Moreover, social mobility in a shared European common market, immigration and intercultural diversity as well as different learner biographies has an impact on classroom reality. For instance, in (language) classrooms different types of learners share the same courses: those who speak the language as a mother tongue, those who have acquired the language as a second language and those who are beginners. Frequently, a great number of immigrant languages are spoken at school, which on the one hand characterize and on the other enrich the students’ identity and everyday lessons. Concerning multilingualism, teachers as well as students face unprecedented challenges. At the same time, multilingualism provides undreamed chances for a lively, real-life and functional language classroom. In order to use this opportunity, reflections on and concepts of an emergent ‘methodology of teaching multilingualism’ are required. As traditional teaching theories and ideas about the acquisition of a foreign language lack answers to this, we have to find new ways to cope with today’s multilingual and multicultural heterogeneity adequately. Firstly, a language teaching methodology has to draw its attention to these new phenomena scientifically, and secondly, needs to redefine its self-conception. For this purpose, it is necessary to start an interdisciplinary and transnational dialogue that includes and develops different experiences in terms of teaching, linguistics and language methodology: country-specific empirical research findings, case studies and lesson reports are a subject of interest, as well as first attempts in order to seize the chances of multilingualism by using specific methods in the learners´ acquisition process and teacher training. The main objective of this conference is to enable a focused exchange between students, researchers and practitioners in schools and universities about educational approaches, research activities and projects related to multilingualism in terms of first, second and foreign language learning. Colleagues from universities and schools from 10 different countries will give lectures on the different approaches to cope with individual and societal multilingualism which have been developed in their countries and regions. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 10-Feb-2012       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.