Projects (current)
Members of the Research Centre for Languages and Cultures are often engaged in multiple projects of various types - more 'pure' research projects, more focussed applied consultancies, some externally funded, some not. The following lists all funded projects which are currently underway in the RCLC. This list is updated in march and September each year.
- Guide to the teaching learning and assessing of languages in the 21st century
- Assessing student learning in language cultures education
- Assessing the intercultural in language learning
- Professional standards project
- Innovative approaches to the provision of languages other than English in Australian higher education
- Intercultural language teaching and learning project (ILTLP)
- Investigation into the state and nature of languages education in Australian schools
- Investigation into the development of oral and cross-cultural proficiency among students of Italian at the university
Guide to the teaching learning and assessing of languages in the 21st century
Angela Scarino ~ Anthony J Liddicoat ~ Michelle Kohler ~ Andrew Scrimgeour ~ Jonathan Crichton ~ Timothy Jowan Curnow ~ Anne-Marie Morgan ~ Kate Loechel ~ Nives Mercurio
2007 - 2009, Department of Education, Science and Training
This project involves researching and developing a guide to the teaching, learning and assessment of languages. It also includes developing language specific companion resources that exemplify the principles outlined in the Guide.
Assessing student learning in language cultures education
Angela Scarino ~ Kazuyo Taguchi ~ Leo Papademetre
2006 - 2009, Catholic Education Office
This project will extend teachers' knowledge and understanding of assessment and strengthen the assessment of students' performance in languages learning as one of the key learning areas in the school curriculum for all students. It responds specifically to current Federal and State priority in the area of educational assessment.
Assessing the intercultural in language learning
Anthony J Liddicoat ~ Angela Scarino ~ Antonio Mercurio
2006 - 2009, ARC Linkage; industry partners are the Department of Education and Children's Services of South Australia, the South Australian School of Languages, and the Senior Secondary Assessment Board of South Australia
The project will work with teachers and students in Years 4-12 in a range of languages to develop approaches to assessment for intercultural language learning. The project will examine key dimensions of assessment: eliciting and judging intercultural language learning and validating the assessment approach. The project will include the development and analysis of assessment tasks, analysis of students' responses to these tasks, and analysis of criteria used in judging responses. The study will develop a theorised model of assessment for intercultural learning in languages, which will fill a gap in languages pedagogy and intercultural research, an understanding of task features for assessing intercultrality and an explication of assessment processes.
Professional standards project (please visit project website)
Angela Scarino ~ Anthony J Liddicoat ~ Timothy Jowan Curnow ~ Jonathan Crichton ~ Andrew Scrimgeour ~ Michelle Kohler ~ Anne-Marie Morgan ~ Kate Loechel ~ Nives Mercurio ~ Leo Papademetre ~ Kazuyo Taguchi
2007 - 2008, Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations
This project involves the research development and implementation of a nationally coordinated professional learning programme for languages teachers, using the Professional standards for accomplished teaching of languages and cultures. It includes (1) developing language specific annotations of the generic standards in Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Indonesian and Spanish; (2) developing professional development resources and (3) establishing school-based investigations and ways of developing teacher portfolios of their teaching practices.
Innovative approaches to the provision of languages other than English in Australian higher education
Giancarlo Chiro ~ Vincenza Tudini
2007-2008, Deans of Arts, Social Sciences & Humanities
The research project will be for an exchange of courses, including online materials in Arabic (from Deakin to UniSA) and Italian (from UniSA to Deakin). The project will trial Model 1 (Cooperative Blended Model) as part of a Collaboration and Structural Reform (CASR) grant looking at innovative collaborations in the provision of Languages other than English in Australian higher education. Teaching and learning innovations and other outcomes will be researched, evaluated and reported in refereed journals.
Intercultural language teaching and learning project (ILTLP) - (please visit project website)
Angela Scarino ~ Anthony J. Liddicoat ~ Jonathan Crichton ~ Leo Papademetre ~ Andrew Scrimgeour ~ Michelle Kohler ~ Jim Dellit ~ Jo Carr ~ Chantal Crozet
2006-2008, Department of Education, Science and Training
This project develops and delivers professional learning materials in intercultural language teaching and learning for over 400 languages teachers throughout Australia. In a four phase process, participant teachers plan and trial units of work and long term plans as well as assessment procedures which are incorporated into the professional learning materials. The programme is delivered across Australia to languages teachers, school principals and sector representatives from all states and territories and school sectors.
Investigation into the state and nature of languages education in Australian schools
Anthony J. Liddicoat ~ Timothy Jowan Curnow ~ Angela Scarino ~ Michelle Kohler
2006-2007, Department of Education, Science and Training
This project aims to add to our current knowledge about the state and nature of languages education in Australian government and non-government primary and secondary schools, government schools of languages/Saturday schools, distance education providers and ethnic/community language schools. It will gather rich data about language learning, language provision and language programs and use this data to identify commonalities and differences across states and territories, with the intent of developing a coherent understanding of the state and nature of language programs in Australia. Through this we will identify areas of need for language education policy and practice to ensure successful and sustainable language programs. The comprehensive report resulting from this project can then be used as a basis for future planning and development for languages education.
Vincenza Tudini ~ Giancarlo Chiro
2002-2008, Cassamarca Foundation Australia Project Committee
This project investigates whether native speaker chat interactions promote oral proficiency and intercultural communicative competence in foreign languages through analysis of learners' long distance chat line interactions with native speakers. This study combines a quasi-experimental design with stimulated recall methodology to provide insights on how languages are learned in informal, social contexts such as chat rooms, as opposed to supervised pedagogical contexts such as the classroom or networked computer laboratories. Interactionist and language socialisation theories are applied to chat interactions to assess development of learners' oral proficiency and intercultural communicative competence.