- Seminar: Linguistic risk-taking: Qu’avons-nous appris jusqu’à présent ?
- Speaker: Nikolay Slavkov, Associate Professor and Director of the Canadian Centre for Research and Studies in Bilingualism and Language Planning at the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute
- Date: Thursday, January 27th, 2022
- Time: 4:30 p.m.
- Location: Zoom
Have you ever felt that using your second official language is “risky business”? This presentation will describe an innovative pedagogical initiative implemented at the University of Ottawa to encourage learners to be linguistic risk-takers. In a bilingual context, linguistic risks are defined as authentic communicative tasks that learners may be hesitant to undertake in their second official language due to discomfort about making mistakes, being misunderstood, misunderstanding others, being judged, taking on a different identity, or changing existing language habits. This may cause learners to remain within the comfort zone of their preferred (i.e., stronger) language, instead of taking advantage of opportunities for authentic second language use that abound in their daily lives. I will discuss the Linguistic Risk-Taking Passport paper booklet and digital app prototype as practical tools for increasing authentic second language engagement and as research data collection tools that offer insights into language learning processes and experiences. I will offer a summary of qualitative and quantitative data from several recent studies and also discuss future directions for the project.
This session will be in English with some French content. Post-presentation will be bilingual French/English. You can join this virtual seminar at this Zoom link.