The Language Educator Symposium is an annual event hosted by Penn Language Center and co-sponsored by Educational Linguistics at Penn GSE on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus in Philadelphia, PA. Typically held on a Saturday, the one-day event brings the language teaching community together to explore current issues in the field of language education.
Organizers
Penn Language Center was established in 1989 for the purpose of expanding, intensifying and enriching Penn’s language curriculum. The University of Pennsylvania has a long and distinguished record in the teaching of foreign languages and plays a leading role in the major research fields related to foreign language learning and teaching. The most significant feature of the PLC allows for a structural flexibility that has made it possible to respond to changes in demand for instruction in a variety of languages. The PLC has been able to serve growing language instruction needs that could not be covered within the regular programs of established departments. PLC’s mission is three-fold: 1) the instruction of the less commonly taught languages and languages for specific purposes (e.g. business, medical languages); (2) faculty development for language instructors across campus: PLC organizes conferences, workshops, lectures, and seminars on topics of practical and theoretical interest; provides technology training; supports conference travel; awards teaching innovation grants, maintains a resource library, etc. (3) research that focuses on intercultural competencies, technology, autonomous learning, and FL acquisition; PLC also is involved in outreach and articulation with secondary schools.
Penn Language Center
715-716 Williams Hall
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305
plc@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
plc.sas.upenn.edu
The Educational Linguistics Division, a unit within Penn’s Graduate School of Education, was founded in 1976 in order to provide researchers and educators with an interdisciplinary space in which to examine language learning, language teaching, and the role of language in learning and teaching. Faculty and students in the Ph.D. specialization in Educational Linguistics and the Master’s specializations in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Intercultural Communication (ICC) are involved as practitioners and researchers in and out of educational settings, locally and around the world, on topics such as:
- bilingualism, biliteracy, and bilingual education
- critical language awareness
- educational and social consequences of linguistic diversity
- heritage and Indigenous language teaching and learning
- intercultural communication
- local and global perspectives on English language teaching policy and practice
- mass media and schooling
- multilingual language planning and policy
For over 40 years, the Educational Linguistics Division has been committed to preparing graduates to be leaders within the field of language education, as both interculturally-minded practitioners and cutting-edge researchers.
Educational Linguistics Division
University of Pennsylvania
Graduate School of Education
3700 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
www.gse.upenn.edu/elx
Recent Themes
- May 2022: Collaborations for Change
- 2021: Identity and Power in Translation: Whose Language Do You Teach?
- 2019: Service Learning in World Language Education
- 2018: Discourse and Interaction in Language Education
- 2017: Open-Source Learning and the Future of Language Education
- 2016: Developing Intercultural Competence in Language Education
- December 2015: Going Global with Business Languages: Secrets of Success
- January 2015: Active Learning for World Languages: Where, When, and How?
- 2013: Fast Forward: Language Online
- 2012: Advancing Language Education beyond the Classroom
- 2011: Re-conceptualizaing the Language Classroom as the Online Course