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• NATIONAL INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES POLICY: (4 items)
• ENGAGING WITH ASIA: (4 items)
• SHOULD ASIAN LANGUAGES HAVE PRIORITY? (6 items)
• NETWORKING & ADVOCACY: Multilingual Australia
• RESOURCES: Improving languages education
• RESEARCH: For Kids, Two Languages Can Be as Easy as One
• APPROACHES TO LANGUAGES EDUCATION: (2 items)
• NEWS FROM HERE & THERE: (3 items)
• AWARDS & PRIZES: Japanese Video Festival
• CONFERENCES & EVENTS: (4 items)
• REMINDERS
• ACSSO EMAIL NEWSLETTERS

NATIONAL INDIGENOUS LANGUAGES POLICY

New national approach to preserve Indigenous languages

The Hon Jenny Macklin, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs joint media release with the Hon Peter Garrett, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, 9 August 2009

Indigenous languages will live on for future generations of Australians under a new approach being taken by the Australian Government.

The new National Indigenous Languages Policy is aimed at keeping Indigenous languages alive and supporting Indigenous Australians to connect with their language, culture and country.

Minister for the Arts, Peter Garrett and Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin announced the new approach on the International Day of the World's Indigenous People.

Each year on 9 August the United Nations celebrates and showcases the culture, history and languages of the world's Indigenous people.

The Government's new approach to preserving Indigenous language comes as a report found that of the 145 Indigenous languages still spoken in Australia, 110 are at risk of disappearing.

The National Indigenous Languages Survey Report 2005, revealed that the languages under threat are now spoken by only by small groups of people, mostly over 40 years old and are at risk of being lost.

This new national approach will improve coordination between those who are already working to support Indigenous languages including government, cultural institutions, Indigenous languages organisations, and education and research bodies.

It will focus on five key areas:

• bringing national attention to Indigenous languages;
• encouraging the use of critically endangered languages to maintain and extend their everyday use as much as possible;
• making sure that in areas where Indigenous languages are being spoken fully and passed on, government recognises these languages when it interacts with Indigenous communities;
• helping restore the use of rarely spoken or unspoken Indigenous languages to the extent that the current language environment allows; and
• supporting the teaching and learning of Indigenous languages in Australian schools.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/lzxr8j

Garrett's $9m life raft for Indigenous languages

ABC News, 10 August 2009

Federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett has announced a plan to rescue over 100 threatened Indigenous languages across Australia.

The Government will invest $9 million over the next year towards the project, which includes funding for interpretive and translation services.

A 2005 study titled The National Indigenous Languages Survey found 110 Indigenous languages still spoken in Australia were at risk of disappearing.

Mr Garrett says the funding and national focus will improve coordination between all parties working to reduce the loss of languages.

"We will firstly make sure that we have a feasibility study for the national Indigenous language centre," he said.

"Additionally ... we are going to move forward with the commitment to invest in critically endangered languages, some 65 projects with early childhood tests and mobile childhood teams."

He says the funding recognises that Indigenous languages play an important role in student learning, particularly in bilingual schools.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/mq636c

Indigenous Languages - A National Approach

Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, 10 August 2009

The most recent report on Indigenous languages in Australia, the National Indigenous Languages Survey (NILS) Report 2005, found that the situation of Australia’s Indigenous languages is grave and requires urgent action. Of the 145 indigenous languages still spoken in Australia, 110 are critically endangered. All of Australia’s indigenous languages face an uncertain future if immediate action and care are not taken.

The Australian Government is committed to addressing the serious problem of language loss in Indigenous communities.

It requires coordinated action among the bodies involved in support of Indigenous languages, including government, language organisations and educational and research institutions.

The proposed approach draws on reports and consultation over many decades, including the NILS report and feedback through the Maintenance of Indigenous Languages and Records Program.

The Government is committed to languages education and recognises the important role that Indigenous language learning plays in some schools, particularly bilingual schools.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/kqrwtn

Plan to rescue threatened Indigenous languages applauded

Tom Calma, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, Australian Human Rights Commission, 11 August 2009

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma has welcomed the $9.3 million announced by federal Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts, Peter Garrett and Minister for Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin, to help save more than 100 threatened Indigenous languages.

Commissioner Calma said one way in which Indigenous languages should be preserved was through bilingual approaches in schools and he urged the Northern Territory government to reconsider its plans to dismantle bilingual education through its mandatory four hours of English policy.

“Protecting Indigenous languages is about protecting our futures, our cultures and our lives for future generations,” Commissioner Calma said.

