AAAL panel on transdisciplinary approaches in applied linguistics

At the 2017 meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics, I will be presenting on the Expanding Repertoires project as part of the Language and Ideology Colloquium, ‘Transdisciplinary Approaches in Applied Linguistics: Exploring Language Practices and Tracing Ideological Effects to Address Real-world Issues’, organized by Liz Miller and Doris Warriner. Our colloquium is on Sunday, March 19. ADDENDUM: Before the panel we had a great lunch of tamales, joined by Kathy Howard (photo by Liz Miller).

AAA 2016 paper

Today at the 115th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, my advisee Sirad Shirdon is presenting our paper ‘The co- and re-construction of classroom competence in a Somali-centric Kindergarten’. We are part of the panel Language Socialization in Classrooms: Culture, Interaction, and Development, organized by Matthew Burdelski and Kathryn Howard and invited by the Anthropology of Children and Youth Interest Group (ACYIG). The panel previews an volume edited by Matt and Kathy, to be published by Cambridge.

Navigating Languages, Literacies, and Identities

The edited volume Navigating Languages, Literacies and Identities: Religion in Young Lives has come out! Edited by Vally Lytra, Dinah Volk, and Eve Gregory, the volume showcases innovative research at the interface of religion and multilingualism, with an analytical focus on religion in children and adolescents’ everyday lives and experiences. I have a chapter on my research in northern Cameroon and Central Ohio.

Children Seen and Heard Across the Globe, Part II

Lorentz posterI will be participating in a workshop this coming week at the Lorentz Center in Leiden. Child development research has been dominated by studies in western urban societies. The aim of the workshop ‘Children Seen and Heard across the Globe‘ is to bring together a small group of scholars working with hard-to-reach non-Western communities in order to build interdisciplinary collaborations around the collection and analysis of video data sets from these communities. This week-long workshop follows up on the NIAS workshop held in April-May 2015.

Interview in Psychology Today

An interview with me about language learning in multilingual communities went live today on the Psychology Today website. Here is the blurb from the front page: What is everyday interaction like in communities where everyone speaks several languages? What language learning strategies do they use? What assumptions do they make about language learning? Dr. Leslie C. Moore answers questions about the two multilingual communities in northern Cameroon where she did her research and about her own language learning in the field.

Talk at Leiden University Centre for Linguistics

Today I give a talk for the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. The talk, ‘Moving across languages and learning traditions’, will be in 16:00 – 17:00 in Eyckhof 3/005. I will present my research on the social and cultural patterning of language learning in three multilingual African communities. In the late 1990s I was a visiting scholar in African Languages and Linguistics at Leiden University, and I am excited to see old friends and hear about the exciting work they are doing now.

NIAS Workshop

NIAS workshop smallI spent the past few days in a workshop, Children seen and heard around the world: A multidisciplinary cross-cultural approach to video data of family life and child development. Professor Judi Mesman (Centre for Child and Family Studies, Leiden University) organized this international workshop with 17 researchers from the fields of child and family studies, anthropology, and linguistics to present their available video data sets and their perspectives on the data sets. We are working toward the creation of an international multidisciplinary network that will facilitate sharing video data, and integrating our perspectives, forming collaborative alliances for future projects, and producing multidisciplinary scientific output.

NSF AISL Pathways Grant

My COSI partner Jen Cassidy and I have been awarded an NSF Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Pathways Grant for our project ‘Expanding Repertoires of Practice: Improving Informal Science Learning Experiences for Dual Language Learners‘. In this project, we will collaborate with 8 other science centers and children’s museums and their community partners to begin the systematic study of informal science education programs and practices for reaching and serving preschool dual language learners. The project includes three interconnected activities: (1) a national needs assessment of children’s museums and science museums, (2) a two-day, in-person convening and quarterly virtual meet-ups of museum-community teams, and (3) an exploratory study of informal science programs and experiences at COSI and in early learning centers in Central Ohio. The overarching goal is to advance the knowledge and awareness of needs and practices related to informal science programming for preschool children who are learning English as an additional language.

Talk for VU’s Anthropology of Children & Youth Network

On Friday, November 14th I will give a talk, ‘Moving across languages and learning traditions’ in the monthly seminar of the Anthropology of Children and Youth Network at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I present an overview of my research on the social and cultural patterning of children’s language learning in communities whose members use multiple languages and participate in multiple learning traditions. The seminar is in room Z-007, the Metropolitan Gebouw.