The conference Languages and Business, or Sprachen und Beruf, is starting on the 21st in Düsseldorf. Of course, I would not miss this event for anything and highly recommend it to anyone involved in the business English area or in Blended Learning/ Hybrid Learning.
www.icwe.net/sprachen_und_beruf/pages/en/index.php
There is a roundtable discussion on some of the conclusions of the European Business forum tomorrow evening which I am looking forward to. Let me paraphrase the invitation to the discussion: The European Business Forum on Multi lingualism is holding its next meeting in Düsseldorf, in connection with the conference . The organizers have invited the EU Commissioner for Multilingualism, Mr Leonard Orban, and representatives of the Business Forum to a round-table discussion. According to the chairman of the Business Forum, Viscount Etienne Davignon, it is time to adopt a more progressive attitude than merely using simplified global English
The Business Forum was set up in 2007 by Commissioner Orban. Its aim is to identify how companies can make operational use of language management to improve business performance. Discussions also focus on the employability and mobility of workers, and on raising awareness about the benefi ts of multilingualism. The work will lead to a set of recommendations for European Commission policies in this field.
The full report of the Business Forum will be published in June. This is an opportunity for our guests to get a taste of some of the early conclusions of the group.
On Tuesday afternoon, I will be presenting how to create forums and add links in moodle as part of the web 2.0 demo sessions. This is going to be a fun interactive session and I am looking forward to presenting in the company of Ian Mc Master, Tim Phillips, Prof. Kurt Kohn, André Moeller, Shelly Steinhorst and oithers.
www.icwe.net/sprachen_und_beruf/pages/en/tuesday.php
The conference is a great opportunity for me to meet up with all my peers in the field, have a lot of fun and make new contacts.
One of the people I know I will meet again there is Christel Schneider of the ICC -The European Language Network.
http://www.icc-languages.eu/
Christel was my mentor during my live online educator certification days and a great one at that! The ICC is conducting a survey at the moment on the use of ELP for language teachers. The survey only runs until May 10th. If you are a language teacher please help out the ICC by filling out the survey. It really only takes a few minutes. It can be accessed by simply clicking on the link above and then one more click on the ICC website.
More on the conference soon!