“I applaud Ministers Garrett and Macklin for this initiative and the clear message it sends about the need to protect this vital connection between Indigenous languages, culture and country.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/lhsxzn

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ENGAGING WITH ASIA

Seven projects funded in first round of NALSSP partnerships initiative

Senator Hon Mark Arbib, Acting Minister for Education, 22 July 2009

The Acting Minister for Education, Mark Arbib, today announced seven exemplary projects will receive a total of $2.75 million in funding to boost the number of young Australians studying Asian languages and cultures.

This funding is provided under round one of the Strategic Collaboration and Partnership Fund, a key element of the Australian Government’s National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP).

Through the Strategic Collaboration and Partnership Fund, a total of $9.36 million over three funding rounds will be provided to organisations including higher education providers, businesses and Asian communities.

Round one generated strong demand, with 117 organisations expressing interest in receiving funding.

The seven projects that will receive funding under round one will make a significant contribution to the Government’s commitment to increasing the number of young Australians with knowledge of the languages and cultures of our Asian neighbours.

Round two of the fund will open in March 2010, and round three in March 2011.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/nz83qt

Read more about NALSSP at http://tinyurl.com/lsp63o

New Australia India Institute to strengthen international ties

Hon Julia Gillard MP, Minister for Education, 7 August 2009

The Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, today announced the Australian Government will provide more than $8 million to fund a new Australia India Institute at the University of Melbourne.

The centre will aim to strengthen and sustain bilateral relationships between Australia and India and will be a joint project of the University of Melbourne, La Trobe University and the University of New South Wales.

Funding of $8.106 million will be provided under the Diversity and Structural Adjustment Fund. The universities will invest around $2 million in the institute bringing the total cost of the project to more than $10 million over 3 years.

As the world’s largest democracy and a key emerging economy, India is redefining its role in international affairs and its influence in our region and globally is growing.

Australia welcomes India’s growing global role and is working with India to strengthen our relationship in pursuit of our many shared interests.  To underpin this, the Australian Government is committed to building a greater understanding between our two peoples and Australians’ understanding of India, its culture, its history and its place in the world.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/mvbdhv

Is Australia Asia smart?

Kathe Kirby, ABC News, 18 August 2009

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a commitment to making Australia the most Asia literate nation in the western world last week. It's not a moment too soon.

The fact that Asian languages are currently on the decline in our schools and no state curriculum in Australia explicitly requires the study of Asia has left us in dire shape for the emerging Asian century.

Only 5.8 per cent of Year 12 students currently study an Asian language and close to 80 per cent of students studying Mandarin come from Chinese backgrounds.

A 2006 study found the majority of children surveyed in one Australian state believed all Muslims were terrorists, with most saying they had learned little or nothing about Islam in school.

We live in a complex region yet currently only half of Australian schools teach anything about Asia.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/65kzzj

Kathe Kirby is the executive director of the Asia Education Foundation and Asialink at the University of Melbourne.

Asian Democracy & Australia: No gold pass to a trouble-free future

Greg Sheridan, Asialink Essay Series

In the latest Asialink Essay, released as Australia's Ambassador to China returns to Canberra for high-level talks on the vital China-Australia relationship, Greg Sheridan, foreign editor for The Australian, says democracy in Asia is not a gold pass to a trouble free future for Australia.

Both democracy and dictatorship in Asia throw up challenges, and Australia must relate intelligently in both cases.

But one lesson is clear, he says, from the recent Rubiya Kadeer episode: that consideration for Asian relationships will not compromise Australia's own democratic and pluralist culture.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/kqlo8f

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SHOULD ASIAN LANGUAGES HAVE PRIORITY?

Shocked and disappointed by views on languages

Katherine Davidsen, The Australian, June 23, 2009

I was shocked and disappointed to read Luke Slattery's article ("Why start with character-based Asian tongues? " AED last month), advocating bilingualism through students learning a European language.

As a former language student (now language professional) working in Asia, I find such attitudes not only outdated, but also blind to the reality around us.

Paul Keating was right in that Australia is geographically part of Asia, and this is increasingly true in economic terms as well. Our nearest neighbours are PNG and Indonesia, not France, Germany or countries on the other side of the world speaking European languages. Higher education for overseas students is a huge industry here.

The influx of foreign students as well as tourists from Asia increases Australia's links with the region, creates demand for daily necessities and other services catering for their communities, and enriches Australia's multicultural society.

It also adds to the bank of potential native-speaker foreign language teachers and tutors.

