Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence

[Garry Forger]

The Second International Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence
January 29-31, 2010  ~  The Hotel Arizona  ~  Tucson, Arizona, US

Conference Theme: Aiming for "The Third Place" Intercultural Competence through Foreign Language Teaching and Learning. More information at http://cercll.arizona.edu/icc_2010.php

Globalization, having brought individuals in contact with one another at an unprecedented scale, has also brought forth a general challenge to traditionally recognized boundaries of nation, language, race, gender, and class. The challenge moves in two directions simultaneously: on the one hand, distinctions that were unnoticeable before have been rendered visible, and in the opposite direction, similarities across traditional boundaries have been recognized. The end result in both cases is that boundaries of social practice are being re-negotiated, re-assessed, and re-considered. For those living within this rapidly changing social landscape, intercultural competence is a necessary skill, and the cultivation of such intercultural individuals falls on the shoulders of today’s educators. They should provide students with opportunities to help them define and design for themselves their "third place" or "third culture," a sphere of interculturality that enables language students to take an insider's view as well as an outsider's view on both their first and second cultures. It is this ability to find/establish/adopt this third place that is at the very core of intercultural competence.

The conference aims to bring researchers and practitioners across languages, levels and settings to discuss and share research, theory, and best practices and foster meaningful professional dialogue on issues related to Intercultural Competence teaching and learning.

Keynote Speaker:   Claire Kramsch, Ph.D. – University of California, Berkeley

Plenary Speakers:
Vicki Galloway, Ph.D - Professor of Spanish and Associate Chair for Research and Assessment in the School of Modern Languages at Georgia Institute of Technology. 
Jun Liu, Ph.D - Professor and Head of the Department of English at the University of Arizona. Director of the Confucius Institute of the University of Arizona (CIUA). Past President of Teachers of English as a Second or Other Language (TESOL).
R. S. Zaharna, Ph. D - Associate Professor in the School of Communication at American University. 

Find more information on the conference at http://cercll.arizona.edu/icc_2010.php

Questions and inquiries to CERCLL at Cercll at email.arizona.edu