SPECIAL CONFERENCE ISSUE OF THE JOURNAL ‘LANGUAGE AWARENESS’
The Association for Language Awareness has a very close relationship with the journal ‘Language Awareness’. After previous ALA conferences a special issue has been published containing the best papers presented at the international conference of the association. It is planned that an issue of the journal will similarly be devoted to papers focusing on the theme of the Kassel conference: “Awareness Matters: Language Culture Literacy”. The expected date of publication is mid to late 2011.
Presenters are invited to consider sending their finished papers to the email address below by November 30, 2010. No correspondence prior to submission will be entered into.
Submissions should:
1) maintain the high quality, in terms of research and scholarship, of the Journal;
2) be relevant to the field of language awareness and cultural awareness. Prospective submitters are advised to familiarise themselves with the topics and issues of past issues of the Journal and with the following state-of-the-art article:
Svalberg, Agneta M-L. 2007. Language awareness and language learning. Language Teaching 40, 287-308.
3) correspond substantially to the paper presented at the Conference;
4) conform to the requirements and conventions of the journal. Prospective submitters should consult the guidelines contained in each issue; in particular the articles should be of the suggested length and not have been submitted elsewhere;
5) be written in appropriate academic language; no proofreading will be undertaken.
Articles which do not conform to the above criteria will not be considered.
The journal is included in the Social Sciences Citation Index.
Prof. Dr. Claudia Finkbeiner, University of Kassel, Germany
Dr Agneta Svalberg, University of Leicester, England
Special Conference Issue Editors:
Please send your submission, in Microsoft Word format to Claudia Finkbeiner at ala2010(at)uni-kassel.de and to Dr Agneta Svalberg at amls2(at)le.ac.uk.
Agneta M-L. Svalberg's "Language awareness and language learning", in Language
Teaching, Vol.40, 2007, pp.287-308, Cambridge University Press.
Abstract:
"This article reviews LA as a field of research and practice. It deals with the
period from 1990 to the present, asking what LA is, how it has been collectively
constructed during this time, what the theoretical underpinnings might be and
what it means in practical, methodological terms in the classroom and for
society. It is recognised that its multidisciplinary nature and wide scope could
lead to fragmentation, but it is argued that the holistic view evident in LA
research and practice is a strength , and that its different sub-fields have
certain core notions in common which give LA coherence.
The paper begins with a brief background sketch and outline, and goes on to
discuss the literature on cognitive aspects of LA such as awareness, attention
and noticing. The review than enquires into the characteristics of LA teaching
methodology, and what LA is needed for teachers to implement it. Social and
political perspectives are then explored in brief reviews of Critical Language
Awareness, Inter-/Cross-cultural Awareness, and multilingualism. The paper
closes by drawing conclusions and making suggestions for further research."