Sponsors

University of Hawai`i National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC)
Michigan State University Center for Language Education And Research (CLEAR)

Co-Sponsor

Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL)

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University of Hawai`i National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC)

The University of Hawai‘i National Foreign Language Resource Center engages in research and materials development projects and conducts Summer Institutes for language professionals among its many activities.

2007 PRAGMATICS & LANGUAGE LEARNING CONFERENCE

The NFLRC is pleased to be organizing and co-sponsoring the 17th International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning (PLL) on March 26-28, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. The University of Hawai‘i National Resource Center for East Asia (NRCEA) and the Department of Second Language Studies (SLS) also serve as co-sponsors of the event. The conference will address a broad range of topics in pragmatics, discourse, interaction, and sociolinguistics in their relation to second and foreign language learning, education, and use, approached from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives.  Highlights will include plenary talks by Junko Mori (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Steven Talmy (University of British Columbia), two invited colloquia, and two invited workshops. Preregister by February 15, 2007 to enjoy special discount conference rates.

2007 NFLRC SUMMER INSTITUTE: Developing Useful Evaluation Practices in College Foreign Language Programs - May 28 - June 6, 2007

This NFLRC Summer Institute is designed to help college foreign language administrators and teachers engage in useful, practical, and effective program evaluations to meet a variety of purposes. It takes seriously the values, goals, and constraints that characterize college language programs and will provide language educators with a user-oriented approach to developing evaluations that maximize benefits for language learners and teachers, while minimizing potential negative consequences. It will also provide participants with tools and strategies for making program evaluation a systematic and consistently useful component of their FL departments.

The Institute will be run by Dr. John M. Norris (UH Dept. of Second Language Studies), an expert in language program evaluation and assessment. Activities over the 9-day institute will include lectures and demonstrations, in-depth analyses of practical evaluation examples, invited guest speakers (language evaluation experts), social events, and extensive hands-on development and discussion of evaluation plans, procedures, and instruments for immediate use in the participants' specific program settings.

This workshop is intended for U.S. foreign language administrators and teachers who are directly responsible for program evaluations in their foreign language departments. It assumes no prior grounding in program evaluation theory or practice, but it requires a willingness to help increase evaluation capacity in college FL education. In order to maximize the impact of this event across U.S. colleges, participants will be purposefully selected to represent diverse FL program types, based on size, languages taught, geography, and institutional status. Partial financial support is available to all participants in the NFLRC Summer Institute on a competitive and space-limited basis. Summer Institute participants are also highly encouraged to participate in the ADFL SUMMER SEMINAR WEST (directly following the Summer Institute in Hawaii), where they will have opportunities to share their program evaluation work.

APPLY TODAY! (DEADLINE – FEBRUARY 15, 2007)

For more details about the Summer Institute (including information about affordable lodging options, fees, and more) or for the online application form, visit our website.

2nd INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TASK-BASED LANGUAGE TEACHING

The NFLRC is pleased to be a co-sponsor and on the organizing committee of the 2nd International Conference on Task-based Language Teaching to be held on September 20-22, 2007 in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. The theme of the 2007 conference is “TBLT: Putting Principles to Work.” Plenary speakers will include Kris Van Den Branden (Katholieke Universiteit Lueven), Peter Robinson (Aoyama Gakuin University), Peter Skehan (Chinese University of Hong Kong), and Virginia Samuda (Lancaster University). We look forward to bringing together both researchers and educators from around the world to learn from one another’s innovations in task-based language teaching.  For more information, visit the TBLT 2007 website.

NEW NFLRC PUBLICATIONS

NFLRC ADDS A THIRD ONLINE JOURNAL

Language Documentation & Conservation (LD&C) publishes its inaugural issue in June 2007. LD&C becomes the only journal, electronic or otherwise, exclusively dedicated to serving the needs of linguists and language activists engaged in the essential work of documenting the world's languages. While no reliable data exist concerning the level of such documentation, a plausible estimate is that fewer than 10% are well-documented, meaning that they have comprehensive grammars, extensive dictionaries, and abundant texts in a variety of genres and media. The remaining 90% are, to varying degrees, underdocumented, or, for all intents and purposes, undocumented. Moreover, the languages of the world are now faced with an extinction crisis, the magnitude of which may well prove to be very large. Consequently, there is an evident and urgent need to document the many under/undocumented languages of the world, and, where appropriate, to assist in their preservation.

Check out this new journal and our many other publications.

OUR ONLINE JOURNALS SOLICIT SUBMISSIONS

Language Learning & Technology is a refereed online journal, jointly sponsored by the University of Hawai`i NFLRC and the Michigan State University Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR). LLT focuses on issues related to technology and language education. For more information on submission guidelines, visit the LLT submissions page.

Language Documentation & Conservation is a fully refereed, open-access journal sponsored by NFLRC and published exclusively in electronic form by the University of Hawai‘i Press. LD&C publishes papers on all topics related to language documentation and conservation. For more information on submission guidelines, visit the LD&C submissions page.

Reading in a Foreign Language is a refereed online journal, jointly sponsored by the University of Hawai`i NFLRC and the Department of Second Language Studies. RFL serves as an excellent source for the latest developments in the field, both theoretical and pedagogic, including improving standards for foreign language reading. For more information on submission guidelines, , visit the RFL submissions page.