This may be of interest.
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From: "Kelly, Joy [CLS]" <[log in to unmask]>
To: Alison Phipps <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: CCC Conference '99
Date sent: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 14:55:00 +0100
__________________________________
4th Annual Cross-Cultural Capability Conference
'Mapping the Territory: the Poetics and Praxis of Languages and
Intercultural Communication'
CENTRE FOR LANGUAGE STUDY, LEEDS METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
11th - 13th DECEMBER 1999, BECKETT PARK, LEEDS, ENGLAND
For further details, please contact Joy Kelly, Centre for Language Study,
Leeds Metropolitan University, Beckett Park Campus, Leeds, LS6 3QS. Email:
[log in to unmask], Fax: (0113) 2745966, International fax: +44 113
2745966, Tel: (0113) 2837440, International tel: +44 113 2837440,
http://www.lmu.ac.uk/cls
___________________________________
Background:
This will be the fourth international conference to be held at Leeds
Metropolitan University in what is now clearly a major area for development.
Initiated by language teachers and researchers concerned to explore the
wider educational agenda of their discipline, successive conferences have
benefitted from the insights and enthusiasms of linguists, communication
specialists, and colleagues in related areas, working together to define the
borders of this new field of learning. Building on the insights and
understanding engendered by the previous conferences, this conference will
seek to focus attention on the territory of the new 'discipline' through a
programme including:
· plenary addresses from leading specialists in key related areas
· seminars to further critical debate on new and ongoing research in the
field
· workshops dedicated to the sharing of pedagogy
The Focus:
The term 'Poetics and Praxis', from its initial use in one of the opening
keynote papers, was a frequent term of reference throughout the December
1998 conference. Discussions highlighted the complementary poles of this
emerging interdisciplinary field of learning:
· on the one hand, in an era of unprecedented pressures on languages
resulting from the expansion of global communications, a new idealism and
ideological stance concerning the educational and social mission underlying
the teaching of languages as a system for communication and interaction
across cultures;
· on the other hand, in an era of diminishing resources for education, of
increasing pressures for diversification, and of a widening range of
required outcomes, a concern with the implementation and teaching
practicalities of this new construct, which confronts us with ontological
issues basic to the human condition.
The 1998 conference opened up an exciting terrain of new conceptual and
theoretical insights, often far in advance of what appears to be happening
at the level of pedagogy, and which accentuated for practising linguists the
sense of operating within increasingly inadequate paradigms.
The notion of unitary cultures is seen as an outmoded construct in a world
in which we are continually crossing cultural borders which require us to
define meaning and identity ever afresh. Yet most language teaching still
operates within the framework of single subject departments or sections, and
much language teaching remains focused on narrowly defined notions of
linguistic competence.
In parallel with this +inward focus+, there is a clear and pressing need to
evaluate the theoretical insights, research methodologies, and pedagogic
practices which other disciplines have to bring to the emerging field; to
learn from their explorations, and to explore for ourselves how these
insights can inform and enrich the territory before us.
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(With apologies for cross-postings)
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