ebulletin: September 2007

The monthly Subject Centre e-bulletin gives information on events, news items and newly available resources. Register if you would like to receive notification of future e-bulletins via email.

General interest

other forthcoming events
Preparing for academic practice: disciplinary perspectivesClick to expand arrow

Date: 8 April, 2008 - 9 April, 2008
Location: St Anne's College, University of Oxford
Event type: Conference

A conference focusing on ways of helping people to start and develop academic careers, with the emphasis on what these terms mean within particular academic disciplines. For more information, please see the conference website.

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other forthcoming events
Here be dragons? Humanities, Enterprise and Higher EducationClick to expand arrow

Date: 10 October, 2007
Location: Leeds Metropolitan University
Event type: Workshop

It is often asked if enterprise and entrepreneurship are relevant for students in humanities disciplines. In this workshop research into how humanities graduates can gain from learning and experiencing enterprise and entrepreneurship will be presented, as well as discussing ways in which students and institutions can implement and benefit from such experiences. The relevance of enterprising skills for ALL graduates, not simply those setting up on their own, will be discussed, as well as problems, setbacks and ways forward. For more information, please see the conference website.

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Languages

materials bank
Spanish: processing instructionClick to expand arrow
Author: Dr Emma Marsden,
These materials set out the principles behind processing instruction. Processing instruction materials are reading and listening activities. The aim is to design tasks such that learners have to show that they have attended to the meaning of specific target features when they are reading or hearing sentences in the target language. These target features are those which a) appear to be slow to be acquired in production, b) have differences with the learners’ L1 and/ or c) are likely to be ‘ignored’ by learners when they normally hear or read the languages because the features are communicatively redundant (i.e. there are other clues in the input which communicate the same meaning, e.g. intonation, syntax, lexical items).

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guide to good practice
Conducting successful translation classesClick to expand arrow
Author: Séverine Hubscher-Davidson,
Translating can be taught with a number of different methods so as to meet all of the students' needs. This article reviews some of these methods, and highlights ways in which they can be applied in the translation classroom.

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event
Foundations in language testing and assessmentClick to expand arrow

Date: 16 November, 2007
Location: Senate House, University of London
Event type: Workshop

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event
LLAS pedagogic research forumClick to expand arrow

Date: 14 November, 2007
Location: Senate House, University of London
Event type: Forum

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event
Teaching literatures of the AmericasClick to expand arrow

Date: 18 October, 2007
Location: Rm LG33, Building 28 (Learning Centre), Edgbaston Campus, University of Birmingham
Event type: Seminar

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event
Languages, education, technology and teaching conferenceClick to expand arrow

Date: 21 September, 2007
Location: Open Access Centre, Newcastle University
Event type: Subject Centre sponsored lecture

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other forthcoming events
National workshop: teaching visual arts in a modern languages syllabusClick to expand arrow

Date: 23 November, 2007
Location: Rushmore Room, St Catharine's College, Cambridge
Event type: Workshop

This national workshop will bring together academics from modern languages departments who teach visual art from a range of national and historical contexts. By exploring the particular challenges and opportunities encountered in teaching the visual arts to students of modern languages, it will enable the sharing of best practice and the exchange of ideas, and will establish a network of colleagues working in this area. Colleagues wishing to participate should contact the workshop organisers; Abigail Brundin, Emma Wagstaff or Matthew Treherne. The event is free, but participants are asked to register at the workshop website.

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other forthcoming events
Cherchez the ‘learning object’Click to expand arrow

Date: 9 November, 2007
Location: Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (LATEU), Building 25, Southampton University
Event type: Workshop

Participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to explore a fully-functional prototype repository of online learning materials enhanced with web 2.0 or social networking tools, and featuring an interface that enables you to browse using a language learning and teaching concept map. This repository allows ‘sharing in action’ and has been designed with community involvement so that it meets the needs of real life users. For more information, please see the conference website.

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materials bank
Intute Virtual Training SuiteClick to expand arrow
Author:
A set of online tutorials, authored by university subject specialists, are designed to help students develop Internet research skills for their university or college work, and can be used by lecturers and librarians to support their courses.

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news
The LanQua Toolkit is now available onlineClick to expand arrow
The LanQua Toolkit is the main output of the Language Network for Quality Assurance (LanQua), a network of 60 teachers of languages and related studies across Europe which was coordinated by LLAS and funded by the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Erasmus Network programme.