The article argues that Australian students should be bilingual, but in a European language. Excusez-moi, but who are they going to communicate with? Where are the opportunities for speaking French, Spanish and German in our neck of the woods?

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/km2qt8

Language claims are just plain wrong

Jane Orton, The Australian, June 23, 2009

I READ through Luke Slattery's piece in the Higher Education Supplement with growing astonishment: so many unsubstantiated assertions, dubious inferences, and claims that are just plain wrong!

Below I present arguments which counter a couple of the most important of these. I write as someone who has spent 20 years in the modern languages education field, and has degrees in French and Chinese, with tertiary studies also in German.

Without definitions or evidence, Slattery asserts that European languages are "relatively easy to learn", and Indonesian is also "easy", while by implication Chinese and Japanese are not. Such assertions also blur very different meanings for the notion of "easy". In fact, in cognitive terms, Chinese, like Indonesian, is not difficult, with word order very close to English, no inflections or declensions, and just a few aspect markers, which can be used with all verbs. As a result, learners can make terrific communicative progress very quickly.

On the other hand, just to make simple utterances French learners must remember an article for every noun, up to 50 forms of every verb and the subjunctive, grapple with a reversed word order, and cope with pronunciation and orthographic systems decidedly foreign to the English speaker's ear and eye.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/l3rnv2

At a loss for words

Michael Wesley, The Australian, July 01, 2009

LUKE Slattery and I agree that Australian governments need to invest serious money during the next decades to promote multilingualism in this country, which we will increasingly need to compete in a world that is increasingly multilingual.

Where he and I part company, however, is that he believes my plan for promoting broad and generalised knowledge of Asian languages and cultures is lunacy. Much better to promote European languages (he argues) because they are easier to learn.

This is one of the more bizarre arguments I've encountered in my attempt to convince Australian governments to invest more in Asian language teaching. It's the equivalent of arguing that teaching advanced mathematics is too hard, so we needn't trouble our kids with anything beyond basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, even though just about every other developed country is teaching its kids advanced maths and the global economy is increasingly using advanced maths skills.

Each of the languages Slattery suggests Australian kids should be taught, apart from Spanish, is spoken by a tiny and ever decreasing proportion of the world's population. The Italian I laboured to learn years ago I was able to use on a couple of holidays in Italy; the Mandarin Chinese I'm learning now is of use to me constantly.

All languages are hard to learn. That's why the report we launched a couple of weeks ago (Building an Asia-Literate Australia) suggests we begin teaching Asian languages in primary school and continue teaching them consistently throughout school and university. Slattery argues that teaching kids cognate languages first will help them acquire more difficult languages later on but, in this era of crowded curriculums, how many kids will have time to learn not one but two languages?

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/n3ngfr

Mass Asian language program is not sensible

Luke Slattery, July 01, 2009

TO raise serious doubts about the mass Asian language scheme proposed by Kevin Rudd and Michael Wesley, I need demonstrate only two things: first, that the inherent difficulty of character-based languages at the heart of this vision - Chinese-Mandarin and Japanese - is a genuine barrier to broad-based linguistic competency; and, second, that the commercial case for these languages is much diminished by the extent of English language learning in our region. Let's take the degree of difficulty question first.

The US Defence Language Institute in Monterey, California, estimates that it takes three times as many hours of instruction for a student of Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic and Korean to reach the same level of proficiency as students of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and French with the same exposure; in other words, it is roughly three times more difficult.

Offers David Moser from the University of Michigan's Centre for Chinese Studies: "It is simply unreasonably hard to learn enough (Chinese) characters to become functionally literate."

This is not to say that these languages present insuperable barriers to all English speakers; Rudd, with hundreds of extra hours of taxpayer-funded tuition, has managed to shine. But it does suggest, at the least, that the country's broad educational needs will be better served by more pragmatic linguistic options with ancillary benefits: Indonesian, for example, has unmatched strategic importance; romance languages have deep cultural and intellectual resonance.

I have never argued against Asian language tuition in itself. But I don't think a mass Asian language program inducting millions of students from kindergarten to year 12 into the tonal and character-oriented challenges of Mandarin is smart language policy.

What is more, it is driven by an outdated sense of the overriding importance of region when globalism is fast eroding the constraints of geography.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/nehuov

The dynamic of need

Andrew Godwin, July 15, 2009

Language learning is driven by fascination.

BEFORE penning this comment, I had been racking my brain to think of how I could make a meaningful contribution to the Asian languages debate.

