Pan-SIG

11th Annual Pan-SIG Conference

The 11th Annual Pan-SIG Conference will be held on Saturday and Sunday, June 16th and 17th, 2012 at Hiroshima University, Higashi-Hiroshima campus.

This conference is co-sponsored by the Bilingualism, Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL), Critical Thinking (CT), College and University Educators (CUE), Extensive Reading (ER), Framework & Language Portfolio (FLP), Gender Awareness in Language Education (GALE), Global Issues in Language Education (GILE), Japanese as a Second Language (JSL), Junior Senior High School (JSHS), Learner Development (LD), Material Writers (MW), Other Language Educators (OLE), Professionalism, Administration and Leadership in Education (PALE), Pragmatics (PRAG), Speech, Drama, and Debate (SDD), Study Abroad (SA), Task Based Learning (TBL), Teaching Children (TC), Testing and Evaluation (TEVAL) and Teachers Helping Teachers (THT) special interest groups (SIGs), together with the Hiroshima Chapter of the Japan Association for Language Teaching.

The theme of the conference is "Literacy: SIGnals of emergence"
Literacy traditionally has meant comprehending and producing written texts. More recently, critical literacy has focused on the ability to question and analyse these texts and see them in their social context. In addition, the concept has been broadened to cover visual images and technology, i.e., digital literacy and media literacy. In first language contexts, universal literacy is a stated goal from local and national education authorities to international bodies. As foreign language educators, how do we understand literacy, and how do these understandings inform our teaching and research?