Annual TALGS Conference

News and Updates:

Aug. 5, 2009: Interview with Dr. Jodi Crandall from the University of Baltimore after the 6th Annual TALGS conference.

July 1, 2009: The 7th Annual TALGS Conference is currently ACCEPTING PRESENTATION PROPOSALS until November 30, 2009.

7th Annual TALGS Speaker:

Dr. Elaine E. Tarone
Director of CARLA,
Distinguished University Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota

Elaine E. Tarone is the Director of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), and Distinguished Teaching Professor in English as a Second Language at the University of Minnesota, where she has provided preparatory coursework for MA ESL students since 1979. Professor Tarone's research publications since 1972 have focused on the impact of social context and literacy level on oral second language processing, production, and acquisition. CARLA has been a Title VI Language Resource Center since 1993, and is known for its large web-site of resources for language teachers, its intensive summer institutes and conferences, its working papers and electronic newsletters. For more information about Dr. Elaine Tarone, visit her webpage at ILES.

Plenary session: Alphabetic Literacy Level and Oral L2 Processing

Research on second language (L2) acquisition has focused on oral skills, but neglected a variable that characterizes large numbers of second language learners: alphabetic print literacy. This omission greatly limits our understanding of the human capacity for language learning. The presenter reports on a collaborative research project that documents a significant impact of low alphabetic literacy level on the processing of oral L2 input. She relates those findings to prior research in cognitive psychology showing significant differences in the native language phonological awareness of literate and illiterate adults. This line of research needs to be pursued further, and pedagogical approaches for ESL instruction of adults and adolescents developed.

Invited Discussion: Exploring Learner Language for Teachers

This discussion session will focus on a new approach to second language acquisition for language teachers, one which provides teachers with opportunities for hands-on experience to develop skills in analyzing learner language in their own classrooms. The approach is used in Exploring Learner Language (2009, OUP), with videos of language learners involved in task-based communication. Using exercises set in a framework of Exploratory Practice, teachers develop their own perspectives on learner language, and relate these to pedagogical decision-making.

The workbook is now available from the Oxford University Press.