CONFERENCES & MEETINGS
ICC 17th Annual Conference, Hamburg, 19-20 March 2010
Panel Discussion – How have expectations changed?
Barry Tomalin, Prof. Sugata Mitra, Rob Williams, Tim Phillips, Anne Narjes
CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS - CHANGING EXPECTATIONS
Sugata MitraSugata Mitra fascinated his audience again at this year's ICC Annual Conference in Hamburg with his inspiring keynote on 'An alternative schooling: Self Organising Systems in Education'. His findings are based on the hole in the wall experiment (www.hole-in-the-wall.com) with rural children aged 8-12 who learned to use computers without instruction, organising their own learning.
This programme may be subjuct to alterations
ICC Conference 19_20_03_10 draft15timeta[...].pdf
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ICC 17th Annual Conference 2010 in Hambu[...].pdf
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The environments in which language is used have irrevocably changed. Hybrids of face to face communication and the written word have appeared through social networking and the use of mobile phones. Face to face interaction may no longer mean two people in the same room talking. Increasing contact between people from different cultures in the business world and beyond has led to a greater realisation of a need to understand the values and attitudes that drive behaviours and discourse. More than ever before education has become a commercialised utility. Learners are now clients and customer satisfaction is a prime motivating factor in judging the quality of any education programme.
This year's conference will examine the impact of these changes on language education. It will consider how the communications revolution and the rise of the cultural agenda have affected expectations in both receiver (the learner, the learner's sponsor - human resources manager etc) and the education professional. It will examine whether the expectations are realistic and how they might be met. Is it the case that the language end user just doesn't understand the process of language learning or is it that language educators are just not very good at communicating with the wider world?
The conference will look at current challenges faced in the design and delivery of language education and in the measurement of both the performance of learners and the quality of language programmes. Focus will be placed on the teacher perspective, the cultural perspective, the learner perspective and the perspective of those who pay for training. Speakers will consider practical solutions as well as wider implications about where language education is heading.
It will be based around contributions from keynote speakers which will lead into panel discussions on the main themes of the conference. The panel discussions will in turn feed into workshops which will focus on the various perspectives in greater detail. Results from the discussions, practical solutions, etc will then feedback into the plenary forum.
Time will be given for members and others to promote products, projects and publications and there will be an exhibition area for presenting new materials.
The AGM is scheduled for 19 March, 2010 in Hamburg, Germany.
For CALL for Papers click here
For Registrations click here
For Exhibitors' Registration click here
Further information will be published shortly, please check the website regularly for updates.
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