After all, buying into the debate should be relatively easy for somebody with my background: a former student who studied Chinese at school and at university, a lawyer who practised in China for 10 years, and now an academic who uses his Chinese extensively for research purposes. In every sense, I am a beneficiary of an enlightened language policy, at least as it existed in the 1970s and 80s.

However, there are at least two reasons why I have found it difficult to take a position in this debate.

For a start, I am not a language teacher and am therefore not qualified to comment on the pedagogical challenges that face language teachers, especially at the primary and secondary level.

Second, and perhaps more frustrating, I find myself torn between the lofty goals of those who want to increase Asian literacy in Australia, and the practical difficulties of teaching a language such as Chinese en masse.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/nlgnea

Don't say no to a new idiom

Roland Sussex, The Australian, July 22, 2009

THERE is no excuse for being complacent about our monolingualism.

Australia is underperforming and dangerously negligent in its LOTE policy and practice. Most of our commercial and cultural trading partners (you can, of course, trade in culture) are at least bilingual, with English as their second language. The shameful exceptions, alas, are those whose first language is English and who, like us, are pathetic at LOTEs.

Two-thirds of the world's population is at least bilingual. But most people with English as a first language are monolingual or at best have a second language in disuse.

But if we are to fix things, which languages do we target?

Wesley is for Asian languages because of geography and commercial trade, to the sweet tune of more than $11 billion.

Slattery argues the case for European languages. Asian languages, in his view, are overall too difficult and even $11bn would not suffice. He favours European languages because they are closer to English and so easier to learn. After all, the heap of money thrown at Asian language study since the Garnaut report in 1989 has led to only limited advances.

However, two big questions remain. Why not just use English? And which LOTEs should be chosen and why?

If everyone is learning English, surely we could sit back and wait for others to communicate with us in our language?

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/kjumsk

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NETWORKING & ADVOCACY

Multilingual Australia

Multilingual Australia is a pressure group designed to promote the teaching of all languages everywhere.

The group has established a blog for discussions about the promotion of multilingual education throughout Australia, especially in primary and pre-primary levels but also in the wider community.

There are links to MA's twitter and Facebook accounts, and links to resources such as the Language to Language Translation Service.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/lowy8l

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RESOURCES

Improving languages education

Angela Scarino, Associate Professor and Director, Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, University of South Australia, 8 May 2009

Teaching and Learning Languages: A Guide is a new resource that has recently been provided to all Australian schools, as well as to many individuals and groups involved in languages education.

The Guide, by Angela Scarino and Anthony Liddicoat, is designed to promote reflection on language education, including languages programs, and the roles and pedagogical approaches of language teachers.

It can be used by school leaders, policy makers, curriculum consultants and the wider community as a tool to support the ongoing development, evaluation and renewal of languages programs in schools.

The Guide recognises that language learning needs to take into account the importance of language and culture to people’s everyday lives. It therefore promotes languages teaching with consideration given to two complementary goals: students’ development of their sociocultural, experiential identities on the one hand, and on the other, their communicative repertoires in the target language.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/ma369p

Download the guide at http://tinyurl.com/n9qprt

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RESEARCH

For Kids, Two Languages Can Be as Easy as One

Peter West, Health Day News, 9 July 2009

European researchers are contesting the assumption that bilingual toddlers have more trouble learning language skills than children who know just one language.

"While the remarkable performance of children acquiring one language is impressive, many children acquire more than one language simultaneously," said study author Agnes Melinda Kovacs, a research fellow at the International School for Advanced Studies, in Trieste, Italy. "As bilingual children presumably have to learn roughly twice as much as their monolingual peers [because they learn two languages instead of one], one would expect their language acquisition to be somewhat delayed. However, bilinguals pass the language development milestones at the same ages as their monolingual peers."

The finding, which appears online July 9 in Science, came from a test of the responses to verbal and visual cues from 64 babies who were 12 months old. They came from monolingual and bilingual families, although the study did not specify which languages the families spoke.

"We showed that pre-verbal, 12-month-old, bilingual infants have become more flexible at learning speech structures than monolinguals," Kovacs said. "When given the opportunity to simultaneously learn two different regularities, bilingual infants learned both, while monolinguals learned only one of them."

This means, she said, that "bilinguals may acquire two languages in the time in which monolinguals acquire one because they quickly become more flexible learners."

According to the study, the cognitive pathways developed during the learning of two languages might make bilingual children more efficient in acquiring new information.

