The Advancing Ohio’s English Learners (AOEL) project webpages are now live! Start at the AOEL landing page, from which you can explore the 3 resources created by our team:
Please note that ODEW is still making some last-minute adjustments to the English Learners with Suspected Disabilities webpage in the Instructional Roadmap. All other pages are published.
Artanti Sari and I have a new article in the International Journal of Bilingualism. ‘Learning Qur’anic Arabic in a virtual village: Family religious language policy in transnational Indonesian Muslim families‘ examines how two Indonesian Muslim families in the United States used digital technology to support their children in learning Qur’anic Arabic in translocal and transnational contexts in which to connect with family, friends, Qur’anic Arabic educators, and voluntary kin. Our article is part of a special issue on sacred language learning, guest edited by Bene Bassetti.
Dr. Zulfa Sakhiyya and I are invited speakers at the 9th International Conference on Education in Muslim Society, August 14-15. This year’s theme is ‘Integrating Multiculturalism and Literacy in the Educational Landscape’. My department had the honor of hosting Zulfa as a Fulbright Scholar last year. Our ICEM talk, ‘Faith literacies in multilingual context’, grows out of our collaborative exploration of Qur’anic schooling in diverse settings.
The Advancing Ohio’s English Learners (AOEL) project team has multiple sessions at the 2023 Ohio TESOL Conference. The Activity 3 Instructional Guide session is Thursday, November 9, at 11 am. We will give an update on the project and elicit input from the audience on supplementary resources, videos and lesson plans they would like to see and/or share.
FLRT, aka the Graduate Student Working Group for Foreign Language Research and Teaching, held the annual start of the academic year picnic this past Sunday at Goodale Park. Much food and fun were had by all!
Artanti Sari and I are presenting today at the 56th Annual Conference of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL) at the University of York. We are part of the symposium ‘The Learning of Sacred Languages’, which features papers from a forthcoming special issue of the International Journal of Bilingualism, edited by Bene Bassetti. Our paper examines the use of digital spaces by transnational Indonesian-Muslim families to support their children’s Qur’anic Arabic language and literacy development.
End of this month I will be a panelist and participant in a workshop focused on Language Learning in/as Religious Education. Dr. Artanti Sari and I will present together on Qur’anic Arabic learning in digital spaces. The workshop is the 3rd part of a series of events hosted by the Cambridge Interfaith Programme at the University of Cambridge. We will reflect on approaches, methods, and next steps in the research and teaching of religious languages. We will discuss the core questions: (1) What have we learned about how and why people teach and learn religious languages? (2) What do we do with that learning? (3) How does interdisciplinary discussion about such research impact our own work as teachers and/or researchers? This workshop will be of interest to educators, researchers, and practitioners of religious languages and literacies. We welcome participation and insights from attendees drawing from their own experiences with religious languages and literacies. This hybrid workshop takes place, Monday, 27 March, 2023, 13:15 to 16:45 GMT. For more information and registrations, click on the link above.
As part of University of Cambridge’s 13th World Interfaith Harmony Week programming, we are holding a webinar Language Learning in/as Religious Education on February 2, at 15:45 GMT. I will join Adel Mozammel (Darul Ihsan School), Anastasia Badder (Cambridge U), Jo-Ann Myers (Leo Baeck Institute), and Youmna Helmy (Cambridge U) to explore how religious communities draw on language as a semiotic resource aimed at specific goals, and how different methodologies can reveal aspects of the aims, processes, factors, and outcomes of sacred language learning and use. The event is free, just register in advance to get the Zoom link.
FLRT held its 6th Graduate Student Symposium for Foreign Language Research and Teaching January 20th. In addition to 13 great papers by students, keynote speaker Professor Ester de Jong (University of Colorado Denver) gave a talk on multilingualism and language teacher preparation.
I am participating in 2 sessions at the 2022 Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Seattle. The panel ‘Using Anthropology Of Language And Literacy To Address Equity In Unsettling Times’ brings together educational anthropologists who draw on anthropological theory and methods to examine the teaching and learning of language and literacy, drawing on theoretical frameworks that challenge dominant understandings. The round table ‘Refugee Education Across The Life Span In Unsettling Times’ showcases research on/with the language and literacy dimensions of the refugee experience.