7th Annual TALGS Conference
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Hosted by East Carolina University,
English Department, Linguistics & TESOL
Conference website: http://ecu.edu/cs-cas/engl/talgs/index.cfm
Time: Saturday, February 20, 2010, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Location: Bate Building, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
Conference information: Organized by the Linguistics and TESOL graduate students and faculty, TALGS (TESOL/Applied Linguistics Graduate Students) conference is aimed at providing a serious yet relaxed environment for professionals and graduate students working in TESL/TEFL and a variety of applied linguistic fields to present their work and receive feedback. TALGS conference offers educators and graduate students a forum to showcase their research and experiences. TALGS is committed to improving the educational experience of language learners by providing a comfortable environment for interaction between theory, practice, teachers and researchers. The event, co-sponsored by Carolina TESOL, is a continuing education opportunity for North Carolina teachers.
Proposals: Research Meets Practice & Practice Meets Research: We encourage submissions from educators and graduate students whose research and practice fall broadly under the umbrella of TESL/TEFL and applied linguistics. We welcome cross-disciplinary proposals with relevance to language learning and/or language teaching from a variety of fields, including, for example, education, foreign languages, psychology, sociolinguistics, and sociology, English studies, and discourse studies. Presentations reporting on action research (inside and outside the classroom), works in progress, and pilot research, as well as proposals for discussion sessions and workshops are welcome. For more information, please visit the TALGS website. Submit your proposal online by November 30, 2009.
Plenary speaker: Dr. Elaine E. Tarone is the Director of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), and Distinguished Teaching Professor in English as a Second Language at the University of Minnesota, where she has provided preparatory coursework for MA ESL students since 1979. Professor Tarone's research publications since 1972 have focused on the impact of social context and literacy level on oral second language processing, production, and acquisition. CARLA has been a Title VI Language Resource Center since 1993, and is known for its large web site of resources for language teachers, its intensive summer institutes and conferences, its working papers and electronic newsletters. For more information about Dr. Elaine Tarone please visit her website at http://www.iles.umn.edu/profile.php?UID=etarone.
Plenary Session: Alphabetic Literacy Level and Oral L2 Processing
Research on second language (L2) acquisition has focused on oral skills, but neglected a variable that characterizes large numbers of second language learners: alphabetic print literacy. This omission greatly limits our understanding of the human capacity for language learning. The presenter reports on a collaborative research project that documents a significant impact of low alphabetic literacy level on the processing of oral L2 input. She relates those findings to prior research in cognitive psychology showing significant differences in the native language phonological awareness of literate and illiterate adults. This line of research needs to be pursued further, and pedagogical approaches for ESL instruction of adults and adolescents developed.
Invited Discussion: Exploring Learner Language for Teachers
This discussion session will focus on a new approach to second language acquisition for language teachers, one which provides teachers with opportunities for hands-on experience to develop skills in analyzing learner language in their own classrooms. The approach is used in Exploring Learner Language (2009, OUP), with videos of language learners involved in task-based communication. Using exercises set in a framework of Exploratory Practice, teachers develop their own perspectives on learner language, and relate these to pedagogical decision-making.
Pre-registration: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/engl/talgs/registration.cfm by January 18, 2010
Contact us:
Zuzana Elliott, Stephen Kintz, & Sun Yi, graduate student organizers: talgs@ecu.edu
Faculty sponsor, Lida Cope: copel@ecu.edu
Visit Linguistics and TESOL at ECU: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-cas/engl/graduate/linguistics.cfm
http://www.ecu.edu/english/graduate/tesol.cfm