Conferences and major events:

• 2nd Annual Distinguished Lecture: “Classroom-based experience in second language teacher education”, Prof Michael Legutke, University of Giessen, Germany, 10 October, 2012

• International linguistics conference: 'Regional varieties, language shift and linguistic identities', 12-15 September, 2012

• Conference: Transition in Languages - learning without hesitation, deviation or repetition, 3 July, 2012

• International Online Conference: Translation Process Research: Breaking New Ground, Aston University, 9 December 2011, organised by Dr Severine Hubscher-Davidson 

• Inaugural Distinguished Lecture: Professor Donald Freeman, Rethinking how Language ‘goes to school’: Social Capital in Teaching and Learning New Languages, and centre launch by Vice-Chancellor Prof Julia King, 26 October, 2011

• BAAL Learning and Teaching SIG Conference, attended by 120 participants, both national and international, 7-8 July, 2011

• The Networks into Languages Seminar: Supporting Change in Modern Foreign Languages Classrooms, attended by 20 participants from across the West Midlands Region, 15 June, 2011

Research projects and appointments:

• ‘Developing pupils’ abilities to talk, read and write the distinctive languages of school subjects at key stage 3'
  a project funded by the Education Endowment Fund
  Dr Urszula Clark is the Project Leader, supported by Professor Ann Burns. The pilot project is one in partnership with Park View Educational Trust, Alum Rock, Birmingham. Eight secondary schools and 32 teachers in the Birmingham and Coventry area will take part in the project.
  This pilot project aims to effectively challenge the educational disadvantage faced by pupils primarily, but not exclusively, from an English as an additional language (EAL) background. It does this through improving pupils’ literacy by incorporating a language based theory of learning and developing a Genre Based Pedagogy which teachers can integrate into their own teaching of all school subjects. By Genre Based Pedagogy (GBP) we mean pedagogy that takes into account the discipline-specific language and literacy skills required for effective teaching and learning of all school subject areas. The project centres upon teachers taking part in a continuing professional development programme called How Language Works, followed by support from education consultants in implementing the strategies learnt in the CPD into their practice.
  Timescale: 1st April 2013 - 31st August 2014

• Sustainable Development & Translation: a Project
  Dr Severine Hubscher-Davidson's project will aim to assess the impact that embedding sustainable development (SD) into the curriculum can have on translation students’ awareness and understanding of sustainability and environmental issues in France and in the UK. This will be an ideal opportunity to work on a key topic with final year and Masters translation students from different cultures and backgrounds, and to better understand their thoughts and attitudes to SD, as well as the contrasting perspectives on these issues in the two language-cultures. Ultimately, the aim is to increase their awareness of SD and sensitivity to cultural differences/viewpoints, and positively impact on their translation competence and future employability.

• Prof Christina Schäffner is responsible for one of the four sub-projects of the Marie Curie initial training network TIME (Translation Research Training: an integrated and intersectoral model for Europe) established with support from the European Commission. Her PhD student Wine Tesseur is the early careers fellow for this sub-project here at Aston University.

• Dr Sue Garton (co-director of CLERA) has been appointed Chair of the Standing Committee for Research of the US-based International TESOL Association. TESOL is the biggest organisation in the field of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. Sue’s two year appointment will begin officially at the annual international convention in Dallas in March 2013.

• Prof Anne Burns and Dr Nur Hurtoglu-Hooton received a 2012-13 British Academy Small Grant for their project Action Research as a Tool for Enhancing Professional Practice in the Secondary School Teaching of Modern Foreign Languages, from a pool of applications where only 21% were successful.

• Prof Anne Burns, Dr Fiona Copland, Dr Sue Garton and Dr Muna Morris-Adams won a ELTRP British Council grant (2012) to investigate Key Factors and Challenges in Transition from Primary to Secondary Schooling in ELT: An International Perspective. Their study study Transitions between Primary and Secondary Schools for Young Learners of English examines the issues that arise when learners move up the educational system and how curriculum policy and teaching practice can bridge any potential gaps.

• Prof Christina Schaeffner, Director of Translation Studies at Aston University, is a member of the OPTIMALE Steering Committee. OPTIMALE is an Erasmus academic network funded by the Directorate-General for Education and Culture (January 2011 – September 2013), aimed at Optimising Professional Translator Training in a Multilingual Europe. OPTIMALE aims to act as a vehicle and stimulus for innovation and high quality in the training of professional translators. 
  Aston is responsible for a sub-workpackage on Training for professional practice: domain specialization as part of WP5. In this context, Aston will organise workshops and similar events in 2012.