Earlier research has often confirmed the benefits of learning more than one language.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/nnob6k

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APPROACHES TO LANGUAGES EDUCATION

Language Exchange

Language exchange is a method of language learning based on mutual language practicing by learning partners who are speakers of different languages. Language exchange is sometimes called Tandem language learning.

Language exchanges are generally considered helpful for developing language proficiency, especially in speaking fluency and listening comprehension. Language exchanges that take place through writing or text chats, also improve reading comprehension and writing ability. Given that language exchanges generally take place between native speakers of different languages, there is also the side benefit of improving cross-cultural communication.

This practice have long been used by individuals to exchange knowledge of foreign languages. For example, John Milton gave Roger Williams an opportunity to practice in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French, while receiving lessons in Dutch in exchange.

Universities are increasingly experimenting with language exchanges as part of the language learning curriculum. In this respect, language exchanges have a similar role as study abroad programs and language immersion programs in creating an environment where the language student must use the foreign language for genuine communication outside of a classroom setting.

PenpalAmis - French and English language exchange website: http://www.penpalamis.info/
Babelan - Web page to find a language exchange with native speakers: http://www.babelan.net/babelan.php?lang=eng&c=NYK
italki.com - Website where users can find language exchange partners: http://www.italki.com/
mylanguageexchange.com: http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/
foreign languages home: http://www.foreignlanguagehome.com/
Scrabbin.com - An online language exchange community: http://www.scrabbin.com/
LingoZone.com - Free language exchange: http://www.lingozone.com/
xLingo.com - Language exchange community: http://www.xlingo.com/

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/6jjpny

Music used to teach language

Tanner Kent, Mankato Free Press, Minnesota, USA, 11 July 2009

Based on the principles of nationally renowned music educator and researcher Larry Scripp’s Music in Education National Consortium, the Franklin Elementary Walkabout program is hosting a summer music program aimed at boosting the academic skills of English-language learners.

The program is sponsored by the Mankato Symphony Orchestra, which has helped provide staff and secure grant funding from the MARDAG and Rockefeller Foundations.

For four days a week, students spend half the day learning to play several instruments. On Mondays and Wednesdays, it’s violins. On Tuesdays, students sing and learn recorder and, on Thursdays, students play the drums.

Each day, students practice the same sounds and songs, but on different instruments. They learn to read and perform musical notes on a modified staff that resembles a mathematical x-y plane.

Along the way, students learn to read left-to-right and decode symbols (founding elements of English-language acquisition) while also learning spatial reasoning, logic and problem-solving skills.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/kt55jb

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NEWS FROM HERE & THERE

Malaysia to end teaching math and science in English

Razak Ahmad, Forbes, 8 July 2009 (Reuters)

Malaysia is to abandon teaching maths and science in English, saying that far too many children from poor rural areas were being failed by the program.

The decision to start phasing out English medium teaching from 2012 has been backed by the government and Malaysia's main opposition parties, despite concerns that using the national language, Bahasa Malaysia, will undermine competitiveness.

Malaysia has said recently that it wants to attract more high-value investment in areas like banking and finance, industries that are global and typically demand good English.

Instead of teaching maths and science in English, a policy started in 2003, the government will double the time spent on English lessons for primary children and increase that for secondary school children by half.

It said it would hire an additional 14,000 teachers to teach English as a language.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/ml5rck

Confucius programs on the rise

Bernard Lane, The Australian, July 29, 2009

THE proliferation of Confucius institutes, which has come as an unpleasant surprise to at least one university hoping to corner a local market, may not have run its course yet.

"There's no indication that anybody is opting for more, but it would be premature to say that this is the end," says Hans Hendrischke, director of the institute to be launched at the University of NSW tomorrow. China drives the growth of the institutes, which deliver language and culture programs in partnership with local universities.

By next year, there are expected to be nine institutes at work, seven of them on the eastern seaboard, a market that the University of Melbourne expected to have to itself when it became one of the first universities to sign up.

In 2005, when the University of Western Australia emerged as the first Australian host institution, the official Chinese target was 100 institutes worldwide.  By April, unexpectedly rapid growth had brought the total to the mid-300s, Hendrischke says.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/lqwjre

Funding boost to assist diverse language service for Canberra children

John Hargreaves MLA, ACT Multicultural Affairs Minister, 6 August 2009

Minister for Multicultural Affairs John Hargreaves today presented a $22,000 cheque to the ACT Ethnic Schools Association to help with the teaching of diverse languages to Canberra children.

Mr Hargreaves said community language schools play a vital role in assisting multicultural community groups to maintain their cultural identity, language and heritage.

