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Gert Rijlaarsdam

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Conference summary

Understanding and being understood. Language mastery as the key subject for learning and society.

Traditionally, language proficiency has been the key to learning. Understanding of the world and the nature of human beings builds a learner through texts of all kinds, ranging from purely informative to literary texts. Sharing that knowledge with others again appeals to language proficiency. Learning to understand and learning to be understood was and is the core task of schooling. The question is whether that analysis is still adequate in today's digital world: is language proficiency indeed the key to success in education, in all school subjects, in all sectors? Is digital literacy substantially different from literacy? My position is this debate I will illustrate with examples of Spanish research (Barcelona, Leon, Madrid) in which I am indirectly involved. For me, cognitive operations cast in language remain the core of schooling, even in a much-changed context. That context is characterized by a very large, cluttered flow of information, produced by numerous ideological and commercial interests. But it is also characterized by numerous digital tools that process that information into new integrations (ChatGPT, Elicit), which require the learner to learn to relate to those productions: from le. Educating to manipulation resistance is of all times.

Short C.V.

Gert Rijlaarsdam was trained in linguistics and educational sciences. He is Professor Innovative Language, Literature and Arts Education at the University of Amsterdam and parttime Adjunct professor at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Was parttime visiting professor in Umea (3 yrs.) and Antwerp (5 yrs.). Member of the Doctoral School of the University of Leon (Spain).

Details at https://www.uva.nl/profiel/r/i/g.c.w.rijlaarsdam/g.c.w.rijlaarsdam.html, which includes a tab with full publication list. Dissertations (co-)directed: 41. H-index 48.

Domains: Writing, oral skills, visual arts, interpretation of literary fiction.

Expertise: Designing and testing interventions, process studies. Most prominent is the focus on the relation between task processes, outcomes, task characteristics and individual learner characteristics.

Professionalisation: Longstanding member of EARLI, with services as EARLI conference organizer, SIG WRITING Conferences and special interest group coordinator.

Chair of the Working Group on Research & Didactics Dutch of the Association of Teachers of Dutch. Initiatives:

Publication services

Initiatives: Book series (now > 35 volumes): Studies in Writing, serving as series editor from 1994-2015.

Open access journals: L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature (2000); Journal of Writing Research, since 2008.

Services: Learning and Instruction (2014-current, since 2022 editor-in-chief). Member of Editorial board (Journal of Educational Psychology, Educational Research Review, Spanish Journal of Psychology, Written Communication).