Keynote Speakers

In this talk, I will explore the metaphor of the bridge as a way of highlighting ways of addressing some of the challenges to transformative language education that stem from the persistence of a range of ‘borders’. In so doing, I will address a broad range of themes, including plurilingual pedagogies (building bridges between the languages and varieties that form a child’s language repertoire), motivation and learner autonomy (building bridges to enhance learners’ relationships to language learning), and teacher collaboration (building bridges between teachers of different languages and different countries through language teacher associations). My talk will draw on a number of research projects and creative initiatives in the UK and other European contexts, including my work with the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe and with the Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes (FIPLV). This will include reference to the Supporting Multilingual Classrooms initiative, which assists teachers in a variety of European contexts and educational sectors to develop inclusive pedagogies that draw on individual learners’ language repertoires and aim to nurture a plurilingual habitus, in which all languages are valued by all.

Biodata:

A former secondary school languages teacher, Dr Terry Lamb previously worked at the Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield, before joining the University of Westminster as Professor of Languages and Interdisciplinary Pedagogy. He is based in the Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation (which he established and directed) and the School of Humanities, leading on both educational research and migration research across the university. He has published extensively in the areas of multilingualism and learner and teacher autonomy and is founder editor of the academic journal Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. Terry Lamb has worked closely on languages strategy and curriculum with the UK and other Governments (Australia, Czech Republic, France and Malaysia) and has been awarded the honour of Chevalier des Palmes Académiques by the French Prime Minister. He is Vice President of FIPLV (Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes), an NGO of both UNESCO and the Council of Europe.

South Africa offers a unique setting from which much can be learned about language-in-education issues. Its democratic transition in 1994 declared nine indigenous languages official, thereby, in theory, ending decades of dominance by English or Afrikaans. Post-apartheid classrooms have also undergone a gradual deracialisation with a concomitant shift in staff and learner demographics. Furthermore, language policies advocate, but do not mandate, initial mother tongue instruction. Yet, many communities insist on English as the language of instruction. Consequently, based on perceptions that this language offers increased economic opportunity, English has become the de-facto language of instruction even in remote rural areas. These social and linguistic changes have created new challenges for teacher education in South Africa necessitating an adjustment in the way pre-service teachers are prepared for the diversity of the current South African classroom. At present, the majority of prospective South African teachers entering the education system are not mother-tongue speakers of English. Yet, it is assumed that since they speak English socially with reasonable fluency, they will be able to teach content effectively through the medium of English. In such an educational context, the degree of instructional dissonance may be high, and complex cognitive processes related to learning, compromised. It is thus pertinent to ask what happens when teachers and learners engage with each other in a language not their own. How do pre-service teachers with limited proficiency in the language of instruction manage learning opportunities? In what ways may teachers effectively attend to learners’ needs if they lack linguistic security in English? What are the classroom dynamics when multilingual learners engage with teachers who do not speak any of their languages? What are the social and pedagogical consequences of such complex language encounters both for teachers and learners, not only in South Africa, but in other diverse school settings as well? This presentation reflects on the restrictions imposed by inadequate language proficiency in meeting the facilitation demands of the multilingual classroom and considers ways to redraw linguistic delineations.

Biodata:

Dr. Rinelle Evans is currently a full professor involved with teacher education and facilitates modules related to literacies, communication skills and language teaching methodology in the Faculty of Education, University of Pretoria, South Africa. She holds a doctorate in instructional communication via television technology and is a nationally rated researcher. Dr. Evans has not only published numerous academic articles in refereed and non-refereed journals but also several textbooks, study guides and video material for ESL learners. Her scholarly book, Complex classroom encounters – a South African perspective was published with a Canadian counterpart and spawned her current project: developing the linguistic proficiency and confidence of teachers who use English as a medium of instruction in multilingual classrooms. Her teaching career spans over 40 years, and on several occasions, she has received awards in recognition of inspirational teaching practice, amongst others the Dean’s Award for Excellence in the Scholarship of Teacher Education. Her academic interests relate to English language teaching, instructional design and communication, and language-in-education matters.

