A strategic partnership for the study of Portuguese in multilingual settings

Category: Research

HL2C Seminar: Joana Moscoso (Native Scientist) and Julia Schiefer (Tübingen), Exploring the effectiveness of an innovative science outreach programme for migrant students

We are excited to announce our next HL2C seminar, taking place on Thursday 31st March 2022, from 3pm to 4pm (Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London).

Presenters:

Joana Moscoso (Native Scientist) and Julia Schiefer (Tübingen)

Title:

Exploring the effectiveness of an innovative science outreach programme for migrant students

How to join:

Our seminars are free to attend. Simply sign up to the HL2C Mailing List to receive the link to join us via Microsoft Teams link. You do not need a Teams account to access the talk.

Abstract:

Inspiring ethnic minority and migrant students to pursue higher education or careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) challenges many European countries. This target group often underperforms in STEM subjects due to various reasons, including specific linguistic and educational needs. We will present the results of a randomized controlled trial testing the impact of an innovative science outreach program, which connects migrant students with scientists of the same linguistic and cultural background. The Native Scientist project (www.nativescientist.com) follows a science and language integrated learning approach bringing together real-world STEM professionals and migrant students to discuss science topics and science careers in the students’ heritage language. The interaction between scientists and students happens through workshops whose effectiveness has been studied for both the students and the scientists. We observed increased attainment value, intrinsic interest, self-concept, and intention to future participation in science, and increased intrinsic interest and self-concept of ability for the students’ heritage language immediately after the workshop. We also identified a range of challenges and benefits for participating scientists. Overall, results indicate a positive effect of the workshops and that it is possible to foster migrant students’ motivation for science through their participation in a science outreach program

Call for papers : Linguística. Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto.

Linguística: Revista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto has recently published a call for submissions.

Linguística is a publication of the Linguistics Centre of the University of Porto (CLUP) and of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto, one of the founding institutions of HL2C.

About the journal:

The journal welcomes original papers in the field of Linguistics, and in other areas dealing with natural languages. Both fundamental and applied research perspectives will be considered for publication. The journal publishes research papers, research notes, critical reviews, news, and discussions, among others. The texts can be written in Portuguese, English, French, Spanish and Italian; papers written in other languages may also be accepted.

Please visit the journal website for more information.

  • Instructions for authors are available on this page.
  • Information on the editorial process, including the peer review process, is available here.
  • Published texts are freely accessible at the journal’s Digital Library.

Submission information:

The anonymized manuscript and any associated materials must be sent (in pdf or word format) to linguistica@letras.up.pt
Deadline for volume 17:  31/03/2022.

Apelo a publicação para LinguísticaRevista de Estudos Linguísticos da Universidade do Porto (uma publicação da Faculdade de Letras e do Centro de Linguística da Universidade do Porto).
A Revista publica anualmente trabalhos inéditos na área da Linguística. Serão igualmente considerados para publicação trabalhos provenientes de outras áreas desde que se debrucem sobre a linguagem e as línguas naturais, quer na perspetiva da investigação fundamental, quer na da investigação aplicada. Os trabalhos publicados podem revestir a forma de artigos, notas de investigação, recensões críticas, notícias e discussões, entre outros. São aceites para publicação trabalhos redigidos em português, inglês, francês, espanhol e italiano; eventualmente poderão ser aceites trabalhos redigidos noutras línguas.
Entrega dos textos: Os textos devem ser enviados em suporte informático anonimizado (documento word ou pdf) para linguistica@letras.up.pt. Para o volume 17, de 2022, os textos devem ser enviados até 31/3/2022.

Call for papers: Graduate student conference @ NOVA, XVI Fórum de Partilha Linguística

The Early-Career Cluster (Núcleo de Jovens Investigadores) at NOVA’s Research Center for Linguistics (CLUNL) has just published the call for papers for their annual graduate student conference (XVI Fórum de Partilha Linguística).

This is a wonderful opportunity for graduate students to share their research and to provide peers with feedback on their studies. The XVI Fórum de Partilha Linguística takes place on July 1-2, 2022 (online format); the event is integrated in NOVA’s Summer School in Linguistics 2022.

Abstract submission deadline: March 4, 2022.

For more information, please vist the organizers’ website  or email jiclunl@fcsh.unl.pt

Call for papers : Special issue, Diacrítica

Revista Diacrítica has recently published a call for papers for a special issue on “Teaching, learning and acquisition of foreign languages – interconnections”.  Diacrítica is a multidisciplinary journal, edited by the Center for Humanistic Studies of the University of Minho (CEHUM), one of the HL2C founding institutions. For questions about the special issue, please email the editors below or visit the journal website.

Submission deadline: February 28, 2022

Online submission: Please follow the link

About the volume:

Editors: Jorge Pinto (CLUL), Lili Cavalheiro (CEAUL), Maria del Carmen Fondo (FLUL), Ana Cea (CEHUM)

Teaching, learning and acquisition of foreign languages – interconnections   

The purpose of this thematic volume is to present recent studies that explore relevant issues related to the acquisition, learning, and teaching of foreign languages in different contexts, highlighting the heterogeneity and complexity that characterize them. Regardless of the different target languages on which research is carried out, in many cases their outcomes and implications may be transferred to the teaching and learning of other languages.

