Luncheon Report
The luncheon minutes will be posted soon. In the meantime, you can watch below a recording of the July virtual luncheon.
Scroll through the speaker’s slides:
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Luncheon Announcement
“Bilingualism: The Superpower of the Future”
with guest speaker Dr. Cristina Banfi
Tuesday, July 21st, 2020
Speaker Program: 12:30pm to 1:30pm
Monthly Club Meeting: 1:30pm to 2:00pm
Via Zoom Video Conference. Join from your favorite spot with good internet!
Bilingualism is much talked about in the media, for example, as providing cognitive, social, economic and cultural benefits. But, what does it really mean to be bilingual? What different types of bilingualism are there? And what are the real benefits of bilingualism across the lifespan? What about the relevance of bilingualism in a world of automated translators and speech recognition? Is there still a point to learning languages for the future? In this presentation we will explore these ideas in connection to recent research outcomes in the area and drawing on personal experience to illustrate the different possibilities.
Our guest speaker Dr. Cristina Banfi is an Italian/Argentine graduate teacher of the IES en LV “JRF” in Buenos Aires, with an MPhil from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from University College London. Having been fascinated by language development and learning from her student teacher days, she’s dedicated her professional life to the study of language and the sharing of relevant and up-to-date research and its application to educational contexts in Latin America, Europe, and the USA.
Suggested reading on the topic by our speaker:
Kim, J.K. (2019) Bilingualism: Start early, and earn all your benefits! Science in the News Blog, Harvard University.
Bhattacharjee, Y. (2012) Why Bilinguals Are Smarter. The New York Times.
Life as a Bilingual – Psychology Today – Prof. Francois Grosjean
Lifespan Cognition and Development Lab – Dr. Ellen Bialystok
Academic Conversation – What are the drawbacks of being bilingual? Fred Genesee & Cristina Banfi
Please reserve by Friday, July 17th.
If you are a UWC Member, you will receive an invitation through email to RSVP through Evite.
If you are not a UWC Member, please send an email to monthlyluncheon@gmail.com so that you can receive the Evite invitation in order to attend.
Prior to the meeting, confirmed attendees will receive the Zoom link by email.
In order to participate in the Zoom interactive videoconference, download the app and review the etiquette as outlined on the UWC Zoom page. We shall send all confirmed attendees the Zoom link needed to attend the presentation int he days before the virtual luncheon.