Welcome!
About the Conference
We are delighted to announce our conference on “Diversity in the Digital Foreign Language Classroom (DDFLC)” to be held on March 30-31, 2023.
Conveners / Conference committee
This conference forms part of the joint project “Lehrerbildung PLUS: Heterogenität und Digitalisierung” (Heterogeneity and Digitalisation) between Ludwigsburg University of Education and Stuttgart University and is convened by Prof. Dr. Jörg-U. Keßler, Richard Powers, Prof. Dr. Marc Priewe, Dr. Saskia Schabio, and Prof. Dr. Götz Schwab.
Vision and Background
This joint project aims at disseminating and expanding digital teaching and research on diversity. Our mission is to improve digitalisation skills and diversity awareness for future English teachers during their BA and Masters studies.
The conference is hosted by the Professional School of Education Stuttgart-Ludwigsburg (PSE) in cooperation with the English Institute, Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg (University of Education) and the Department of American Literature and Culture, Stuttgart University. The PSE was founded and established in 2016 as part of the joint project Lehrerbildung PLUS, bringing together five teacher-training institutes: the Ludwigsburg University of Education, Stuttgart University, the University of Hohenheim, the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart, and the State University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart. In this consortium, teacher training competences for education, pedagogy, and specific disciplines for middle and high school future teachers’ careers are brought together and developed.
Conference Theme
Our conference addresses the challenges of digitalisation and diversity faced in foreign language classrooms. We provide the opportunity for researchers and practitioners to present their latest work. Our aim is to explore avenues for future teaching. While there is a wide array of research on e-learning and diversity, the particular implications for teaching in diverse spaces, e.g. foreign language classroom contexts, have yet to be explored. This conference aims at making a significant contribution to closing this gap by bringing together a broad array of disciplinary and interdisciplinary experts and approaches.
In response to the challenges of digitalisation and diversity, we place a dual focus on exploring the benefits of digital teaching in delineating and advancing diversity both as a concept and a method in the foreign language classroom.
Main Questions:
- What are the theoretical foundations on which digital teaching and e-learning are
built? How do these affect foreign language classroom contexts? - How does digitalisation affect or enhance research on and conceptualisations of
diversity across the fields of linguistics, literary and cultural studies? What are
didactic implications within the foreign language classroom context? - How do e-learning concepts support foreign language teachers in handling
heterogeneous learner groups in classrooms or responding to the particular abilities
and needs of learners?
We invite applications from scholars of all disciplines related to Foreign Language Teaching, with an emphasis on English and American Studies. For more information, please see our CFP (below).
We are looking forward to a vibrant and engaging conference!
Plenaries and Keynotes
Prof. Dr. Robert O'Dowd, "Virtual Exchange: Attending to diversity in online collaborative contexts"
Robert O'Dowd is Full Professor (Catedrático) for English as a Foreign Language and Applied Linguistics at the University of León, Spain. He has taught at universities in Ireland, Germany and Spain. He has published extensively on the application of Virtual Exchange in higher education and has been invited to be plenary speaker at international conferences in the US, Asia and across Europe. He is currently coordinating the Erasmus+ European Policy Experiment ‘Virtual Innovation and Support Networks for Teachers’ (VALIANT) and collaborates with organizations on the promotion and integration of Virtual Exchange in higher education across Europe. His most recent book is Internationalising Higher Education and the Role of Virtual Exchange (2023, Routledge).
He is currently coordinating the Erasmus+ European Policy Experiment Virtual Innovation and Support Networks for Teachers (VALIANT) (2021-2024). Robert’s publications are available here: https://unileon.academia.edu/RobertODowd and you can follow him on twitter @robodowd.
