Exploring New Materialism for second language learning

The proportion of foreign-born population is rapidly increasing in the Nordic counties. This brings about increasing multilingualism and a real-life need for linguistic support. The challenges of the linguistic integration of adult immigrants in the Nordic societies are well recognized.

In this workshop series, we use the research paradigm of New Materialism to address the challenges. We argue that in the recent decade, the field of applied linguistics has rapidly widened and deepened without language education following suit, especially with respect to the crucial role of material resources for language learning. Our workshop series takes this disparity between research and practice as its starting point and its challenge. The workshop series brings together established and early career researchers in linguistics, language education and social design to tackle these issues, to foster collaboration and to enhance the scientific quality of second language acquisition research.

Website available: https://projects.tuni.fi/wild2/