Konferens: Perspectives on Home, Heritage, and Community Language Education

The purpose of this two-day conference is to explore different aspects of mother-tongue, or more specifically, home, heritage, and community language education. In today’s globalised world there is a need for trained teachers and innovative pedagogies to teach pupils from migrant backgrounds in schools. Moreover, it is the human right of linguistic minorities to have access to tuition in their heritage or home language, which contributes to an equal and democratic society. Home, heritage, and community language tuition is also a tool to reclaim and revitalise Indigenous and other historical minority languages (e.g., Yiddish, Romani) that are threatened. However, the teaching of non-majority languages often faces challenges due to limited resources and classroom time. Moreover, approaches to teaching home languages that build on and reflect local languaging practices are needed.

Topics of relevance (but not limited to) are:

·         Training and qualifications of home, heritage, and community language teachers

·         Innovative pedagogies, including virtual solutions

·         Teaching materials for the home, heritage, and community language context

·         Translanguaging and the use of majority language in the classroom

·         Structural features in the language of home, heritage, and community language pupils and students

·         Practitioner perspectives on the teaching of home, heritage, and community languages

·         Polycentricism and localised standards in the classroom

·         Policy vs. reality

·         The role of different stakeholders (e.g., government, parents, schools)

·         Studies on specific migrant, Indigenous, or other language communities in different countries

·         Heritage speakers vs. second language speakers

·         The role of culture and literature in the teaching of home, heritage, and community languages

·         Pedagogical uses of children’s books and young adult fiction

The conference committee invites abstracts for individual presentations on original research or pedagogy-focused topics by one or more authors. Presentations will be a maximum of 20 minutes with 10 minutes for discussion. Abstracts of maximum 500 words (excluding references) addressing social, affective and classroom aspects relevant to education in non-majority languages are welcome. The conference language is English. Abstract submission will close on 15 August 2023. All abstracts will be reviewed anonymously, and notification of acceptance will be sent by 1 September 2023. Please submit your abstract using this web form: https://doit.medfarm.uu.se/bin/kurt3/kurt/90366

There will be a possibility to publish a full paper in a peer-reviewed edited volume or a special issue shortly after the conference (early 2024).

For queries, please contact: riitta-liisa.valijarvi@moderna.uu.se

Keynote speakers

Professor Boglárka Straszer, Dalarna University, Sweden

 tbc

Organising committee

Sonja Bjelobaba, Magdalena Slyk, Jelena Spasenic, and Entela Tabaku Sörman – Department of Modern Languages, Uppsala University 

Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi – University College London and Department of Modern Languages, Uppsala University

Constanze Ackermann-Boström and Anne Reath Warren – Faculty of Educational Sciences, Uppsala University

Konferensens hemsida: https://www.moderna.uu.se/forskning/finsk-ugriska/perspectives