Date: Tuesday 22 April 2014
Time: 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM (BST)
Venue: British Council, 10 Spring Gardens, SW1A 2BN
Speaker: Urszula Clark
LONDON + LIVE ONLINE
This seminar draws upon recent, Economic and Social Science
Research Council (ESRC) funded research into the relationship between
English and social, regional and national identities. This research
contributes to a shift in conceptual thinking about language(s) and varieties
from being perceived as static, totalised and immobile to being more
dynamic, fragmented and mobile. Such research has implications for
language and education policies not only within the UK, but also
the teaching of English worldwide. Increasingly, variation of English is
coming to mark an identity linked with physical and imagined places and
spaces in ways that cut across other factors such as age, gender, social
class and ethnicity that also mark a shift in thinking from language ‘deficit’
to language‘difference.’ In line with this change, there has been a
corresponding ‘weakening’ of the role of traditional gatekeepers of a
single, monolithic variety of English such as the BBC, certain aspects
of the media and corpus approaches to the compilation of dictionaries and
grammars of English. In addition, one of the paradoxes of the use of
English across the world for the purposes of communication in the global
media, trade, travel, medicine and so on has been that the majority of the world’s
population today is largely bilingual, if not multilingual, both within and
beyond nations where English is the mother tongue.
This seminar then, explores such issues in relation to the
teaching of English worldwide, and particularly the debate of the local
teacher of English as native speaker versus multilingual local teachers
who are expert users of English.
Who is this for?
All English language
teachers; English language education policy makers; interested members of the
public; researchers into
the teaching of English.
Programme (approx.)
1830 – 1900 Welcome and refreshments
1900 – 2000 English, speech and
society with Urszula Clark
2000 – 2030 Networking reception
Attendees will also have
the opportunity to discuss global job opportunities with
the
British Council.
Every seminar is free of
charge, however places are limited.
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