Heritage Language 2 Consortium

A strategic partnership for the study of Portuguese in multilingual settings

Tag: Camoes Institute (Page 2 of 2)

Heritage language teacher receives Portuguese Medal of Merit

December 4, 2021 /

Last month, Isabel Geyer, a teacher of the Camoes Institute’s extensive heritage language network (rede EPE), received the Portuguese Medal of Merit in recognition for over forty years of service to the Portuguese community residing in Germany.

The Medal of Merit of the Portuguese Communities (Medalha Mérito das Comunidades Portuguesas) was awarded by the Portuguese Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities Berta Nunes during the annual language teaching workshop organized by the Camões Institute and the Portuguese Embasssy in Berlin.

Ms Geyer began teaching Portuguese as a heritage language on September 12, 1979, until she retired on November 30, 2020. Throughout this period, she served the Portuguese community in several German cities with exceptional dedication, merit and professionalism.

The Medal of Merit recognizes individuals who, regardless of their nationality, make a valuable contribution to strengthen the affective and cultural ties that bind all Portuguese citizens, living in Portugal or abroad.

For more information on learning Portuguese in Germany, please visit the following website or contact Rui Vicente de Azevedo. To read more about the event, please see the original news source on the Camões Institute website.

From left to right: Embassador Francisco Ribeiro de Menezes, Isabel Geyer, Secretary of State Berta Nunes, and Rui Vicente de Azevedo, Coordinator of Camoes Institute network in Germany.

LX Proficiency: New automatic proficiency classifier launched

December 4, 2021 /

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.

Webinar: Raising a Bilingual Child Today

October 15, 2021 /

On Wednesday 6th October, 2021, the challenges and opportunities surrounding language learning and bilingual development were discussed by a panel of leading experts. These included Paul Dunne, Headmaster of St. John Bosco College in Battersea; Patrick Rebuschat, Professor of linguistics and cognitive science at Lancaster University and Director of the Heritage Language 2 Consortium; Federica Piedimonte, Teacher of Italian language and culture teacher; and Agnieszka Derleta,  Head of Polish/English as an Additional Language (EAL) Department at St Thomas More in Bedford.

Both the presentations and audience’s contributions  were very insightful and the webinar offered some very exciting leads to further discussions.

The event was a joint initiative of St. John Bosco College, the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, the Camões Instiute, and the Italian General Consulate in London.

Please see the YouTube link below to watch the webinar in full.

 

 

HL2C Seminars 2021-2022

September 15, 2021 /

It’s a pleasure to share the program of this year’s HL2C seminar series with you. We might still not be able to travel as easily as before, but in the meantime, we can meet digitally on a regular basis. 

Our program: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/heritage-language/seminars/ 

The program for 2021/2022 is not finalized yet, but we are excited about how it is taking shape. As you will see, there will be a mix between internal (HL2C) and external speakers, early-career and more senior researchers. The sessions will cover a wide range of themes (second and heritage language acquisition and teaching, bilingualism, etc.), different languages and populations of interest, and a variety of approaches (quantitative and qualitative), fully reflecting the broad interests of the HL2C member institutions. While most talks focus on research, we are also inviting other stakeholders (policy makers, non-profits, etc.) to do presentations. 

How to attend: All talks will take place via Microsoft Teams. We will circulate the link via the HL2C mailing list one week before the talk and send a reminder one day before the talk. To join the mailing list, please click here.

Talks will be delivered in English. The sessions should last one hour – about 40 minutes of talk, followed by 10 minutes of discussion. Some of the talks will be recorded and made available for viewing via the mailing list.

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