14:00

Registration (R12 S00 H12 / Glaspavillon)

15:00

Welcome and Opening Remarks

15:15 – 16:30

Your language counts! - Insights and Results at a Glance
(Sabine Brachmann-Bosse, Simeon Oxley, Tobias Schroedler, Tatjana Atanasoska, Karijn Helsloot)

17:00 – 18:00

Panel Discussion "Future perspectives of HLE in EU"
Moderation: Elisabeth C. Schmidt, Goethe-Institut Stockholm, Sweden
Participants: Jeff MacSwan, University of Maryland, USA; Ahmad Alhamad, ISK Piter Jelles, Netherlands; Camilla Hollmén, Deputy Manager at the Unit for Multilingualism (EFF) in Uppsala Municipality, Sweden; Larissa Aksinovits, OAO, Finland

18:00 – 18:30

World Café

18:30

Reception and Conference Dinner

09:00 – 09:45

Keynote Speech
(Anne Reath Warren, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at Department of Education, University of Uppsala)

10:00 – 11:00

Parallel Workshops – Session 1

11:15 – 12:15

Parallel Workshops – Session 2

12:30 – 13:00

Closing Remark & Outlook

13:00

Lunch

Workshops

1. Family Outreach in Heritage Language Education (English)
2. Görsellerle Düşünmek: Karikatür, İllüstrasyon ve Fotoğraflarla Dil ve Düşünceyi Geliştirme Atölyesi (Visual interpretation) (Turkish)
3. Integrating Heritage Languages Through Artificial Intelligence (English)
4. HLE in the Netherlands & case study Fryslan (English)
5. Language and Culture: Teaching Somali Through Stories and Oral Traditions (English)
6. Home language teaching framework in Finland (English)
7. Organisation of HLE in Uppsala, Sweden (English)
8. Persian Echoes: A Linguistic Journey Across Continents (English)
9. Kreativer Sprachgebrauch durch Kunst im Herkunftssprachenunterricht (German)
10. Teacher Education (English)

Mara Kyrou is the Your Language Counts! coordinator at Stichting Taal naar Keuze in the Netherlands, where they contribute to the project’s pilot implementation as well as its communication and dissemination activities. She is also a doctoral researcher at Universität Hamburg, focusing on linguistic diversity and social participation. Mara Kyrou's research includes how language policies influence the learning experiences of students from refugee and migrant backgrounds and the role of heritage languages in European education systems.

Elisabeth is currently working for the Goethe-Institut as the project coordinator of Your language counts!
She hosted and moderated the event series "Lunch Talk" where experts share their insights about language education in the Nordic countries.
With her background as a language teacher, she brings a more nuanced perspective to the discussions on language provision in schools.

Anne Reath Warren is an Associate Professor in Education with a focus on multilingualism and newcomers' learning, at the University of Uppsala in Sweden. In her PhD, a linguistic ethnographic study, she investigated the development of multilingual literacies through mother tongue instruction and multilingual tutoring in in Sweden and community language schools in Australia. She now works with professional development for mother tongue teachers, tutors and municipalities, to improve learning conditions for multilingual and newcomer students.

Jeff MacSwan is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Education at the University of Maryland. His research focuses on the linguistic study of bilingualism and codeswitching (or language alternation), and its implications for theories about the role of language in educational settings for multilingual students. He is the editor of the International Multilingual Research Journal, and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association and of the National Education Policy Center.

Ahmad Alhamad has obtained a BA in Arabic Language and Literature from the University of Aleppo in Syria, and a Master's degree in Professional Teaching Methods from Ajman University in the United Arab Emirates.
Alhamad has worked for 13 years teaching Arabic to native and non-native speakers at international schools such as the German International School in Sharjah and the International School of Choueifat in Dubai.
He believes that the mother tongue is very important because it provides a sense of reassurance and psychological comfort for learners, gives them the opportunity to express themselves clearly, and helps them understand and comprehend the laws, customs, and traditions of the new societies they have moved to.

Camilla Hollmén is Deputy Manager at the Unit for Multilingualism in Uppsala Municipality, Sweden. With a master’s degree in leadership and two decades of experience in compulsory school education, she has spent the past 15 years in leadership roles focused on inclusive and multilingual learning environments.

Larissa Aksinovits is the chair of the Association of Native Language Teachers of Finland, a speaker and teachers’ trainer. She has almost 20 years of experience of working as a teacher in two countries with one of the best schooling systems in the world - Estonia and Finland. Originally coming from Estonia, she has an experience of being an immigrant teacher in Finland and starting her career from scratch in a new country. In Finland she works as a home/heritage language teacher (Estonian, Russian).
Larissa has received a BA degree in Psychology and master degrees in Estonian as a Second Language, English Language and Literature from the University of Tartu, Estonia. In addition to that she has accomplished a re-qualification program for teachers in Russian Language and Literature in the University of Helsinki.
Currently Aksinovits is a PhD student in Tallinn University, Estonia.