Event Type: Lecture

Speaker Information: Dr. Mark Dressman

Along with affordable intercontinental jet travel, the rise of digital communications such as satellite television, smartphones, and the Internet has made it easier than ever before in history for people to find authentic, “comprehensible input” in other languages. This is nowhere more the case than in Morocco, a multilingual nation whose youth and leadership have chosen English over French as their link to the world outside the Middle East. This presentation focuses on the stories and statistics of 107 first-semester English students at three Moroccan universities and demonstrates how widespread and powerful learning English from an “Invisible University” of digital and face-to-face resources can be. The findings of this study also raise important questions about what and how people learn digitally and what implications there might be for the development of curriculum in more formal settings.

Cost: Free

Contact: Ann Jones
acjones3@illinois.edu

Sponsor: College of Education