International conference in Bilbao on literacy in multilingual contexts

The Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences of Mondragon University has organized a conference entitled International Conference on Academic Literacies in Multilingual Contexts: Bridging Research Evidence and Classroom Practice to discuss literacy in multilingual contexts. The conference will be held on May 18 and 19 at Bilbao Berrikuntza Faktoria (BBF). Registration for the conference is now open.

Both local and international researchers will take part in the conference. The purpose of this conference is to contribute new evidence to the research on disciplinary literacy in multilingual contexts. 

According to the organizing team, it is of critical importance to take into account the knowledge provided by the research in order to assist teachers both in their teaching work and in their professional development. For this purpose, the conference will bring together teachers and researchers with different backgrounds, experiences and linguistic realities.

The conference will last for two days and will have different panels (see the full program on the conference website). The papers and posters to be presented at the conference will deal with the following topics:

• Literacy in different areas in secondary education and higher education.
• Literacy in different areas in multilingual contexts.
• The pluriliteracies approach for deeper learning.
• Teacher training and literacy in different fields.
• Classroom practices.
• Integration of the field and the language.
• Multilingual and intercultural competence.
• Curricular language(s).
• Discursive cognitive functions.

The importance of literacy in different fields

One of the main components of languages of schooling is disciplinary literacy. Each discipline or area generates knowledge in a specific way, and the language of that area therefore depends on the norms, customs and forms of communication of each discipline. The linguistic-discursive forms for the development and communication of the knowledge of the area are established from these disciplines.

In multilingual educational contexts, the language of schooling of many students is not their family language, and the integration of the disciplinary content and language is therefore a matter of great importance, as many pupils may not have achieved appropriate literacy, which would then have negative repercussions for their academic and personal development.