Language Teaching for Young Learners

Conference Overview:

l Date: September 21-22, 2019

l Venue: Hongkou Campus, Shanghai International Studies University (SISU)

l Organizer: Shanghai Center for Research in English Language Education (SCRELE)

l Participants: Over 200 researchers, teacher educators, and teachers from the global community of language education

l Partnership journals: “Journal of Foreign Language”, “Language Teaching for Young Learners”

l Theme: Language Teaching for Young Learners

Sub-themes:

1. Teaching writing

2. Curriculum & pedagogy

3. Language learning

4. Learning strategies

5. Second language acquisition

6. Beliefs, attitudes & learning attributions

7. E-Assessment

8. Textbook analysis

9. Key Competences

10. Language teaching

11. Teaching writing

12. Proficiency scales & English education

13. Vocabulary

14. Corrective feedback

15. Innovations in language teaching

16. Teacher education and assessment literacy

17. Critical thinking & cultural consciousness

18. Multimodal teaching & motivation

Plenary Talks:

1. Rod ELLIS (Curtin University)

Topic: Doing task-based language teaching with beginner-level learners

2. María del Pilar GARCÍA MAYO (Universidad del País Vasco)

Topic: Primary school children using collaborative tasks in an EFL setting: Findings from research and challenges ahead

3. Annamaria PINTER (The University of Warwick)

Topic: 10 principles based on 20 years of research, teaching and practice in the area of teaching English to young learners

4. Xiaotang CHENG (Beijing Normal University)

Topic: The design and use of multimodal resources in primary English teaching

5. Yafu GONG (National Institute of Education Sciences)

Topic: Integrating of English language education into whole-person development

6. Jonathan NEWTON (Victoria University of Wellington)

Topic: Culture learning for young learners in the foreign language classroom: Objections, opportunities and objectives

Invited Colloquia:

1. Janet ENEVER (University of Reading)

Topic: Global forces, diverse solutions: Implementing primary foreign language policies worldwide

2. Yuko Goto BUTLER (University of Pennsylvania)

Topic: Driving pedagogical concerns to enhance SLA: The role of teacher interactions in young learners’ L2/FL learning

Parallel Sessions:

On the afternoons of September 21 and 22, a total of 70 parallel paper sessions were held, bringing together scholars from around the world to share research findings, exchange ideas, and engage in discussions on various topics, including task-based language teaching, classroom instruction, textbook development, teacher education and professional development, technology-enhanced language teaching, and language assessment.