Linguistics in Schools

26th Annual Conference of the German Linguistics Association (DGfS) at Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz from February 25-27, 2004.

The 26th Annual Conference of the German Linguistics Association (DGfS) is to take place at Johannes-Gutenberg-Universität Mainz from February 25-27, 2004. The main topic for this year’s meeting is “Linguistics in Schools.”

This topic is of great interest not only to educators but also to the general public, especially since the release of results from the PISA Study. Employers often complain that school graduates lack knowledge in spelling, punctuation, and grammar, and that they are often unable to understand or write simple texts. They are also said to be unable to express themselves orally in an appropriate and understandable manner.

At this conference we intend to investigate the reasons for this from a linguistic perspective as well as the possibilities available to schools and post-secondary institutions to improve this situation. Some examples could be to apply new research results to reading and writing processes in school teachings, to better connect language-relevant school subjects, and to deal with the de facto multilingual situation in schools in a more effective manner. Individual workshops are to look at the media’s role, grammar and orthographic instruction, the acquisition of text competence, and multilingualism and foreign languages. Plenary speakers are to complement these topics, and a podium discussion on various aspects of linguistics in schools is to be included (school, post-secondary institutions, education research, etc.). We therefore hope that both linguists and teachers will be eager to make the trip to Mainz take part in the discussion.