• Dr Urszula Clark (Co-PI) and Professor Gertrud Reershemius (Co-PI) (with Dr Tim Grant, PI) won a ESRC QMI Award in 2011 for research on Integrating Quantitative Methods into Undergraduate Programmes in Linguistics in the School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University.

• The project ‘‘Gesprochene Wissenschaftssprache kontrastiv – Spoken academic discourse in contrast’’ (GeWiss) is an international research cooperation between British, German and Polish partners funded by the Volkswagen Foundation for a period of three years between 2009 and 2012. The research organizations involved were the Herder Institute (University of Leipzig, Germany), Aston University in Birmingham (UK), and Wroclaw University (Poland). As part of the project a corpus of spoken academic language was built which consists of 80 hours (300,000 tokens) of spoken academic discourse concentrating on three genres: specialist research presentation, student presentation, and oral examination. The corpus will be made available to the general public via the Internet by the end of 2012.
  The project teams in all three countries are currently publishing the first results of a corpus-based contrastive analysis which combines qualitative and quantitative approaches, e.g. G. Reershemius (2012) ‘Research cultures and the pragmatic functions of humor in academic research presentations: A corpus-assisted analysis’. Journal of Pragmatics 44, 863-875.
  A number of PhD projects are based on the corpus data; at Aston, for example, Mr Klaus Thiele is working on "The distribution and function of metaphors in German and English research presentations" which is due to be submitted in 2013.

• Dr Urszula Clark is working with Park View Science and Technology Academy, Alum Rock, Birmingham on the project Evaluating a whole school policy on integrating a language based pedagogy across the curriculum.

• Dr Severine Hubscher-Davidson is a member of the International Thematic Network on Empirical and Experimental Research in Translation, led by the PACTE research group and funded by the Spanish Ministry of Innovation and Culture (2011-to date).
  This network brings together international experts in cognitive translatology and will be active until 2014. It involves the creation of a website and an empirical research in translation database which will include publications, project data and other research material. At the end of the project, the database will be open to the scientific community. This project requires active engagement on my part in view of a highly visible result, and has the potential to attract PhD students.

• In 2010, Dr Sue Garton, Dr Fiona Copland and Prof Anne Burns were successful in gaining a British Council English Language Teaching Research Award for the project Investigating Global Practices in Teaching English to Young Learners.

• Following this success, in 2010 Dr Garton and Dr Copland won further funding from The British Council for the project Activities for Teaching English to Young Learners.

• Dr Garton and Dr Copland were also successful in 2010 in gaining a grant for the project, Taking Steps in CLIL, funded by Linked-Up Awards Scheme.

• Prof Anne Burns and Dr Nur Hurtoglu-Hooton conducted the project Supporting Change in the Languages Classroom through funding from Networks for Languages, West Midlands.

Seminars and conference presentations:

Invited talks, seminars and keynotes:

• On January 9, 2013, Dr Claudia Gremler (with Sarah Hayes and Thomas Jochum-Critchley, University of York) hosted the one-day CPD seminar “Using digital video in the Modern Languages classroom. A practical workshop” as part of the Higher Education Academy Discipline Workshop and Seminar Series 2012-13. This workshop provided language teachers in higher education with the opportunity to explore a wide range of uses for digital video in the MFL classroom, including practical exercises, introduced participants to a variety of video-based learner activities and offers a forum for an exchange of existing good practice. It was attended by more than 20 delegates from HE institutions across the UK. 

• Prof Anne Burns was the plenary speaker at a number of conferences: the 6th International Seminar, Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, Indonesia, on 22-23 November, the Applied Linguistics Association of New Zealand Seminar, held at Waikato University, Hamilton, on 1 December and the Community Languages and ESOL (Retold) Conference held at Unitec, Auckland on 3 December. She was also the plenary speaker for the 1st Regional English Language Teachers' Conference held at the University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji, from 4-5 December.

• Prof Christina Schaeffner was invited to Brussels to attend an event organised by the Directorate General for Enlargement and the Directorate General for Translation on the topic ‘EU Multilingualism and Translation – from policy to practice’ (17 - 18 October, 2012).

