BU RS Organizes Conference on Second-Language Learning & Disabilities
“We believe that our classroom should be the model of the society we want, and we want a place where everybody is valued, respected, and represented.”
María, Elena, and Mildred
This past weekend, the BU Romance Studies Department was proud to organize the first conference at BU on the topic of disabilities and second-language acquisition. The conference brought together the expertise of instructors with experience in devoloping classroom dynamics for inclusion and strategies for universal learning design, the learning and social experiences of BU students with disabilities, the resources of the Office of Disabilities, and the research and knowledge of the guest speaker Linda Hecker, a professor emerita at Landmark College Institute for Reesearch & Training.
The conference organizers – María Datel, Elena Carrion-Guerrero, and Mildred Basker-Seigel – have been working on developing curricula that promote more inclusive classrooms, and they organized the conference both as a way to further their own work and research and to share that learning with others at BU.
The conference aimed to provide participants with awareness of the issues, students’ perspectives, resources available at BU, and knowledge of different ways of learning and strategies of how to use them creatively to develop content that makes second-language learning successful for all.
Many thanks to the World Languages & Literatures Department, the Geddes Language Center, and the Office of Disability Services for their aid and support in putting this conference together!