FOHLC Europe 2023 Conference

Keynote speakers will be Prof. Yongcan Liu, Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Education at the University of Cambridge and convener of Cambridge Research in Community Language Education (CRiCLE) Network and Lucie Slavíková-Boucher, chairwoman of the Czech School Without Borders. A pecha kucha presentation will include examples from ten different individuals from across Europe who are active in the field of HL education, in order to demonstrate a range of possibilities when it comes to tapping into resources within local and international communities.

In addition, professional development workshops will be run for heritage language teachers and for program managers. For HL teachers, we have organized a workshop that will show how drama techniques can be an interesting and effective resource in the classroom. For HL program managers, we are offering a workshop to help de-mystify grant-writing.

Every conference includes structured networking sessions for HL teachers, managers, and coalition leaders to connect and discuss questions related to the conference theme.

Friday, November 10 (times in GMT/London time)

17:00-17:05 Welcome

17:05-17:15 Intro FOHLC Europe

17:15-17:55 Keynote 1 Yongcan Liu

17:55-18:05 Break

18:05-18:10 Workshop intro

18:10-19:25 Parallel Workshops (teachers & managers)

Workshop for teachers by Ólafur Guðmudsson (theater/drama in the class)

Workshop for managers by Sabine Little (grant writing)

19:25-19:40 Workshop summary

19:40-19:45 Closing

Saturday, November 11 (times in GMT/London time)

16:00-16:05 Welcome

16:05-17:05 Keynote 2 Lucie Slavíková-Boucher

17:05-17:15 Break

17:15-18:05 Pecha kucha (8 - 10 examples of resources in 45 minutes)

18:05-18:15 Break

18:15-19:00 Networking sessions (for teachers, managers, and coalition leaders)

19:00-19:10 Closing

Keynote speakers

Yongcan Liu

Partnerships as a resource: Enabling heritage language maintenance through home-

community-school-university partnerships

Yongcan Liu is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Education at the University of

Cambridge and convener of Cambridge Research in Community Language Education

(CRiCLE) Network. He has published widely on language of schooling and the knowledge

base of teaching in contexts of mobility and diversity. He is co-author of the Bell

Foundation’s EAL Assessment Framework for Schools and his most recent book (co-

authored) entitled Language development and social integration of students with EAL was

published with CUP in 2020. He recently served on the Academic Advisory Board for the

Cambridge/UNICEF/Microsoft Learning Passport project and involved in developing the

Global Curriculum Framework for refugee children.

Lucie Slavíková-Boucher

Coalitions as a resource

Lucie Slavíková-Boucher is the founder and chairwomen of the Czech Schools without Borders (CSWB) organization. She co-created CSWB’s educational program and initiated a number of legislative changes to gain official recognition for education provided by community language schools, which were successfully incorporated into the Education Act in cooperation with the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic.  Despite the demands of her medical career, Lucie Slavíková-Boucher has been devoting most of her free time and energy to bilingual education and the Czech School Without Borders project for more than 20 years. As the mother of two now multilingual children, she hopes to motivate parents to support Czech language learning in their own children. She provides counseling in the field of multilingual education and training and cooperates with professional institutions in the Czech Republic on this topic.

Workshops

Ólafur Guðmudsson

How can you tap into theater techniques when teaching? Theater and drama in language learning

The aim of the workshop is to provide second language teachers with a basic structure and theory to facilitate incorporating drama work into their teaching and some knowledge and skills on how to develop it further. Also to create a starting point for sucessful development of drama work in the classroom. Through exercises from drama and theatre a  connection will be established to the body and the voice and contact developed  between people. Following that some improvisation skills will be developed leading into storytelling and process drama..

Inspired by the techniques og Qigong and Taiji, participants in the workshop will begin with relaxing their bodies, but at the same time activate it to create connections to the space, with themselves and each other. Proceeding through drama exercises the connection between body, mind and language will be explored gradually. A basic strucure will be given on how to help teachers to facilitate groups of students to gain basic skills in improvisation, storytelling and process drama. The participants will have to get out of their comfort zone, but at the same time gain a new connection to themselves and those around them. All this is conducive to communication and language learning.

Central to the flow of the workshop and intertwined into it is the development of trust or establishing of what we can call "brave space”. At the end of the workshop the participants will have an idea of what is most important when incorporating drama into language teaching and education in general. They will be provided with some basic principles for the development of communication skills through drama and some useful building blocks from which to develop more extended drama work in their classes.

As the workshop proceeds, in between activities, theoretical information will be given on the framework for the workshop and the exercises. Discussion will happen alongside the activities.

Ólafur Guðmundsson is an Icelandic actor and drama teacher, living in Iceland. His profession is drama teaching in primary and secondary education as well as teaching drama in community contexts. He worked 10 years as a drama teacher in primary education and other 10 years in secondary education and as an adjunct in drama teaching at the University of Iceland, School of Education. He has also worked as a teacher of Icelandic as a second language, where he has developed drama methods in language teaching and taught Icelandic through theatre. In his work he focuses mainly on drama as an art subject in education, the integration of drama and the other arts into language teaching and to the general curriculum and drama as a vehicle for self development and self-awareness.

CLASS ACT - resources for theater techniques discussed during the workshop

Sabine Little

How do you write an effective grant application?

There are many opportunities for funding, and not all are accessible to everybody. Nevertheless, the principles of an effective grant application are the same, and in this workshop, we will be looking at the Theory of Change methodology to consider how grant applications may be phrased for maximum success. If you have an idea for a project, please do bring it along!

Dr. Sabine Little is Senior Lecturer in Languages Education at the University of Sheffield, and has collaborated on projects across six continents, attracting funding - big and small - from a wide variety of sources. 

Pecha Kucha (series of 3-minute presentations)

Shuffling resources (book trade)

Rósa Björg Jónsdóttir

Móðurmál - the Association on Bilingualism, Iceland

Canva as a free resource for non-profits

Gisi Cannizzaro

HLE Network, the Netherlands

Erasmus+ student interns as temporary personnel

Ania Kijak

Polish School of Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Professionals in art, literature, and science as a resource

Andréa Menescal Heath

Mala de Herança, Portuguese language in Germany

Volunteers' funds of knowledge as a resource

Maja Skender-Lizatovic and Indu Vibha Meddegama

Community Language School at York St. John University in England

Academia as a source of expertise (teaching materials)

Beata Jedryka

Institute of Applied Polish Studies, University of Warsaw

Grants and other financial resources

Lenka Kanellia

Czech Association Greece

Global Goals as a resource for curriculum development

Bibiam M. Gonzalez Rodriguez

Móðurmál - the Association on Bilingualism, Iceland

International competitions as a source of motivation for students

Jarmila Buchova

ISEIA - International Slovak Educational Institution and Association