• On 10 October, 2012, Dr Claudia Gremler was invited by the University of Aberystwyth to hold a CPD seminar titled 'Using Video in MFL Teaching' which was attended by both MFL university teaching staff and undergraduate students applying for Year Abroad BC assistantships.

• In October 2012, Dr Severine Hubscher-Davidson was keynote speaker at the Fourth International Anniversary Conference on Translation and Interpretation, The University of Baia Mare, Romania.

• Prof Anne Burns gave a public lecture and a seminar at the 6 ^th Symposium of the National Centre for Swedish as a Second Language and was also invited to attend the professorial and doctoral inauguration of the University of Stockholm on 28 September, 2012.

• Dr Urszula Clark gave an invited research seminar at the Education Department, University of Sheffield on Wednesday 25th April 2012 under the auspices of The Philosophy Society of Great Britain.

• Dr Clark  was also a keynote speaker at a North West Ethnic Minority Achievement Hub event - Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum at key Stage 2 and 3, March 9th, 2012, in Bury, Lancashire.

• Dr Fiona Copland presented a workshop at the Arabia TESOL Conference, Dubai, March, 2012.

• Prof Anne Burns was a plenary speaker at the 9^th Asia TESOL Conference, Seoul, 26-28 July 2011, the 1st Persia TESOL Conference, Tehran, 31 October-1 November 2011, and the Workshop on Doing Qualitative and Action Research in TESOL, Beijing Foreign Studies University, 5-6 November 2011.

• Dr Muna Morris-Adams was a featured speaker at the Korea TESOL conference, where she gave a talk and a workshop, October, 2011.

• In July 2011, Dr Severine Hubscher-Davidson was invited to speak at the 2nd International Research Workshop on Methodology in Translation Process Research, University of Gießen, Germany.

• Dr Claudia Gremler presented 'The Use of Video in Languages: Teaching Intercultural Marketing to IBML Students' at the CLIPP Best Practice Day, Aston University, 29 June, 2011.

• Dr Kurtoglu-Hooton gave two invited plenary addresses at the 2nd International Conference on Language Education. Sabanci University, Turkey, 2-4 June, 2011 and The British University Conference, Dubai, May 19-20, 2011.

• Prof Anne Burns was a plenary speaker at the 28th International Conference on English Teaching and Learning, Taiwan, 14-15 May.

• Prof Anne Burns gave a workshop and was a plenary speaker at the TESOL Arabia Conference, Dubai, 9-12 March, 2011.

• Dr Fiona Copland was a keynote speaker at JALT, 2011.

• Dr Sue Garton and Dr Fiona Copland gave an invited presentation, Issues and Challenges for Teacher of English to Young Learners, at the British Council, Beirut, Lebanon.

• Dr Claudia Gremler (with Elisabeth Wielander) presented 'LSS Teaching Fellow Film Project: Using visual media in teaching' at the CLIPP Best Practice Day, Aston University, June 2010.

Research seminar series at Aston (selected papers):

• Dr Severine Hubscher-Davidson, Embedding Sustainable Development in Translation Teaching, 20 March, 2013
  
  
• Prof Christina Schäffner, Press Conferences and Recontextualisation, 31 October, 2012
  
  
• Dr Stefan Manz, Constructing a Diaspora in Imperial Germany, 1871-1914, 17 October, 2012
  
  

• Dr Urszula Clark, 'Linguistic Super-diversity in Contemporary Ethnic Minority Artistic Performances', 6 June, 2012

• Joe Fagan and Liz Tanguay, Modality and Learner Writing and Stance in Academic Seminars, 2 November, 2011

• Prof Anne Burns, NESB Accountants, Professional Communication and ESP Pedagogy, 10 May, 2011

• Dr Muna Morris- Adams, Topic Management in native speaker non-native speaker conversations. 1 March, 2011

• Dr Fiona Copland and Dr Sue Garton, Global Practices in Teaching Young Learners, 27 November, 2010

• Dr Nur Kurtoglu-Hooton,  "... a bit of a ‘life changer’" Teacher and Peer Feedback as an Instigator of Learning and Change, 26 October, 2010 

• Prof David Nunan's seminar on Technology Support in Language Learning, 19 May, 2010