Colloquium
Feb. 12-13, 2005
at UC Berkeley on
Teaching languages in multilingual, multicultural environments

Recent developments in the way languages are learned, used and researched call for a reconsideration of what language teachers are or should be in the business of doing. The ideology of autonomous, national languages has been radically put into question by recent research on societal multilingualism. This research has emphasized the important role that language variation, language contact, identity, power, and ideology play in the construction and dissemination of knowledge, including the teaching and learning of foreign, second and heritage languages. Increased mobility and migrations are giving rise to a multilingual student population in language classes. Communication technologies have generated multimodal types of literacy that challenge the primacy of print literacy traditionally taught in academia. Target cultures are becoming increasingly multicultural and cultural differences between generations of native speakers are becoming more pronounced. Finally, research on language learning and language use has become more multidisciplinary than the original SLA research.

This colloquium is part of an on-going international research collaboration between the Berkeley Language Center and the French National Institute for Oriental Languages and Cultures (INALCO), that explores multilingualism and multiculturalism in language teaching. The colloquium brings together junior and senior researchers as well as language practitioners from Canada, Europe and the U.S who come from various disciplines: psycho- and sociolinguistics, anthropology, educational linguistics. A comparison of research perspectives regarding foreign language education in Europe, Canada and the U.S should open up new ways of envisaging the teaching of second, foreign and heritage languages on our multilingual and multicultural campuses.

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Saturday, 12 February
I. Language and language learning in a multilingual perspective

9.00-9:45
Monica Heller, University of Toronto
Who gets to define what counts as language? Ideology
and interest in language teaching
Abstract

9:45-10.30
Robert Train, Sonoma State University
Ideologies and realities of language and foreign
language education in the US: a critical perspective on the Native Standard
Language
Abstract

Coffee break

11:00-11:45
Daniel Véronique, Université Paris III
La transférabilité, le transfert et le transférable : regards en
didactique des langues et des cultures / Transferability, transfer and the transferable:
aspects of the teaching and learning of foreign languages and cultures
Abstract

11.45-12.30
Leo Van Lier, Monterey Institute for International Studies.
Self and identity in multilingual settings: An ecological-semiotic point of view
Abstract

Lunch break

II. Multilingual learning environments

2:00-2.45
Dominique Charbonneau, Université Paris III
Apprendre et enseigner la littérature francaise en
France et aux Etats Unis/ Studying and teaching French literature in France and the U.S.
Abstract

2.45-3.30
Patchareerat Yanaprasart, Université de Fribourg, Suisse
Professional mobility and the intercultural speaker
Abstract

Coffee break

3.45 – 4.30
Gudrun Ziegler, Université Paris III
Categorization and category formation – a basic need
in language learning environments?
Abstract

4.30-5.15
Anna Livia, University of California, Berkeley
The return of translation

Sunday, 13 February
III. Acquisition of multiliteracies

9.00-9.45
Daniele Moore, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Pratiques plurilittéraciées et pratiques de
transmission en famille et a l’ecole / Pluriliterate practices and literacy development
at home and at school
Abstract

9.45-10.30
Richard Kern, University of California, Berkeley
Multiliteracies and foreign language learning
Abstract

Coffee break

11.00-11.45
Guillaume Gentil, Carleton University Canada
If only teachers of English and French talked
to each other: Bilingual students’ challenges in developing academic and professional
biliteracy at the university
Abstract

11:45-12.30
Edith Cognigni and Nazario Pierdominici , Università di Macerata, Italy
To be Announced.

Lunch break

IV. Teacher development in plurilingual settings

2.00-2.45
Geneviève Zarate, INALCO (L’Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales )
Paris : Du ‘un’ au multiple : les transformations d’un diplôme de
formation d’enseignants de langue sous l’impulsion européenne / From ‘one’ to many :new
developments in the training of teachers of French as a foreign language within a European
framework.
Abstract

2.45-3 :30 Aline Gohard-Radenkovic, Université de Fribourg, Suisse
Les différents niveaux d’appréhension du
plurilinguisme et les conditions préalables pour la constitution d’une didactique universitaire
plurilingue / The different levels of plurilingualism and principles for the construction of a plurilingual didactics at the university level
Abstract

Coffee break

3:45-4:30
Francisco Alarcon, University of California, Davis
Teaching the multilingual multicultural student in California schools

4.30-5:15
Thao Tran Minh, Université Paris III
Réflexion sur la notion de syncrétisme: syncrétisme identitaire –
syncrétisme linguistique?/ The notion of syncretism : Identity and language
Abstract

5.15-6.00
Alastair Pennycook, University of Sydney, Australia
Teaching with the flow: Plurilingualism and permeable classrooms
Abstract

This colloquium is sponsored by:
- France-Berkeley Fund
- UC Berkeley International and Area Studies
- UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science
- Institut National des Langues et Cultures Orientales (INALCO), Paris

with contributions from the following universities:
- Université de Paris III, France
- Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada
- University of Ottawa,Canada
-Université de Fribourg, Suisse