TEFL 7 Intercultural language education for increased European identity and cohesion CETAPS - FCSH, Nova University Lisbon 9-10 November 2018

The European Commission has been working to establish a ‘European Education Area’ by 2025 and a specific issue under consideration is the learning of languages. Good language competences are seen as key in promoting the European integration process and a sense of European identity. However, as Professor Michael Byram, our keynote speaker, argues, “language teaching does not pay sufficient attention to learners’ cultural competence ‒ and neither does the EU. Linguistic competence is the almost exclusive focus of attention in teaching and, importantly, in assessment”. We propose TEFL 7 as a platform to reflect on how intercultural language education can address the responsibility of what it means to be European and of dealing with local and global realities, complexities, and perplexities, of belonging to 21st-century communities.

The issues we would like to see discussed at the TEFL 7 conference consider how intercultural language education can play a role in promoting an inclusive and forwardlooking Europe by addressing the following strands: • Intercultural citizenship education to engage and promote action for change in defence of democratic principles, peace and human rights. • The contribution of the digital revolution and European projects such as etwinning to the development of intercultural communication and dialogue. • The role of critical thinking and creativity in developing intercultural competence. • How to address sensitive issues and challenge aggressive opinions as part of the intercultural learning process of debating, negotiating, speaking and listening. • The integration of intercultural competence in ELT, starting at a young age through to university. • The integration of intercultural learning in plurilingual approaches and bilingual programmes such as CLIL. • The role of instruments proposed by the Council of Europe such as The Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters, The Autobiography of Intercultural Encounters through Visual Media, and ECML resources in developing intercultural competence. • The place of visual literacy in the intercultural language classroom. • Benchmarking, testing and assessing the intercultural domain. For further information see the conference website: http://www.cetaps.com/events/tefl7/

REGISTRATION

Avenida de Berna, 26-C / 1069-061 Lisbon Telephone: +351 21 790 83 00 Fax: +351 21 790 83 08