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Linguistics

guide to good practice
Learning and teaching discourse analysisClick to expand arrow
Author: Dr Nicola Woods,
Learning and teaching discourse analysis engages students and tutors in the exploration of texts and talk. Analysis of discourse data encourages students to reflect upon and critically evaluate knowledge acquired in the study of, for example, syntax and semantics as well as naturally drawing students to the investigation of socially-situated language use. Such study provides students with the opportunity to examine how meaning is constructed and negotiated in discourse and to reflect on the role that language plays in social life. Teaching discourse analysis involves introducing students to relevant theories and guiding them in the application of these theories to real life language use. Learning is grounded in students' own experience and in the questions they ask about problems in the humanities and social sciences.

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guide to good practice
Lexical semanticsClick to expand arrow
Author: Dr Lynne Murphy,
The nature of lexical semantics has changed markedly in the twenty-to-thirty years since classic texts like Lyons (1977) and Cruse (1986) were published. Such texts were written at a time when Structuralist lexical semantics essentially carried on separately from major [Generative] theories of grammar. During and since the 1980s, however, theories of grammar have become much more lexically-driven, necessitating much deeper attention to issues of lexical meaning. Unfortunately, there is a tendency in lexical semantics courses and in semantics textbooks to present lexical semantics essentially as it was 30 years ago, with the focus limited to polysemy/homonymy and the ‘nym’ relations (synonym, antonym, etc.). This guide examines ways to construct a modern classroom approach to lexical semantics, with a broader definition of the field.

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guide to good practice
Teaching language and genderClick to expand arrow
Author: Jane Sunderland, Joan Swann,
The relationship between language and gender has long been of interest within sociolinguistics and related disciplines. After overviewing the history of the subject, the article discusses possible content for language and gender courses as well as addressing issues which may arise in the classroom setting.

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event
LLAS pedagogic research forumClick to expand arrow

Date: 14 November, 2007
Location: Senate House, University of London
Event type: Forum

Read more...

 

Area Studies

event
LLAS pedagogic research forumClick to expand arrow

Date: 14 November, 2007
Location: Senate House, University of London
Event type: Forum

Read more...

event
Teaching literatures of the AmericasClick to expand arrow

Date: 18 October, 2007
Location: Rm LG33, Building 28 (Learning Centre), Edgbaston Campus, University of Birmingham
Event type: Seminar

Read more...

other forthcoming events
National workshop: teaching visual arts in a modern languages syllabusClick to expand arrow

Date: 23 November, 2007
Location: Rushmore Room, St Catharine's College, Cambridge
Event type: Workshop

This national workshop will bring together academics from modern languages departments who teach visual art from a range of national and historical contexts. By exploring the particular challenges and opportunities encountered in teaching the visual arts to students of modern languages, it will enable the sharing of best practice and the exchange of ideas, and will establish a network of colleagues working in this area. Colleagues wishing to participate should contact the workshop organisers; Abigail Brundin, Emma Wagstaff or Matthew Treherne. The event is free, but participants are asked to register at the workshop website.

Read more...

materials bank
Intute Virtual Training SuiteClick to expand arrow
Author:
A set of online tutorials, authored by university subject specialists, are designed to help students develop Internet research skills for their university or college work, and can be used by lecturers and librarians to support their courses.

Read more...

 

Other news

news
New academic coordinatorClick to expand arrow

This month we welcome Shoshannah Holdom, our new academic coordinator, who as part of her role will be helping to develop our activity in supporting the teaching of literary and cultural studies.

news
Survey: Year abroad for dual linguistsClick to expand arrow

The Subject Centre wishes to gather and disseminate information on the organisation and structure of residence abroad for students doing two languages. We are interested in collating this information so that current practice can be shared across the sector. Please note that any information received will be treated in confidence and no specific details will be attributed to individual institutions.

Year abroad survey for dual linguists:

news
Languages video competition on YouTubeClick to expand arrow

With activity to promote language learning set to intensify as the Routes into Language project takes off, here's an activity to get students thinking about point of learning another language and producing a useful resource at the same time. The competition, run by CILT, involves creating a two minute video clip that presents the most convincing case for being able to speak more than one language. It can be an interview, an animation, a sketch or even some sort of spoof - the funnier the better!

[read more...]