Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
9:00 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.

Keynote: Dr. Horst Freitag, German Consul General Germany, the United States, and the Future

Workshop #1: Teaching the European Union Dr. R. Daniel Kelemen, Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and Director of the Center for European Studies. Dr. Kelemen is a specialist in EU politics, law and regulation. He serves on the Executive Committee of the European Union Studies Association and the editorial board of the Journal of European Public Policy.

With its 27 member states, its maze of institutions and its bewildering acronyms, the EU is hard for many citizens to understand.  Teaching the European Union to American students - making the subject accessible and fascinating for students - can be challenging.  This workshop will explore central themes concerning the EU (what it is, how it developed, how it affects us) and review teaching materials and lesson plans on the EU available online.

CANCELED DUE TO LOW REGISTRATION

Workshop #2: Harmonious Scales: The Common European Framework of Reference and the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines Dr. Elvira Swender, ACTFL, Director of Professional Programs Dr. Elvira Swender is a specialist in proficiency-based language instruction and assessment, overseeing a number of programs and projects for the improvement of language teaching and testing. Among her publications are the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines -Speaking (1999) and Writing (2001), the ACTFL Performance Guidelines for K-12 Learners (1998), and the ACTFL Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA). Dr. Swender is a consultant to various U.S. and international educational, private sector, and governmental organizations and agencies. Current areas of research include correlations and concordances among testing scales and frameworks, including the ACTFL Guidelines, the U.S. Government’s Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) Scale, the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and the STANAG 6001 (NATO scale).

As the world becomes smaller, the need to communicate with speakers of many different languages increases.  Language programs across the globe are now being described and designed not only in terms of language achievement – what students are taught  - but rather in terms of language proficiency - what students are able to do in the real world with what they have been taught in school.  The ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines and the Common European Framework of Reference are two examples of how language abilities and language program outcomes are currently articulated on both sides of the Atlantic.  This sesssion will take a look at the two Frameworks, describe their commonalities and differences, and present information regarding what both the ACTFL Guidelines and the CEFR are telling language educators about the proficiency of language learners.  Ongoing and proposed research initiatives on this topic will also be presented.

Workshop #3:  Immigration and Integration in Europe Dr. Derek Schilling, Associate Professor of French, Rutgers University B.A., Williams College, M.A., Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, Doctorat de 3e cycle, Université de Paris VIII - Vincennes/Saint-Denis. Prof. Schilling teaches and writes on 20th-century French literature, cinema, and society. His current research deals with history of literary representations of the Paris suburbs since the First World War.

Why have Islamic headscarves been banned from French public schools? What fueled the violent uprisings of 2005 in the  French suburbs?  What challenges do the increasingly multicultural societies of Europe pose to abstract political models of democracy, and how have hard economic times in some European states led to a popular backlash against immigrant populations? In this seminar we will consider the legacies of post-colonial immigration to France and other European nations in order to address the broad relationship among migration, cultural integration, and political inclusion. We will focus both on recent debates on the status of religion in the public sphere (notably the headscarf and burka affairs in France) and on governmental responses to endemic unemployment amongst minority youth.

AGENDA:

LOCATION:

NEW LOCATION : Corwin AA - Center for European Studies
Parking is across the street, behind the Little Theater (fenced in area).
Parking permits will be emailed the day before the event. Permits will also be available the day of the event.