“Shifting Paradigms: Informed Responses”
July 18–21, 2013 | Thistle Brighton, Brighton, UK
Conference Report
The European Conference on Language Learning 2013 (ECLL2013) was held alongside The European Conference on Arts & Humanities 2013 (ECAH2013). This event saw 250 people from more than 50 countries in an incredibly diverse celebration of interdisciplinary and intercultural study. The theme for the conference was “Shifting Paradigms: Informed Responses” and our selection of featured speakers came at this topic from a number of different angles.
Professor Steve Cornwell, in his ECLL Conference Chair's Session, made a presentation about the theme, "Shifting Paradigms: Informed Responses", examining how language learning education has rapidly changed in recent years. In their Spotlight Presentation, Professors Kiyomi Chinen, Masako Douglas and Hiroko Kataoka from California State University, Long Beach, USA, discussed issues surrounding heritage-language education with particular relation to Japanese in California. Professor Olesya Orlova, of Kemerovo State University (Russia) looked at language in the Russian context in a paper entitled “National Stereotypes as Means of Connectedness, Identity and Alienation”. Finally, Dr Miho Inaba of Lund University (Sweden) looked at autonomous learning in the acquisition of languages, asking: “What is the Role of 'language classes' in Autonomous Learning?: The Implications from Japanese Language Learners’ L2 Activities Outside the Classroom”.