International Colloquium

 

“The relationship between languages in European educative contexts: mediations, circulations, comparisons and confrontations.”

(XVIth to early XXth century)

 

 

call for papers

 

The didactics of plurilingualism has nowadays achieved the status of an innovative branch in the field of teaching/learning languages. This approach redefines the disciplinary contours of this research field of study as it promotes a plural model where languages are set in terms of complementarity. The objective of the colloquium is to place the didactics of plurilingualism in History to allow a contemporary reflection with a necessary historical perspective. 

 

This is one of the reasons the Colloquium is structured along a series of events which took place in Europe between the XVIth and the beginning of the XXth century, marking the evolution of European mentalities about languages. For example: the progressive abandon of Latin as the language of the educated and scholars, the importance of some vernacular languages as vehicular languages (and the confrontation between them), the transformation of the languages in constitutive elements of culture and national identities, the articulation of national cultures within humanistic and classical culture, etc

The terms a quo and ad quem have been chosen as an example of the deep changes the schooling institution underwent during this period, in particular with the raising of Nations-States and the national identities.

 

In a general frame (which place the languages are taking in Education), the Colloquium focuses its attention on some aspects relating the contact between languages in the institutions and educative contexts, proposing a number of topics to reflect which affect plurilingualism in one or another.

Four axes of reflections are proposed:

 

-          (1) the relationships between different languages in their social uses and educative contexts

What groupings (or oppositions) are built among languages (in their different nomenclatures: classical, modern, life, dead, mother tongue, foreign language, etc. What arguments are developed, as an opposition, concerning the relevance of one or another? The aim is to put in evidence the possibilities of cohabitation of the different languages within the educative institutions. The relationships between languages and national cultures can be tacked as an axis of reflection.

 

 

-           (2) the means for the teaching/learning process of different languages

Which metalinguistic means are produced (lexical, grammatical) and what is their specificity according to the languages? What other plurilingual works (texts, novels, catalogues, etc.)? These works appear as a simple juxtaposition or establish relationship between existing languages (in the description or in the exercises they suggest)? This axis fixes the topic of the specificity of the pedagogical plurilingual means.

-          (3) didactic and methodological discourses

 

Which pedagogical traditions have acted upon the language didactics? Which didactics actions affect languages in general? Which traditions have been passed from one language to another? Can the didactic of dead languages be opposed to the didactics of languages in use? Is it possible to talk about reference models or even didactic transversality?  Consequently, the objective is to discover if some principles for the teaching/learning of different languages, and if so happens according to what modalities.

-           (4) ‘language teachers’ and their training (initial and long life)

 

What can we say about plurilingual teachers (who publicised the ability to teach many languages) When can we talk about author’s methods? What type of training facilities Governments facilitate to train future language teachers and how many of those are able to teach?  What methodological measures are set up (training journal, specialise associations, etc.) once the language teaching is institutionalised with the development of school systems?

 

 

This colloquium is organised by a number of associations involved in the study of the history of teaching language diffusion:

 

SEHEL: Sociedad Española para la Historia de las Enseñanzas Lingüísticas (Spanish Society for the Study of Linguistic Teaching).

http://www.ugr.es/local/sehel

APHELLE: Associaçao Portuguesa para a Historia do Encino das linguas e Literaturas Estrageiras

http://www.aphelle.org/

CIRSIL: Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerca sulla Storia degli Insegnamenti linguistici . http://www.lingue.unibo.it/cirsil/

SIHFLES: Société Internationale pour l’Histoire du Français Langue étrangère et Seconde. http://fle.asso.free.fr/sihfles/.

PHG (Peeter Heynsgenootschap): www.peeterheynsgenootschap.nl

 

The organisation committee wants to place the focus on the reflection upon the way teaching languages between themselves are considered and not in the teaching of one specific language. The contributions will be case studies, so forth it would be advisable to set the historic, linguistic and social context.

 

The contributions could be in any language of the different associations involved in the organisation of the Colloquium, as well as in English and German.

 

The scientific Committee will be responsible for the selection of those contributions which will be published in the Journal Documents de la SIHFLES or in the Colloquium Publication (to be printed electronically or in paper).

 

Those researchers interested should in the event have to submit their proposals before 30 April 2008 to one of the following directions:

jsuso@ugr.es

berre.michel@scarlet.be

 

All papers should have the title, name and family name pf the author/s, personal references, and a brief summary (no more than 3.000 characters). Acceptance confirmation will be passed before 30 June 2008. For each communication each participant will have twenty minutes for the exposition and ten for discussion. 

 

Fees are 60 € for the members of each of the association involved in the organisation and 100 € for those who are not.

 

Those papers selected will be Publisher in the SHIFLES Journal Documents or in the Colloquium Publication (printed and/or electronic version).

 

Organizing Committee (University of Granada)

Javier Suso López

Mª Eugenia Fernández Fraile

Javier Villoria

Rodrigo López Carrillo

Carmen Alberdi

Natalia Arregui

Mercedes Montoro

 

 

Scientific Committee

Michel Berré, University of Mons-Hainaut (Belgium)

Gérard Vigner,  IPR/IA Lettres, Versailles

Ana Clara Santos, University of  Algarve

Maria José Salema, Minho University

Maria Herminia Amado Laurel, University of Aveiro

Antonio Martínez González, University of Granada

Pedro Barros, University of  Granada

Frans Wilhelm, Universities of  Arnhem and Nimega

Nadia Minerva, University of Bolonia

 

Dates:

November 5, 6 and 7, 2008

Place:

University of Granada (Spain)

Facultad de Filosofía y Letras

18071 GRANADA