Dr Diane Potts will be speaking at Queen Mary, University of London on Thursday 29th November from 4.30pm – 5.30pm. Her talk is titled ‘Reflecting on the profession: language educators in the context of constant change’.

“If everyone teaches language, who is the language educator? This decades-old question is worth asking anew with the rise of English as medium of instruction (EMI), the ever-increasing emphasis on recruiting international students to English-dominant nations, and the considerable ethnic and linguistic diversity among home students. While the pedagogic goal of EMI is frequently described as ‘non-language’ (Pecorari & Malmström, 2018), there is little doubt that the policy aim in non-English dominant countries is to extend what learners can do in English. From a somewhat different perspective, researchers in English-dominant countries have called for greater recognition of domestic or home students’ linguistic diversity and argued a corresponding need for increased language support in mainstream classrooms (c.f. Coffin & Donohue, 2014). In these and other scenarios, the place of professional language educators becomes increasingly ambiguous, as responsibility for developing privileged linguistic and/or semiotic registers shifts to content classrooms. Thus the question, who is the language educator?”

To find out more about the event and register, go to the Eventbrite page.