MetaLearn kick-off meeting

MetaLearn kick-off meeting, day 2

MetaLearn’s kick-off meeting took place digitally on 1-2 October 2020. The project team members, including MetaLearn’s PhD students Kaja Haugen and Lekh NathBaral, were joined by the international advisory board members, Michel Candelier (Le Mans University, France), Petra Daryai-Hansen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Åsta Haukås (University of Bergen), Karen Roehr-Brackin (University of Essex, UK), and Gunhild Tveit Randen, (Høgskolen i Innlandet). MA student Kristian Peerson also joined part of the meeting.

The meeting served several functions: it was the first gathering of the project team with the advisory board members, providing an opportunity for everyone to meet. At the same time in-depth discussions highlighted important issues and questions for future work, making it a true start-up seminar. The first session included a detailed presentation of the project by the project members, including specific presentations by each work package leader. After presenting the main content of the work packages, discussions allowed for questions and input.

The second session centered on theoretical and empirical clarifications of the project’s central construct, metalinguistic awareness. Karen Roehr-Brackin and Åsta Haukås gave presentations on their conceptualizations of and work on MLA, including how to test/measure MLA. Gunhild Tveit Randen talked about metalinguistic awareness as a tool in second language learning and provided insights into her work on cross-linguistic metalinguistic awareness. Finally, Michel Candelier gave a presentation on the Framework of Reference for Pluralistic Approaches to languages and cultures (FREPA), in which he elaborated on the relationship between the FREPA descriptors and metalinguistic awareness.

The final session, held on the second day, comprised an open discussion in which the various threads of the discussion were brought together. Questions of all kinds, regarding the data, methods, theories, and potential of the project were discussed in detail. The seminar gave rise to very fruitful discussions, all of which were instrumental in getting the project off to a more than satisfactory start.