Conferences - African Language Teachers Association

12th Annual ALTA Conference

(jointly held with the 11th Annual Conference of the
National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages - NCOLCTL)

April 24-27, 2008 - University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Twelfth Annual Meeting and Conference of the African Language Teachers Association took place from Thursday, April 24 – Sunday, April 27, 2008, at the Madison Concourse Hotel in Madison, WI. It was held jointly with the 11th Annual Conference of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages ( NCOLCTL), of which ALTA is a member. The conference brought together over 250 teachers of African and other less-commonly taught languages (LCTLs) from around the U.S. and from nations such as China, France, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and the United Kingdom. The theme of this year’s conference was “African Languages and Globalization: Challenges, Expectations, and Possibilities.”

This year’s conference sponsors included a number of organizations at the University of Wisconsin, such as: The National African Language Resource Center, The African Studies Program, The Center for East Asian Studies, The Center for European Studies, The Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies (with the generous support by the Ettinger Family Foundation), The Center for International Business Education and Research, and The Anonymous Fund. The Chief Sponsor of NCOLCTL Events and the NCOLCTL Secretariat is Gilles Bousquet, Dean of International Studies and Director of the International Institute, UW-Madison.

The conference began on Thursday, April 24, with a Pre-Conference workshop titled “Lessons Learned in the World of Conducting and Publishing Research: Ten Little Questions and Their Important Answers." It was led by Ray Clifford, President Elect of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), and Audrey L. Heining-Boynton, Professor of Foreign/Second Language Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Some of the questions the workshop addressed included: What constitutes research? How does one determine what research questions to ask? And how does one become published?

The next morning, April 25, General Welcome Remarks were delivered by Antonia Schleicher ( ALTA Executive Director), Gilles Bousquet (UW-Madison), Gary Sandefur (UW-Madison), and Gautami Shah ( NCOLCTL President). Immediately following, Donald C. Fischer of the Defense Language Institute delivered a plenary presentation entitled, “Achieving Production and Proficiency in Less Commonly Taught Languages.”

Four other plenary sessions were held during the course of the conference, led by LCTL pioneers such as Robert Slater, of the National Security Education Program, Catherine Ingold, of the National Foreign Language Center, Nelleke Van Deusen-Scholl, of the Yale Center for Language Study, and Ray Clifford, current ACTFL President.

In all, 160 papers were presented at this year’s conference on topics ranging from Standards-based measurement of proficiency and the use of technology in the classroom, to pedagogy in a globalized world and the integration of language and culture teaching. For the second year, the ALTA working groups for Swahili, Yoruba, and Zulu/Nguni languages met and conducted panel presentations in and about the target language.

On Saturday, April 26, ALTA members met at the ALTA Business Meeting to discuss the organization’s current and future projects. At the meeting, Audrey Mbeje of the University of Pennsylvania was elected to be the ALTA Vice-President. Kiarie (John) Wa’Njogu was elected to be Secretary/Treasurer. That night, a banquet was held in honor of Erika Gilson, winner of the NCOLCTL A. Ronald Walton Award, which recognizes distinguished service in the field of LCTLs. In her acceptance speech, Gilson traced her long and distinguished career in service of LCTLs, especially with the Turkic languages.

The 2008 ALTA- NCOLCTL conference brought together a variety of African language professionals from different backgrounds and countries around the world. Additionally, by being conducted in conjunction with the NCOLCTL conference, this year’s ALTA conference provided expanded possibilities to learn about innovations and challenges in the field of language pedagogy. The ALTA Secretariat would like to thank all of the conference attendees, as well as the volunteers who helped make the conference a success. We look forward to the 13 th Annual ALTA conference in 2009.

ALTA Secretariat
University of Wisconsin- Madison
4231 Humanities Bld, 455 N Park Street
Madison, WI 53706