Events - April 2018

What exactly is a native speaker? What beliefs and assumptions underlie the educational aim of native speaker competence? And are native speakers better language teachers? To what extent can alternative notions such as the “intercultural speaker” (Byram), “symbolic competence” (Kramsch), or “transcultural and translingual competence” (MLA) help address the problem of native-speakerism? And what implications do these discussions have for classroom language teaching?

These and other questions will be discussed at the Native Speaker Colloquium.