Texas Foreign Language Education Conference 2008

Reaching for Words: Language Education and
Socio-Economic (Im)mobility

Keynote Speakers

Dr. Suresh Canagarajah (Pd.D in applied linguistics, UT Austin) is William J and Catherine Craig Kirby Professor in Language Learning at the Pennsylvania State University. He had his early education in the war-torn northern region of Sri Lanka where he taught English language and literature for students from mostly rural backgrounds at the University of Jaffna. Later, he joined the faculty at the City University of New York (Baruch College and the Graduate Center) where he taught multilingual urban students for a decade. His research on the literacy concerns of African American students has appeared in composition journals. He has also studied issues in bilingualism and English language teaching. His book Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching (OUP, 1999) won Modern Language Associationʼs Mina Shaughnessy Award for the best research publication on the teaching of language and literacy. His subsequent publication Geopolitics of Academic Writing (UPittsburgh Press 2002) won the Gary Olson Award for the best book in social and rhetorical theory. Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students (University of Michigan Press, 2002) applies composition research and scholarship for the needs of multilingual students. His edited collection Reclaiming the Local in Language Policy and Practice (Erlbaum, 2005) examines linguistic and literacy constructs in the context of globalization. His study of World Englishes in Composition won the 2007 Braddock Award for the best article in the College Composition and Communication journal. Suresh edits the flagship journal of the professional organization for English language teachers, TESOL Quarterly. He is currently analyzing interview transcripts and survey data from South Asian immigrants in Canada, USA, and UK for a book length work on Diaspora relationships. 

Dr. Judith Liskin-Gasparro (M.A., Princeton University; Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa, where she teaches courses in teaching methods, second language acquisition, and Spanish language. For 13 years (until fall 2006) she was the Director of the General Education Program in Spanish. She is also Co-Director of FLARE (Foreign Language Acquisition Research and Education), which offers an interdisciplinary doctoral program in Second Language Acquisition. Her research interests include discourse strategies of second-language learners, language acquisition during study abroad, the acquisition of narrative skill in a second language, and foreign language assessment. She is a co-author of /Identidades/, an intermediate college-level Spanish textbook published by Prentice Hall, and is currently at work on the fifth edition of  /Mosaicos/, an elementary college-level Spanish textbook also published by Prentice Hall.

Professor Liskin-Gasparro was one of the developers of the /ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines/, and she designed and led the first oral proficiency testing workshops, at which she trained the first generation of OPI testers and trainers in Spanish. She trains oral proficiency testers and trainers for ACTFL, and is currently coordinating a prochievement test development project in eight languages under an ACTFL contract. She is a frequent presenter of pedagogical workshops at secondary and post-secondary levels.

 
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