LASER launch event, British Academy, Monday 11th March 2019

Language Analysis in Schools: Education and Research (LASER), a new campaigning group approved by BAAL and the LAGB, will hold its official launch event on Monday 11th March 2019, 10am- 5pm, kindly hosted by the British Academy in London. The event is free to attend and we invite teachers, academics, members of exam boards and any other interested parties to join us in discussing potential uses of language analysis in schools in relation to any academic discipline; our goals and assumptions are already spelt out in a manifesto which will provide the focus for the discussion.

The day will consist of a number of talks, followed by an open discussion period, during which we will make concrete plans regarding how to take the LASER initiative forward.

Come and get involved and share your ideas, enthusiasm and expertise!

Places are limited, so if you are planning to attend, please register online here

Programme

10.00-10.15 Registration (but please preregister online)
10.15-10.30 Welcome by LASER steering group (Dick Hudson, Michelle Sheehan & Graeme Trousdale) & Professor Neil Kenny, (Lead Fellow for Languages at the BA)
10.30-11.00 Professor Bas Aarts (UCL, Director of Englicious and of the Survey of English Usage)
11.00-11.30 Ian Bauckham (Headmaster, Chair of the TSC Report on FL Pedagogy)
11.30-11.45 Coffee break
11.45-12.15 Professor Paul Glaister (University of Reading, Immediate Past Chair of the Joint Mathematical Council of the UK (JMC)) & Neil Sheldon (Vice chair of the UK Linguistics Olympiad, former Vice President of the Royal Statistical Society, and former Second Master at Manchester Grammar School)
12.15-12.45 Discussion of first three talks
12.45-1.45 Lunch – served at the British Academy
1.45-2.15 Dr Michelle Sheehan (Anglia Ruskin University, Reader in Linguistics and Project Lead on Linguistics in Modern Foreign Languages)
2.15-2.45 Rachel Hawkes (Co-Director National Centre for Excellence for Language Pedagogy (NCELP), Cam Academy Trust, FL teacher and author, past President of ALL)
3.15-3.30 Tea break
3.30-5.00 General discussion: where do we go from here?