North West

This study day examines the themes of the film (family, migration, social exclusion and solidarity) and how film can raise these important issues within society.

Isabelle Vanderschelden will introduce the film in French. Students will be provided with information about the director, the actors, the social and political context of the film.  The genre conventions used in the film will also be highlighted. A few short exercises will provide key vocabulary. All students receive a workbook which they can keep.

In the afternoon there will be a series of language exercises in French, focusing on the films main characters, plot development and themes. Film genres (such as psychological and social realism) and visual style will also be referenced.

One objective of the day is to enhance the students’ intercultural awareness.

Led by Isabelle Vanderschelden, Head of French and Manchester Metropolitan University.

This study morning will include a screening of the film El Futuro Perfecto. The film will be introduced in Spanish, key vocabulary and contextual information will be provided. The screening will be followed after lunch by a series of Spanish exercises based on the film, including character studies, film genre analysis and discussion of the main themes (family, relationships, migration, language learning and multilingualism).

Led by Carmen Herrero, Head of Spanish at Manchester Metropolitan University.

This Urdu study day will be built around a screening of Load Wedding. Students will watch a full screening of the film and this will be followed by a series of Urdu GCSE and AS/A2 level language exercises based on the film’s main character and themes. The study session activities will be only in Urdu with Urdu script.

Led by Masood Hashmi, Urdu teacher at Parrs Wood High School.

We have a selection of papers on learning platforms, film, audiovisual translation, storytelling, digital literacy, social media, apps, augmented reality, participatory arts, and memory. The keynotes will engage with e-literature and war within the context of digital literacies and storytelling. There will be a networking session and two workshops on the use of video games and short films in the language classroom. Our dinner will be held at El Rincón de Rafa, a typical Spanish tapas restaurant in the heart of the city of Manchester, and we will also hold a closing event and drinks reception at the Instituto Cervantes Manchester. Come and join us!

A unique opportunity for Urdu Language teachers to know about the New GCSE and A Level Urdu specification with the help of specimen papers and information available on exam board websites and the documents available in public domain

Aims and Objectives

•Understanding of key skills needed for GCSE and A level

•Deliver speaking test for GCSE

•Understanding the skills required for writing

•Taking help from headings, statements and key words for reading test

•Understanding questions and emotions to tackle listening

•Entering students for Higher or Foundation and why?

•Understanding text, films and research based questions for A level

•Understanding A level themes

•Developing skills for A level translation

You can book your free place here:

http://www.abrahammoss.manchester.sch.uk/index.phtml?d=631679

or email m.safraz@abrahammoss.manchester.sch.uk

María Martínez Lirola

University of Alicante and Research Fellow, Department of Linguistics and Modern Languages, University of South Africa (UNISA)

The number of women who have immigrated to Spain in order to find a better life has increased in the last years. However, very few pieces of news pay attention to the reasons why they emigrate. A corpus of 30 pieces of news related to immigrant women was collected from February 2012 to December 2014 from the digital version of the main Spanish newspapers: El País, El Mundo and ABC. The main hypotheses in this research are the following:  immigrant women are not very visible in the Spanish press; they are represented mainly as vulnerable and victims and they are normally connected to social problems. In order to confirm or to deny the said hypothesis, this paper used critical discourse analysis, including visual grammar, to analyse the main topics of the pieces of news dealing with immigrant women and the main linguistic and visual characteristics used to describe them.

María Martínez Lirola is a Senior Lecturer of the Department of English at the University of Alicante, Spain and Research Fellow at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Her main areas of research are Critical Discourse Analysis, Systemic Functional Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. She has published more than 80 papers and seven books, such as Main Processes of Thematization and Postponement in English (Peter Lang, 2009). She has been a visiting scholar in different universities,  and has presented papers in international congresses all over the world.

Alluding to the Bible story of The Tower of Babel and the curse of diversity of tongues, Beyond Babel is a film festival that aims to celebrate multilingual life, showcase a wide range of films, share discussions on film aesthetics, and broaden the visibility of multilingual communities on screen. Planned by the FLAME research group at Manchester Metropolitan University, the 5th edition of Beyond Babel remains true to its core values: embrace the beauty of multilingualism; showcase transnational film productions from different regions of the world; curate multilingual films which connect with the personal, the local, and the global and can open conversation across cultures. This year’s programme will bring together four afternoons of screenings, with film introductions and Q&A sessions. It explores a wide range of themes: cultural differences, multilingualism, homeland, education, gender and sexuality, global citizenship, mobility, immigration, integration and identity. The festival aims to engage, inspire, connect and celebrate the culturally diverse communities of Manchester.

This one-day symposium addresses research in the areas of Transmedia, Digital Media, Languages and Pedagogy. We have invited five leading academics to present their research in 40-minute presentations followed by 15-20 minutes of Q&A. With the support of the AHRC OWRI Cross-Language Dynamics.