Adult Second Language Literacy (ASLL) - international hybrid conference

Background and Goal of the Conference

Since the foundation of the international LESLLA network (Literacy Education and Second Language Learning for Adults) in 2005, it has been clearly and repeatedly stated that there is a strong need for empirical studies on second language acquisition of adult migrants with low literacy skills and that the amount of research devoted to this area is still limited (Lemke-Ghafir et al. 2021; Tarone & Bigelow 2012; Young-Scholten 2013; Young-Scholten & Naeb 2020). Low-literate adult migrants differ significantly from other well-studied groups of learners, e.g. children, adult L1 speakers and well-educated L2 learners.

The aim of our conference is to better understand language and literacy acquisition of adult migrants with low literacy skills and to promote scientific exchange and collaboration on this vulnerable learner group.

The ASLL conference is hosted by the Department for German as a Second and Foreign Language and Intercultural Studies at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, from March 16-18, 2023. The working language of the conference is English.

The conference is organized as part of the ongoing ELIKASA research projectExterner Link, in which we developed a set of literacy assessment tools to measure basic literacy skills in L2 German and L1 Arabic, Dari-Farsi and Turkish. This set of instruments has been used to assess participants in 15 contrastive literacy courses of the KASA projectExterner Link. In a qualitative interview study, a focus group of 12 Arab participants report on the literal challenges they encounter in their everyday life in Germany and the strategies they apply to deal with these challenges.

The ASLL conference is financially supported by the Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as a part of the ELIKASA project (BMBF grant no. W146500).

Program & Registration for online Participation

The conference will be held at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, with presenters, organizers and other people involved in ELIKASA onsite in Jena and a wider audience online. Unfortunately, our venue is too small for a wider audience on-site, but all sessions will be accessible online via Zoom. There are no participation fees, but registration is obligatory.

Please register using the registration form “registration form for online participants (and presenters): https://indico.rz.uni-jena.de/event/49/registrations/Externer Link

Further information regarding the updated program, additional material and the Zoom links for the sessions will be made available via the conference website: https://indico.rz.uni-jena.de/e/asllExterner Link