Media

Distinguished Lecture by HKU Faculty of Education
"Sustainable Multilingual Education as a Driver for Educational Change. The European Experience"

15 Mar 2017

By Professor Piet Van de Craen
Department of Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

Language education is important in many countries of the world. In Europe, as elsewhere, scholars have been trying to come up with the ideal way to learn and teach languages often English. Various terms became popular, such as ESP, EMI, LAC and, more recently, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL).

Sponsored by the Tin Ka Ping Education Fund of the Tin Ka Ping Foundation, the Faculty of Education of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) will hold the Distinguished Lecture on "Sustainable Multilingual Education as a Driver for Educational Change. The European Experience" on March 21 (Tuesday).

In the lecture, Professor Piet Van de Craen, Department of Linguistics, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium, will show how and why CLIL and its underlying theoretical aspects are considered a major contribution to language learning and teaching mainly because of features, such as implicit learning and its neuroscientific aspects.  This is the way forward toward sustainable (language) education.

Members of the media are welcome to cover the event and the schedule is as follows:

Date: March 21, 2017 (Tuesday)
Time: 5:45 pm – 7:20 pm
Venue: CPD3.28, Central Podium Level, Centennial Campus, the University of Hong Kong (map)
Language: English

Piet Van de Craen’s research is focused on multilingualism and multilingual education in a European and international perspective. He is considered one of the main specialists of CLIL in Europe and published widely about this and other topics. One of the characteristics of his work is the inclusion of neuroscientific elements in his approach to multilingual education and learning. He is co-founder of the European Language Council/Conseil européen pour les langues (1997) and he still is a member of the board of this association. He has also co-founded an organisation promoting and assessing multilingual schools in Brussels, Belgium called STIMOB, i.e. stimulating multilingual education in Brussels (2001). He presides this group until today. Within his university he was head of Department (1994-2004), Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Arts (2004-2008) as well as Dean of the Faculty of Arts (2009-2013).

For media enquiries, please contact Ms Emily Cheung, Senior Manager (Development and Communications) (Tel.: 3917 4270 / E-mail: emchy@hku.hk).