As the fields of acquisition and teaching and learning intersect, this volume aims to gather papers that do not exclusively focus on acquisition theories, but also address aspects of linguistics applied to the teaching and learning of foreign languages.

Finally, considering that the foreign language learning/teaching landscape has greatly changed in the last few decades, we expect works that reflect this, especially concerning multilingual contexts of classrooms. For example, the role of previously acquired languages, teachers’ attitudes towards multilingual approaches, and the advantages of a pedagogy which promotes the students’ interlinguistic development (e.g., translanguaging) versus monolingual bias.

In short, this thematic volume adopts a broad approach on the concepts of foreign language acquisition, teaching and learning, namely: 1) how foreign languages may be more easily learned and acquired, 2) which difficulties may arise when learning a foreign language, and 3) how foreign language learning has changed in view of our increasing multilingual society.

Considering the specific focus of this volume, articles related to sign language (e.g., LIBRAS, LGP) will not be considered for submission.

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Título do volume: Ensino/aprendizagem e aquisição de línguas estrangeiras – interconexões  

Prazo de submissão: 28 de fevereiro de 2022

Submissão online em:http://diacritica.ilch.uminho.pt/index.php/dia/about/submissions

Apresentação do volume:

Este volume temático pretende reunir estudos atuais que explorem questões relevantes relacionadas com a aquisição, aprendizagem e ensino de línguas estrangeiras em diversos contextos, salientando a heterogeneidade e a complexidade que as caracterizam. Entende-se que, independentemente das diferentes línguas-alvo sobre as quais os estudos são realizados, os resultados obtidos e as suas implicações, em muitas situações, podem ser aplicados ao ensino e aprendizagem de outras línguas.

Como as áreas da aquisição e do ensino e aprendizagem se cruzam, pretende-se congregar trabalhos que não se concentram exclusivamente em teorias de aquisição, mas que abordem também aspetos da linguística aplicada ao ensino e aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras.

Por fim, considerando que o panorama do ensino e aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras mudou muito nas últimas décadas, esperam-se trabalhos em que isto se reflita, sobretudo considerando os contextos multilingues das salas de aula. Por exemplo, o papel das línguas previamente adquiridas, as atitudes dos professores em relação às abordagens plurilingues e os benefícios de uma pedagogia que promova o desenvolvimento interlinguístico (e.g. translanguaging) dos alunos versus o preconceito monolingue.

Em suma, este volume temático visa adotar uma abordagem ampla sobre os conceitos de aquisição, ensino e aprendizagem de uma língua estrangeira, a saber: 1) como as línguas estrangeiras podem ser mais eficazmente aprendidas e adquiridas, 2) quais as dificuldades que podem surgir na aprendizagem de uma língua estrangeira e 3) como a aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras mudou, considerando a nossa sociedade multilingue em crescimento.

Tendo em conta o foco específico do volume, não serão considerados artigos para submissão relacionados com a linguagem gestual (e.g. LIBRAS, LGP).

 

Editores:

Jorge Pinto (CLUL)

Lili Cavalheiro (CEAUL)

Maria del Carmen Fondo (FLUL)

Ana Cea (CEHUM)

Hector Foundation pledges 19M EUR to support educational research at Tübingen

The Hector Foundation has 19M EUR of funding to support empirical educational research at the University of Tübingen.

This significant funding will go towards the strengthening of the Hector Research Institute of Education Sciences and Psychology, one of the HL2C founding institutions.

The Hector Institute was founded in 2014 with a generous endowment from the Hector Foundation. The grant will help to strengthen the institute’s international visibility in the long term and secure its position as one of Germany’s leading educational research institutions.

Close to 80 scientists work at the Hector Institute, where they investigate and empirically validate the quality of educational offerings and educational processes.

Professor Ulrich Trautwein, Director of the Hector Institute, said: “Education is the most important resource we can pass on to the next generation. The generous grant will enable a new generation of scientific studies that will help to understand and improve educational processes.”

For more information, please see the press release. For more information, please visit the Hector Institute website or see the video below.

 

LX Proficiency: New automatic proficiency classifier launched

The Camões Institute and the University of Lisbon have recently launched a new version of the LX Proficiency classifier, a computational tool that supports the classification of Portuguese texts on the scale of proficiency levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages ​​(CEFR).

The LX Proficiency classifier was first developed in 2013 as part of a cooperation agreement between the Camões Institute and the University of Lisbon’s Speech and Natural Language Processing  Group (NLX), which is directed by Professor António Branco.

The classifier automatically determines the level of difficulty and readability of texts written in Portuguese, based on the CEFR levels. It can be used, for example, to aid teachers in the selection of texts for heritage or foreign language classes or to support the creation of more reliable items for Portuguese proficiency exams. This revised and improved version is based on a greater language corpus and more advanced computation tools.

This important resource is free to use and can be accessed at the PORTULAN CLARIN website, a repository for research infrastructure for the Science and Technology of Language. Please visit the following page to use LX Proficiency.