"According to the 2006 ABS Census, more than 22 per cent of the ACT population was born overseas and more than 14 per cent speak a language other than English at home," he said.

"In Canberra, we enjoy living in a diverse community that is a valuable resource in learning different languages and becoming culturally intelligent.

"The Ethnic Schools Association has made a significant and ongoing contribution to multiculturalism in Canberra by nurturing the many different languages spoken in the community - and in doing so has helped maintain our diverse cultural heritage."

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/n2wzkc

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AWARDS & PRIZES

Japanese Video Festival

The objective of this festival is to enable students to use their creative abilities to showcase their Japanese. Students (and teachers!) can give vent to their dramatic, musical, directing or other skills while enjoyably using Japanese. The task is to produce a short film or animation of up to 4 minutes. Works may include skits, dramas, musical performances, documentaries or anything you like.

There are no restrictions on theme or style, but all works must include Japanese language.

Awards will be given to videos which excel in certain areas such as script, performance, music, costumes, ensemble work, editing, and overall direction / production. The award winning videos will be put on our website. There will be 4 divisions:

• Primary
• Junior Secondary
• Senior Secondary
• Tertiary

All works must be submitted by 30 September 2009

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/levyjl

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CONFERENCES & EVENTS

English Australia Conference

17-19 September, Hilton on the Park, Melbourne, VIC

The Conference for the International English Language Industry

Following a highly successful change of focus in 2008 the English Australia Conference now provides a single forum for all those working in the ELICOS sector or engaging in some way with the ELICOS sector (English Language Intensive Courses for Overseas Students).

This is the perfect event to exchange views, keep up to date on domestic and international developments, develop skills across a broad spectrum of areas, gain greater awareness and understanding of career pathway opportunities within and related to the sector and network with a range of delegates from within and outside the sector.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/l37eeg

EXPOLINGUA Praha 2009

6-7 November, Prague, Czech Republic

International Fair for Languages, Education and Cultures

For almost two decades, the exhibition has been offering exhibitors an ideal platform to present a diverse spectrum of products and services related to language learning, education and teaching, as well as cultures from around the globe.

Each year, over 100 exhibitors from over 20 countries and more than 6,000 visitors attend this multinational event.

EXPOLINGUA Praha 2009 will offer a seminar programme open to all visitors with workshops, presentations and mini-language courses. Topics will include study and work experience abroad, language learning and language teaching. Portuguese will be the language of honour at EXPOLINGUA Praha 2009.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/mbgmt7

EXPOLINGUA Berlin 2009

20-22 November, Berlin, Germany

International Fair for Languages, Education and Cultures

Visitors come to EXPOLINGUA Berlin to get expert advice on the wide-ranging options for learning and teaching foreign languages, as well as to participate in targeted networking with professionals in the language training industry.

Language teachers, HR and training specialists, language travel agents, publishers, schools and cultural institutes come to EXPOLINGUA Berlin to make new contacts and refresh existing relationships.

Parallel to the exhibition, EXPOLINGUA Berlin’s seminar programme offers visitors a rich and varied series of lectures, workshops and mini-language courses.

Visitors can choose from 100 presentations covering topics such as studying and working abroad, language tests and international educational programmes.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/lja3qs

Conference on Distinguished Language Studies

4-5 December 2009, Linthicum, Maryland, USA

In cooperation with the Global Language Centre and Language Learning Centre, the Coalition of Distinguished Language Centres, the only international organization dedicated to research and application of research in the area of teaching and achieving native-like foreign-language proficiency, will be holding its seventh annual symposium at the Embassy Suites Hotels in Linthicum, Maryland (near Baltimore-Washington Airport), December 4-5, 2009.

Professors, researchers, administrators, and others with experience in teaching, studying, translation/interpretation, or assessment at the near-native level of proficiency in any foreign language are invited to submit a one-page abstract (exclusive of bibliography) on any aspect of language study at the distinguished level.

There will be several areas of focus: teaching methods and practices, language learning experiences, research, translation/interpretation, program development/management, and assessment (proficiency, diagnostic, dynamic, other). Whole panels may be suggested and abstracts submitted together, if desired.

The working language of the conference will be English. However, presentations may be in any language, as long as there are enough presentations in that language to form a panel.

Read more at http://tinyurl.com/lufg5k

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REMINDERS

12-13 September - Victorian State Conference for German Teachers - Geelong, VIC - http://tinyurl.com/obudjn

29 October-1 November - Second Language Research Forum Conference - Michigan State University, USA - http://tinyurl.com/r4llc3

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