Intercultural Language Teaching/Learning

9:00 – 13:00
Location:Room 2, Dipartimento di Lettere e Filosofia, via Tommaso Gar 14 - Trento.

The purpose of the seminar is to introduce participants to (1) theories of intercultural language teaching and learning, (2) current approaches to intercultural language teaching, (3) the implications of language learning in intercultural contexts, and (4) practical methods and tools for teaching intercultural competence as well as managing intercultural communication in the foreign language classroom, all of which as applied to specific learning contexts.

A series of expert talks will serve as a platform for an open panel discussion during which all participants may ask
questions and share their own perspectives and experiences.

The seminar will be of interest to language teachers and subject teachers teaching in a foreign language in all contexts, but especially in secondary and tertiary education.

The Deadline for pre-registration is November 13, 2015.

For information and pre-registration contact: 
Michael Ennis, Val d’Adige Local Group Coordinator
michaeljoseph.ennis [at] unibz.it

The event is open to TESOL Italy members. For those who are not TESOL Italy members for the current year, a free, one-time provisional membership card will be issued. Conditions of this card will be explained onsite by the local group coordinator. All participants will receive a certificate of attendance.*

In collaboration with:

• School of International Studies (Trento),
• The International Centre for Intercultural Exchange (Siena)
• Centro per Studi Interculturali (Verona)

Hosted by:

• Centro Linguistico di Ateneo (Trento)

Speakers:

Chaired and moderated by Catherine Riley from the School of International Studies (UNITN).

Ana Beaven teaches both General English and English for Academic Purposes at the University of Bologna Language Centre. In recent years, she took part in two European Projects, WebCEF and CEFcult, which developed online tools for the assessment of oral (and intercultural) skills. She is now the coordinator of the IEREST project (Intercultural Education Resources for Erasmus Students and their Teachers). In her presentation, she will briefly outline the theoretical underpinnings of the IEREST resources, and show how one of the activities, designed to prepare students for study abroad, was adapted for use in the foreign language classroom.

Michael Ennis is a contract professor of English at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and the University of Venice Ca’ Foscari, where he primarily teaches English for Specific (Academic) Purposes. He has taught English and German at universities in the United States, Germany and Italy, and he has given numerous conference presentations and teacher training workshops on his interests in ESP, ESAP, CLIL, and Intercultural Language Teaching. He will demonstrate aspects of an “integrated approach” to teaching foreign languages and intercultural competence by sharing how he has integrated elements of intercultural learning into an English for Tourism Studies
course.

Francesca Helm is an assistant professor of English in the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies at the University of Padua. She is actively involved in the practice and research of foreign language education and intercultural dialogue. She has published book chapters and articles on the use of technology in language learning and co-edited the volume Telecollaboration 2.0. Her talk discuss how online intercultural exchange (OIE), also known as telecollaboration, offers significant opportunities for promoting intercultural dialogue as well as
fostering the development of language skills, intercultural communicative competence and online literacies. Specifically, she will present two different models of OIE programs which have been implemented in higher education contexts, and give examples of students engaging in online interaction.

Sabine Kroneder is senior lecturer for ELT in the School of Education at the University of Innsbruck. One of her foci lies in facilitating intercultural competence in the language classroom. She is also a lecturer for Intercultural Competence, English and Spanish at the Management Center Innsbruck, and has many years experience providing intercultural training to business people. Her presentation will focus on the importance of dealing with cultural influences on communication in English language classes as a result of the fact that English is used more as a
lingua franca between L2 speakers than between L1 and L2 speakers. She will also demonstrate specific methods and tools for dealing with verbal and nonverbal aspects of intercultural communication in class.

Jules Martin Bella Owona instructs Italian Language and Reflective Writing at Siena Italian Studies, an independent school which uses a non-traditional educational approach to develop students’ intercultural skills and deep understanding of “self” and “other” through a commitment to service-learning and community engagement in a second culture and language. He also conducts research, along with a team of colleagues, on the development of Reflective Intercultural Competence (RIC) and will present the recent development of the RICA (Reflective Intercultural Competence Assessment) Model used at SIS to evaluate and assess the development of RIC in
students participating in study and service-learning programs.