Past Events

Apr 8, 2022: Uju Anya

March 25, 2022
Critical Race Pedagogy for Antiracist, Equity-Minded, and Inclusive Language Teaching Uju Anya Associate Professor of Second Language Acquisition, Department of Modern Languages, Carnegie Mellon University

This presentation will be realized in two parts. In the first, participants will examine research on experiences of Black and other minoritized students in world language classrooms. They will discuss anti-Black racism and inequity in access, treatment, representation, and...

Dec 2, 2022: Fall BLC Fellows Forum

November 18, 2022
Instructional Development Research Projects
 North African Arabic Language Course Amel Belguith, Lecturer Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures

This presentation outlines a course designed to teach North African Arabic, with an emphasis on Moroccan Arabic, for students who know Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and are interested in pursuing further study in Arabic or a career in politics or international relations. In addition to providing students with a different cultural experience, learning Moroccan Arabic allows them to engage in everyday...

Dec 1, 2023: Fall BLC Fellows Forum

December 1, 2023
Instructional Development Research Projects Building Classes in Languages for Professional Purposes: Opportunities, Challenges, and Best Practices Claire Tourmen Lecturer, Department of French

The UC Berkeley French Department has recently launched an innovative project, aiming at developing professional paths for students through French for Professions classes, local and international internships, and partnerships. Yet, strategic and practical questions remain: Will this project help us recruit students? How can we integrate it...

Apr 28, 2023: Spring BLC Fellows Forum

April 14, 2023
Instructional Development Research Projects Learning Mandarin and Cantonese in Health Communication Contexts Chi Leung Chan Lecturer, East Asian Languages & Cultures

When Mandarin speakers learn Cantonese (and vice versa), they enjoy abundant transferable knowledge, yet suffer from tricky exceptions. The situation is more acute when it comes to professional contexts. This presentation aims to describe a Chinese learning materials development process that will equip students with the skills and knowledge needed for health communication contexts...

Apr 7, 2023: Patricia Baquedano-Lopez and Netta Avineri

March 24, 2023
'Applied Linguistic Anthropology' in Action: Language & Social Justice Projects and Praxis Netta Avineri Associate Professor, Language Teacher Education & Intercultural Communication, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey Patricia Baquedano-López Associate Professor, Berkeley School of Education

Over the past 15 years in the...

Sept 23, 2022: Summer Film Fellows

September 8, 2022
BLC Roundtable: Film in the Language / Culture Curriculum Karen Llagas (Filipino)
Minsook Kim (Korean)
Amir Effat (Spanish)
Cristina Farronato and Giuliana Perco (Italian)
Nataliia Goshylyk (Ukrainian)
Nora Melnikova (Hindi)

Led by Mark Kaiser, BLC Associate Director Emeritus, this past summer the seven speakers listed designed a lesson plan for classroom use based on clips that they created from the foreign language...

Nov 3, 2022: Panel on the Berkeley Language Center - Taking Stock

October 20, 2022
The Berkeley Language Center - Taking stock: Remembering the Past and Envisioning the Future Claire Kramsch (BLC Director Emerita)
David Szanton (IAS Executive Director Emeritus)
Alan Timberlake (Professor of Slavic, Emeritus)
Richard Kern (Former BLC Director)
Mark Kaiser (Former BLC Associate Director)
Kimberly Vinall (BLC Executive Director)
Emily Hellmich (BLC Associate Director)

Founded in 1994, the...

Nov 7, 2022: Dr. Claudia Holguín Mendoza

October 24, 2022
From Research on Sociocultural Linguistics to Critical Literacy for Language Education Dr. Claudia Holguín Mendoza Associate Professor, Hispanic Studies, University of California, Riverside

In this presentation, Dr. Holguín Mendoza describes the design and implementation of a comprehensive Critical Sociocultural Linguistics Literacy curriculum that deconstructs and questions sociopolitical hierarchies, challenges the subordination of heritage language students’ linguistic practices, and elevates...

Feb 15, 2023: Aurora Tsai

February 1, 2023
Mixed-heritage Individuals: Rewriting Narratives of Racial, Linguistic and Cultural Deficiency Aurora Tsai Project Assistant Professor, Center for Global Communication Strategies, University of Tokyo

Mixed-heritage individuals often have difficulty forming a positive sense of racial and cultural identity due to monoracial and raciolinguistic ideologies–beliefs that it is natural to categorize people into distinct categories of race (Harris, 2016) and conscious or unconscious...

Mar 9, 2023: Alastair Pennycook

February 24, 2023
Language as Assemblage Alastair Pennycook Emeritus Professor of Language, Society, and Education, University of Technology Sydney

A focus on language(s) as assemblage reconfigures what counts as language and how social, spatial and material worlds interact. An understanding of assemblages as entangled groupings of different elements allows for an appreciation of the ways in which different trajectories of people, semiotic resources and objects meet at particular moments and places. Drawing on a...