Lecture by Claire Kramsch, September 21, 2007

Language Ecology in Practice: Implications for Foreign Language Education

by Claire Kramsch, Professor of German and Foreign Language Acquisition, University of California, Berkeley

Language ecology as applied to language learning has been defined as a “convenient metaphor for a post-structuralist conceptualization of language learning as a nonlinear, relational human activity, co-constructed between humans and their environment, contingent upon their position in space and history, and a site of struggle for the control of social power and cultural memory” (Kramsch 2002:5).  This paper explores what an ecological perspective could mean concretely for foreign language education at the college level in the U.S.

Friday, September 21, 2007
3:00-5:00 pm
2040 Valley Life Science Bldg.