UP-DECL Centennial And The 2nd Access Philippine International English Language

The University of the Philippines and the British Council is pleased to announce that the UP-DECL Centennial and the 2nd Access Philippine International English Language Conference will be held from 16 to 17 September 2010 at the SMX Convention Center, Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City.  This event will coincide with the Manila International Book Fair.

The first conference in 2009 was attended by more than 900 participants coming from 15 countries in Asia and Europe.  This year's event is expected to gather together more than 1,000 ELT professional, education policy experts, representatives of international bodies and decision makers all over the world.  The international dimension of the conference provides a unique opportunity for ELT professionals and teachers to be included in the conference programme and present to an international audience.  It also provides opportunity for participants to network with the diverse international audience.

Our conference speakers include:

David Gradol

David Graddol is a British applied linguist, well known as a writer, broadcaster, researcher and consultant on issues relating to global English.  He is best known for his seminal work entitled "The Future of English" published in 1997.  This was followed by "English Next" published in 2006 where he analyzed demographic and economic trends in the Twenty First Century which affect Global English and language policies worldwide and will influence its future.  David is currently Managing Director of The English Company (UK) Ltd which provides consultancy and publishing services in applied language studies.  He is also the Managing Editor for linguistics books and journals for Equinox Publishing, is joint editor of the journal 'English Today', and is a member of the editorial boards of 'Language Planning and Language Problems' and the 'Journal of Visual Commincation'.

Suzanne Romaine

Suzanne Romaine has been a Merton Professor of English Language at the University of Oxford since 1984.  She has held a variety of scholarships and visiting fellowships at other prestigious universities all over the world.  Her research interests lie primarily in historical linguistics and sociolinguistics and has conducted extensive fieldwork in Europe as well as in the Pacific Islands region.  She was a member of the UNESCO Expert Group that produced UNESCO's position paper in  a Multilingual World published in 2003.  She co-authored the book Vanishing Voices: The Extinction of the World's Languages, that won the British Association of Applied Linguistics Book of the Year Prize in 2001.  The book was subsequently translated in six other languages.

Kingsley Bolton

Kingsley Bolton is a Chair Professor of English and Head of Department of English at the City University of Hong Kong.  His research interests include English language and literature worldwide, language and globalization, multilingual, sociolinguistics, and world Englishes.  Much of his research has been on language issues in the Asian region, and he has published widely on english in Hong Kong and mainland China.  He is the founding editor of the Hong Kong University Press book series, Asian Englishes Today, co-editor of the Routledge book series The History and Development of World Englishes, and a member of the editorial board of the Cambridge University Press series Studies in English Language.