33. AKS-Conference 2025

 

Dear members and friends of the Arbeitskreis der Sprachenzentren an Hochschulen e.V. (AKS),
dear colleagues,
dear students,

 

Under the title "Teaching, learning, living - language centres navigating new realities", we invite teachers, researchers and students to Ruhr-Universität Bochum from 12-14 March 2025 to discuss current challenges in language teaching in tertiary education.

What do we mean by the conference title? The world in which students and teachers live has changed: climate change, immigration waves, demographic change and geopolitical conflicts are increasingly shaping our world, which is no longer just globalised but increasingly multipolar. Universities in general, and foreign language centres in particular, must also respond to these new realities in terms of educational and language policy.

How do we deal with the growing (super)diversity and heterogeneity of our language learners? How do we ensure an inclusive and non-discriminatory learning environment? How can we recognise, harness and promote linguistic and cultural diversity as potential? How do we operationalise sustainability in the language classroom and beyond? How do we operate in a world of rapidly growing AI systems? Reflecting on these and further related issues also requires us to question current curricula and relevant learning and assessment objectives in favour of new concepts that allow significantly more room for personal responsibility and self-efficacy for all stakeholders.

Conference participants are invited to take part in plenary sessions, presentations, workshops and other formats and to engage with new theoretical and practice-oriented approaches that address all of the questions listed above.

We would like to welcome you to the Ruhr Area, a region that has long been synonymous with change and new beginnings, and to the Ruhr-Universität, which has embraced this attitude with its new mission statement "Built to change".

The conference team of the AKS Conference 2025