VALS-ASLA 2010: Call for Papers

Von: gna
Linguistic Competences in Education and at Work. Transitions and Transformations, Zurich, 4-6 February 2010

Describing, modelling and optimising language competences has long been a key domain of research in applied linguistics. Over the last few years, the notion of language competence has been re-examined and redefined under the influence of research in sociolinguistics, language education, and, more largely, research on language use in various settings. The focus has been on teaching and learning (competence-oriented objectives, task-based teaching and learning), assessment and programme evaluation as well as the professionalisation of the language teach-ing field. In the field of education, in particular, communicative and linguistic com-petences are presented today as sets of key competences pupils or students need to acquire. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that the introduction of language stan-dards has been on the political agenda, starting at the lower grades of school.

Drawing on this interest in the notion of language competences in education and in the workplace, the conference aims to stimulate reflection and debate on the multi-ple transitions and  transformations at play: transitions from orality to literacy (for example, the increasing role of writing in the workplace), transitions from one reg-ister to another (from standard to non-standard, etc.), from monolingual practices to multilingualism, from theory to practice, from face-to-face exchanges to virtual interactions, from the conceptualisation of the notion of competence to how it pans out in actual situations, etc.

In concrete terms, discussion is invited about linguistically manifest transitions and transformations of competences as they occur across contexts, across age and so-cial groups, and across school level and developmental stages: e.g. from primary to secondary school, from high school to university or from apprenticeships to the professional world. It is indeed during these transitions that the competences de-veloped become crucial to building identities or accessing new resources.

Call for papers: English, French, German