Prof. Dr. Christiane Lütge, "Embracing Diversity in Digital Spaces – Perspectives for Foreign Language Education"
Christiane Lütge is professor at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich (LMU) where she holds the Chair of Teaching English as a Foreign Language. She is also the director of the Munich Centre of Teacher Education. Her areas of expertise in research and teaching include digital literacy and literary learning, literature in the foreign language classroom, as well as Global Citizenship Education and transcultural learning in EFL. She is the editor of Foreign Language Learning in the Digital Age. Theory and Pedagogy for Developing Literacies (Routledge 2022) and a co-editor of the volumes The praxis of diversity (Palgrave Macmillan 2020) and of Digital Teaching and Learning: Perspectives for English Language Education (Narr 2021). She has recently set up a third-party funded project on Digital Citizenship Education (DiCE.Lang) in collaboration with researchers from Ireland, Portugal, Italy and Latvia.
Prof. Dr. Laura Lomas, "Decencuentros in Metropolitan Contact Zones: la Frontera, a Quilombola and Latinx as Untranslatables We Need for Reading and Teaching 'American' Cultural Difference" (online presentation)
Laura Lomas, (Ph.D. English and Comparative Literature, Columbia 2001; B.A. Swarthmore College, 1989) is a literary historian and cultural critic who theorizes the space between languages, states, fields and cultures. Having previously worked as a translator with a Salvadoran human rights organization--the Committee of Mothers of the Disappeared, Assassinated and Political Prisoners of El Salvador--she teaches Latina/o and comparative
American literatures in the English department at Rutgers University-Newark. Her current research includes a monograph entitled In Between States: Latinx Writing and the Emergence of the Interdisciplines in 1970s New York. Her book Translating Empire: José Martí, Migrant Latino Subjects and American Modernities (Duke 2008), won the MLA Prize for Latina/o and Chicana/o literature and an honorable mention from LASA's Latina/o Section. Lomas co-edited the first Cambridge History of Latina/o American Literature (2018), selected by Choice as an
“Outstanding” title in 2018, and she is co-editing a 3-volume series entitled Latinx Literature in Transition, forthcoming from Cambridge. The recipient of three Fulbrights, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and a Whiting Fellowship, Lomas co-founded and previously co-directed the Immigrant Rights Collective, the Latina/o Studies Working Group and was Faculty Director of U.S.-Cuban Counterpoints, a study-abroad program in Havana, Cuba, in 2016. She serves on the Board of the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Project.
Laura's publications are available here: https://ncas-rutgers.academia.edu/LauraLomas
Read Recently published research:
- Afro-Latina Disidentification and Bridging: Lourdes Casal's Critical Race Theory
Please note: More information on plenaries, keynotes, and programme will be forthcoming closer to the conference.
Conference Venue
Our conference venue is located at the University of Education Ludwigsburg, Reuteallee 46, 71634 Ludwigsburg, close to the baroque Ludwigsburg Residential Palace, the Museum of Modern Literature Marbach, and the vibrant city of Stuttgart. Seeschloss Monrepos and Favoritepark are in walking distance, the Residential Palace and Stuttgart S-Bahn Station, too. We look forward to extending a warm welcome to our participants at the Literaturcafé, Building 1. (University of Education Ludwigsburg)
Hotels
For hotels please see the selection provided by the Tourist Information Ludwigsburg. For participants a number of rooms have been reserved in Ludwigsburg at the following hotels: The Best Western Hotel and Hotel Bergamo (reservation deadline March 1, 2023). To make a reservation please contact the hotel directly and reference the conference DDFLC, Stuttgart -Ludwigsburg.
Abstract submission
To submit your proposal please visit our eveeno-page (below). In addition, please send your abstract to DiverseDigital@pse-stuttgart-ludwigsburg.de.
Registration
This conference is free of charge, however, a voucher for finger food and beverage has to be purchased.
Regular: 40,00 € / Student: 10,00 €
Please register through eveeno (see button below).
Please note: Online registration will open on Saturday, December 10, 2022 and close by Wednesday, March 1, 2023.
Timeline
- Abstract paper submission: Friday, September 30, 2022
- Acceptance confirmation: Tuesday, November 15, 2022
- Online registration: Saturday, December 10, 2022
- Paper submission: Monday, May 1, 2023
Contact Conveners
