RU-UMAP-CHE International Conference 2008
"Language in a Global Culture: Bridge or Barrier?"

The conference will examine the question of cross-cultural communication in a global context and the issues this raises, both at the policy-making level and institutional levels, for teachers of English and other modern languages. Such issues include the best means of achieving fluency in the targer language, including the effective use of Information Technology (IT), and the implications this has for the training of both native and non-native instructors. Also discussed will be the need for both linguistic and its relationship to economic development, as well as the changing global dynamic and its impacts, both positive and negative, on individual societies and their own linguistic heritage.

Objectives

• To examine the barriers-both linguistic and cultural-to cross-cultural communication in a variety of fields and contexts.
• To examine the role of educational policy-making and planning at the national, regional, and international levels in encouraging linguistic and cross-cultural competency in students of all levels.
• To examine the role and feasibility of academic, cultural and professional exchange programs in building bridges in an increasingly multicultural environment.
• To examine the role of foreign language learning and its impact on economic development in such areas as commerce, tourism etc.
• To discuss the positive and negative aspects of a global language or lingua france (e.g. the de facto lingua franca: English).
• In the context of the above, to discuss the role of other Englishes, their inplications for the teaching of English as a Foreign Language, as well as the need to determine what other foreign languages should be taught.

Sub-Theme
Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Promoting Linguistic and Cross-cultural Competence
• Our Languages in a Global Culture
• Language and Economic Development
• Language and Education
• Communicative Competence and Tourism Development
• Teaching English Across Cultures
• Learning Foreign Language: The Role of e-Learning
• New Words for Old: The Dynamics of Language Change
• Whose English? Other Englishes and their Role in TEFL