A paper by UALR Professor David McAlpine was one of five keynote documents used to facilitate discussions between European and American associations of foreign language teachers at a symposium in Austria last month.

McAlpine, coordinator of UALR’s graduate program in International and Second Language Studies, is the 2012 president of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). The group met with the European Centre for Modern Languages (ECML) at a symposium in Graz, Austria.

McAlpine also facilitated one of the five working groups on teacher education, language teaching and learning, assessment, uses and risks of standards – or frameworks – and accessibility of frameworks.

Language leaders from the U.S., Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Ireland, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Finland, and the Netherlands attended the invitation-only symposium. During the event, officials of ECML and ACTFL also signed a memorandum of understanding to facilitate greater cooperation and research between the two organizations.

As a result of the symposium, McAlpine will be engaged in research with Dr. David Newby, professor of language didactics and language teaching research, at the Karl-Franzens-Universität in Graz during the next academic year.

The ECML is the language and culture organization for the European Union and ACTFL is the largest organization for language educators from kindergarten through university with more than 12,000 members.