The initiative of the “Inspiring Woman of the Year Awards”  is open to inspiring women to celebrate the woman behind the organisation,  association or business,  her personal successes and achievements and how she individually inspires others”. More details are available on

http://www.women-leaders.eu/Uk/Trophee/Participating.asp?ID=5

Get the article free of charge via Springer – Online First

The purpose of this special issue is to identify trends and effective practices of multilingual education in different regions of the world such as Africa, the Americas, Asia and Pacific and Europe, which will highlight the characteristics of effective practices and common problems. For each region, the discussion starts with an introductory article which captures the new trends in the region. Case studies from formal and non-formal education follow all educational levels and age groups. In these studies authors critically analyse the integration of the multilingual ethos and culture into the development and conceptualisation of the education programme with regard to literacy and oracy, teacher training and the development of a literate environment, and the extent to which these programmes open up to a lifelong learning process. Furthermore, the role, the status, the function and the timing of the languages of instruction will be analysed, as well as the way language acquisition and learning are conceived as part of the conceptual framework.

Article available via http://www.springerlink.com/

You will find the document on menu section RESEARCH – ACTIVITY REPORT – 2011

or following the link: http://dica-lab.org/files/2011/12/DICA_ANNUAL_report_20111.pdf

As screens play a growing part in our daily communication, as meeting possilbities have increased with social networks, how shall we prompt and train our teachers to take advantage of the potential of these tools and appliations in their language classrooms and beyond? Some of questions will be discussed throughout the webinar session.

“ Teacher training in the age of Web 2.0: The current situation & future perspectives”.

This event will be broadcasted Live via
Elluminate on Wednesday November 30th, 2011 time 14:00-15:00 CET(GMT+1)

Invited speakers for this Webinar session:

Christine Develotte, ENS de Lyon-Ifé , France

Mirjam Hauck, Open University, UK

Melinda Dooly, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ,Spain

For free registration, please contact to

ls6.teachertraining@gmail.com

Downloadable poster is here

LS6 team

Follow us and connect with us through twitter,Vimeo, Linkedin and Mendeley

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.

This publication[communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information
contained therein..

This study was conducted with young people with fewer opportunities from six European countries (Germany, Netherlands, France, Hungary, Italy, and the United Kingdom) who were recruited in six youth centres, members of the umbrella institution Y.E.S. Forum, through a questionnaire-based survey.  The research team from Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) has conducted an excellent research about the language learning with relation to ICT based on the responses of the collected questionnaires.

This transversal study aims to gain a better understanding of the kind of strategies developed, the tools and resources these learners use and the kind of social synergies that are supportive to trainers, teacher, family and friends.

The offcial release of the study is here. The study is available here.

Enjoy reading

Language Learning and Social Media: 6 Key Dialogues

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.

This publication[communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made ofthe information contained therein.

Research papers at International ISCAR congress, Rome, Sept. 5-10, 2011

The following research papers and panels have been accepted and were presented at the 2011 ISCAR international congress, Rome.

http://www.iscar2011.org/eng/info_iscar.php

Symposium – Beyond acquisition and participation: empirical studies on dialectical learning approaches in early education (Chair: Charles Max – Univ. of Luxembourg, Discussant: Jaan Valsiner – Clarke University)

• Research Paper 1: Sociodramatic play activities as mediating tools in multilingual interactions (Ludwig Marnie, Gudrun Ziegler – University of Luxembourg)
• Research Paper 2: “Participation framework” as an analytical artefact for analysing early language development in a multilingual contexts (Delia Wirtz, Gudrun Ziegler – University of Luxembourg)
• Research Paper 3: “There fits more in than there” – “Doing science” through interactions in the early childhood classroom (Charles Max, Christina Siry – University of Luxembourg)

Symposium – Enhancing professional development by “talking” – Interactional perspectives on mentoring practices as intervention devices (Chair: Gudrun Ziegler – University of Luxembourg, Discussant: Jaan Valsiner – Clarke University)

• Research paper 1: Tutoring as a developmental process across institutional boundaries – An activity-theoretical analysis of tutoring in initial teacher education (Charles Max – University of Luxembourg)
• Research paper 2: “It’s (not) only conversation …” – Features of mentor-mentee talk and their implications for learning from an interactional perspective (Nadja Weber – University Kaiserslautern, Gudrun Ziegler – University of Luxembourg)
• Research paper 3: Clinical supervision interaction as a site for learning – insights on talk as social action (Sirpa Laitinen-Vaänänen – JAMK)

Individual Research paper: Educational design in/for diversity in higher education: devices for constructing expertise in new forms of learning (Gudrun Ziegler – University of Luxembourg, Sirpa Laitinen-Väänänen – JAMK)

Professors Charles Max and Gudrun Ziegler of University of Luxembourg hosted DICA-lab’s research workshop on “Learning in multilingual contexts” which took place on Campus Walferdange,  August 31 – September 2, 2011. The twenty participants – of University of Kaiserslautern,  Northeastern University,  Luxembourg University and European School (Luxembourg) – discussed recent outcomes of running research projects.

August 31st,  2011

Dr. J.C. Choi,  PhD-candidate C. Albanese and Prof. Ziegler presented outcomes of the study on phonological awareness in multilingual subjects involving Korean. Results point to an effect of school literacy practices (Luxembourg’s public schools) with regard to German and French as well as writing practices regarding Luxembourgish and Portuguese.

Prof. C. Max and project-members M. Kracheel and Prof. G. Ziegler provided a short overview of the results of the CODI-SCILE-A project,  highlighting the specific nature of learning in multilingual contexts with regard to early science learning as these results are currently presented by the project members at international conferences EARLI,  ESERA and ISCAR during the month of September 2011.

September 1st,  2011

Findings in the area of English as a learner language in multilingual contexts were in focus of the workshop session conducted by N. Durus, Dr. N. Family and Prof. G. Ziegler. The project under the supervision of Prof. Ziegler draws from a unique database,  recent findings present features of multilingual learners practices in English as an international language. These findings have been discussed during this workshop session as regards their implications for classroom management and teaching routines in the context of Luxembourg’s public as well as European school. Moreover,  the workshop session questioned the role of English in the light of school- and work-driven multilingualism in Luxembourg’s society.

The workshop session lead by Prof. S. Allen discussed recent findings on gesture-speech relationship in multilingual children and adults from a cross-linguistic analysis involving German, Turkish as well as Korean and Japanese.

PhD-candidate A. Ouafo presented the methodology of the research project which focuses on Luxembourgish as an additional language for migrant multilinguals arriving,  living and working in Luxembourg. Entering her second year of PhD-work under the supervision of Prof. G. Ziegler,  the workshop session dealt with methodological questions on the tracing of learning in everyday activities.

September 2nd,  2011

Workshop participants together with the editorial team of the edited volume “Professionalising multilingualism in higher education” discussed the contributions which have been submitted to the editors in line with the 2010 conference of  “Multilingual Universities” ( http://multilingualuniversities.net/blog/ ). The two workshop sessions aimed at gathering the comments by the reviewers so far and to discuss the planned sections of the volume as presented by Prof. G. Ziegler and collaborators.