ORGANIZED BY:
LACELL Research Group University of Murcia (PR: Aquilino Sánchez)	Language and Speech Research Group University of the Basque Country (PR: María del Pilar García Mayo)
With the collaboration of:   Research Group LAELA (PR: Eva Alcón), Jaume I University, Castellón         Research Group  GRAL  (PR: Carmen Muñoz), University of Barcelona, Barcelona

 

The 1st International Symposium on Cognitive Factors and ELT: Explicit and Implicit Teaching, 29-30 November 2012, will be hosted by the English Department from the University of Murcia, Spain. It will be organized by the research groups LACELL (PR: Aquilino Sánchez, University of Murcia www.um.es/grupolacell), Language and Speech (PR: María del Pilar García Mayo, University of the Basque Country http://www.laslab.org), with the collaboration of LAELA (PR: Eva Alcón, University Jaume I, Castellón  http://www.laela.uji.es) and GRAL (PR: Carmen Muñoz, University of Barcelona http://www.ub.edu/GRAL).

The Symposium will analyse the underlying cognitive factors governing the acquisition and learning of foreign languages and how such factors can and should be fostered through teaching. More specifically, this Symposium will examine the interface issue between explicit and implicit knowledge and learning, especially from the perspective of language teaching. We aim to study in which way language teaching activities and materials can foster the development of explicit learning –as mainly centred on linguistic forms- and implicit learning –as primarily focused on communicative messages– and, therefore, how such pedagogical tools can stimulate the acquisition of explicit and implicit knowledge. 

The symposium will host two kinds of participants:
a) Invited participants (plenary speakers, authors of select papers and round table speakers). These participants  -who will cover 12 different sessions to be attended by all the registered participants-  have been selected and invited by the Organizing Committee due to their status as experts in each one of the three specific axes around which the symposium has been structured.
b) Regular participants (a maximum of 100) are those (i) registered to attend the symposium, and (ii) registered as authors of a poster or a short communication, entitled to attend and participate in all the sessions in charge of the invited participants.

Posters and short papers will be selected from among all the proposals received, on the basis of their quality and relevance regarding the topic of the symposium. Short papers will be 10 minutes long.

The official language of all the sessions will be English.
The symposium will revolve around three interrelated axes whose global thematic coherence is based on an initial overview of explicit and implicit knowledge and learning in SLA (Axis 1), to continue with the study of the interface issue in SLA and its methodological implications (Axis 2) so that methodological options for the promotion of both types of knowledge can be proposed and discussed (Axis 3).

The three axes are as follows:

Axis 1: Explicitness and implicitness in SLA.
The first plenary talk, by Professor Jan Hulstjin (University of Amsterdam), will be followed by two select papers whose authors are specialists on the topic of this session. Such a topic will also be the subject of a debate in the ensuing Round Table. This will be chaired by a coordinator and will include the participation of three experts, who will discuss a topic related to the preceding plenary talk and select papers.

Axis 2: The interface issue in SLA: Implications for foreign language instruction.
Professor Robert DeKeyser (University of Maryland, USA) will introduce the topic of this axis with a plenary talk, which will be followed by two select papers delivered by two experts.  A final Round Table will offer opportunities for discussion and debate of all the ideas proposed before.

Axis 3: Promoting explicit and implicit knowledge in foreign language instruction.
Professor Martin Bygate (University of Lancaster, UK) will open this session with a plenary talk. Two select papers and a third Round Table will respectively follow so as to discuss tasks in foreign language instruction and the interface issue.

Finally, two-hour sessions of the symposium will be reserved for the presentation of short papers and posters. These sessions will be “open” in the sense that they are intended to encourage the presentation of new and complementary ideas and proposals to those offered in the three axes above. Accordingly, short papers and posters may deal with any of the following areas:

1.-The Interface Issue in SLA (either the strong-, weak- and no-interface stands) and its implications for ELT.

2.-Cognitive perspectives on SLA –psycholinguistic and/or neurolinguistic- and their applications to ELT.

3.-Defining features of explicit and implicit instruction in ELT from a cognitive perspective.
Managing explicit and implicit instruction in ELT from a cognitive perspective.

4.-Adjusting the explicit and implicit load of current ELT materials.

5.-Explicit and implicit instruction in ELT methods.

6.-Proposals are particularly welcome in the field of ELT, but they will also be accepted as related to any other foreign language or to the general field of Foreign Language Teaching.

 

ORGANISING COMMITTEE:  President: Aquilino Sánchez Vice-president: María del Pilar García Mayo Secretary: Raquel Criado Other Members: Lourdes Cerezo Pascual Cantos Gema Alcaraz Carmen Bretones David Lasagabaster Herrarte María Martínez Adrián Juan Manuel Sierra Plo Yolanda Ruiz de Zarobe Aintzane Doiz Bienzobas Mª Luisa García Lecumberri Esther Gómez Lacabex Junkal Gutiérrez Mangado  Webmaster: Nila Vázquez     SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE:  International Members  Martin Bygate (University of Lancaster, UK) Robert M. DeKeyser (University of Maryland, USA) Jan H. Hulstjin (University of Amsterdam, Holland) Judit Kormos (University of Lancaster, UK) Virginia Samuda (University of Lancaster, UK)   National Members  Aquilino Sánchez (University of Murcia) María del Pilar García Mayo (University of the Basque Country) Eva Alcón (Jaume I University) Carmen Muñoz (University of Barcelona) Rosa Manchón (University of Murcia) Raquel Criado (University of Murcia) Pascual Cantos (University of Murcia) Patricia Salazar (Jaume I University)