Please join us for the online launch of our new Centre for Language Education Research, which looks at language learning, language teaching and assessment. See SSESW colleagues talking about the centre in the video at https://bit.ly/2M0uwMg. 

The launch event includes an inaugural lecture presented by Professor James P Lantolf, Xi’an Jiatong University, Greer Professor in Language Acquisition, Emeritus, The Pennsylvania State University. Register at http://bit.ly/38X2nyh to participate in the event.

Entitled 'The Theory~Practice Crisis: Second Language Acquisition versus Language Education', the presentation focuses on the long-standing, and still unresolved, crisis in the general field of applied linguistics in which the gap between Second Language Acquisition theory/research and educational practice has yet to be bridged.   

Professor James Lantolf is the scholar most closely associated with the development of the Vygotskyan, or sociocultural (SCT), paradigm of second language acquisition research. He has published nine books and over 150 articles. A world-renowned scholar, Professor Lantolf previously directed the Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research at the Pennsylvania State University for over 20 years. He has been President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and received the association’s Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award. He was awarded the prestigious Changjiang Yangtze River Scholar in Applied Linguistics, with the recent establishment of the Lantolf Research Center for Second Language Studies, School of Foreign Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University.  

For further information, please contact Dr Aisling O'Boyle, Director of the Centre for Language Education Research, School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work at a.oboyle@qub.ac.uk