In this talk, it will be argued that human language is likely to have developed in a multilingual context and therefore, speaking several languages can be considered as the natural state of human mind, brain and society and the most natural form of mental exercise. This includes not only classical cases of children growing up bilingually, but also learning (and using) new languages across the whole lifespan. This multilingual default assumption offers an explanation for a wide range of recent research findings, from positive effects of even short periods of intensive language learning on attention to a delayed onset of dementia and a better cognitive recovery from stroke in older bilinguals. The cognitive and clinical results are further supported by converging evidence from other methodologies, including neurophysiology and neuroimaging. In addition, language learning can provide, even in the case of online delivery, a valuable source of social interaction. However, this field of study has also generated a lot of controversy and in this talk, the main arguments of the “bilingual advantage debate” will be highlighted. Furthermore, I will discuss some open questions, from the influence of different forms of language teaching and the relationship between spoken and written language, to the impact of specific languages and their linguistic distance, all of which refer to crossing borders of different kinds.

Biodata:

Born and raised in Cracow, Poland, Dr Thomas Bak studied medicine in Germany and Switzerland, obtaining his doctorate with a thesis on acute aphasias (language disorders caused by brain diseases) at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany). He worked clinically in psychiatry, neurology and neurosurgery in Bern, Berlin, Cambridge and Edinburgh, with a particular interest in the relationship between language, cognition and motor functions. In the years 2010-2018, he was president of the World Federation of Neurology Research Group on Aphasia, Dementia and Cognitive Disorders (WFN RG ADCD). In recent years, his work focused on the impact of language learning and multilingualism on cognitive functions across the lifespan and in brain diseases such as dementia and stroke. His studies include a wide range of populations, from children to elderly, and from Scotland, through India to China and Singapore. Not surprisingly, in his free time, Dr Bak particularly enjoys … learning languages.

In March of 2020, Harvard University, like many of its peers in the United States and elsewhere, shifted all instruction to a remote environment, moving outside the boundaries of the physical classroom. For courses in the 80 languages that Harvard regularly teaches, this development marked an inflection point in the instructional modalities available to faculty and students. Over the course of the spring and summer, faculty were guided in developing fully-online classes that leveraged technologies new to them and to their students, and a range of methodologies that expanded the possibilities for teaching and learning. A year in, what have we learned?

For our institution, which has traditionally been residential, in which small classes with significant personal contact are privileged, and instruction seen as a highly humanistic, personal relationship, the pandemic has been an opportunity to assess instructional modes and methods, and to re-evaluate the efficiencies and drawbacks of a presential model. Other institutions in the United States are also questioning their approach to L2 instruction; what models were particularly successful in the scope of the pandemic, what affordances can we take from online instruction for the new “normal”, how can we integrate these practices into a heretofore presential environment, and what will language instruction look like at Harvard and other post-secondary institutions in the US in the aftermath of COVID? Can institutions, nominally competitive, find common ground and share instruction? How have faculty approaches to open and “owned” educational resources – custom solutions for their curricula – evolved?

In this presentation, I will examine instructional practices adopted during the pandemic across a range of language courses at Harvard, provide insights on how Harvard prepared faculty and students to adjust to online learning, discuss issues of scale and effectiveness, and offer perspectives on how the pandemic has normalized the use of technologies that blur and elide classroom walls – more than any other event in recent memory – in L2 instruction.

Biodata:

Dr. Andrew Ross is the Director of the Language Center at Harvard University, and the Deputy Director for Education Support Services in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He is currently the President of the International Association for Language Learning Technology (IALLT), and as of 2022, will be the Executive Director of the Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning, an organization comprised of Ivy League and peer institutions. He earned his PhD in French at the University of California, Berkeley, and has served as the director of language centers and laboratories at the University of Richmond, Brown University, and Arizona State University.