Addressing challenging situations in English learners (EL) classrooms remains a challenging issue for both experienced and novice teachers (TALIS, 2019; Fico, 2023). Culturally Responsive Classroom Management (CRCM) stands as a central theory in managing diverse classrooms, particularly within English Learner (EL) settings (Weinstein et al., 2004). This approach, as emphasized by Weinstein et al. (2004), involves acknowledging personal biases, understanding students' varied cultural backgrounds, and applying culturally sensitive management strategies. By doing so, CRCM fosters an inclusive and caring classroom environment, addressing the need for social justice and cultural sensitivity in education (Byrd, 2016).

CRCM advocates for transitioning from a behavioristic to a more humanistic approach in classroom management. This shift is crucial in creating spaces where students are encouraged to develop their own sense of responsibility and accountability, rather than relying solely on external rewards or punishments. Weinstein (2004) suggests that employing CRCM approach helps teachers solving challenging classroom issues more effectively.

Our study explores how teachers' abilities in CRCM relate to how often they face challenging situations in their classrooms and their confidence in handling these challenges. Our research question is: What is the connection between teachers’ CRCM skills and their ability to manage challenging classroom situations? Our research hypotheses are: 1. Teachers who approach classroom management (CM) with CRCM skills solve challenging issues less frequently than those using more behavioristic approaches. 2. Teachers who approach classroom management with CRCM skills believe in their CM abilities more than those who use more behavioristic approaches.

To explore our research question, we conducted a quantitative study using a survey design. The research scale, measuring beliefs in specific classroom management scenarios, was developed based on research identifying common classroom challenges (Karasova & Kleckova, 2023). Data collection is ongoing through an online survey tool distributed among Czech Republic teachers, with a current participant count of 60. Data analysis is performed using SPSS, employing t-tests for hypothesis testing (significance level p=0.05), Pearson's correlation coefficients for identifying correlations, Cronbach's alpha for reliability assessment, and descriptive statistics for data description.

Preliminary results, based on t-tests, allow us to reject alternative hypotheses to our proposed ones. Findings indicate that teachers using CRCM skills face challenging situations less frequently than those with a behavioristic approach. Additionally, teachers employing CRCM have greater self-belief in handling classroom management challenges. These results are statistically significant (p<0.05). The reliability of our measurement is high (α=0.901), and Pearson's correlation coefficient reveals a strong correlation (r>0.6) between teachers' belief in managing various challenges.

These findings suggest that teacher education programs should emphasize the importance of CRCM in training, potentially leading to reduced classroom challenges and increased teacher confidence in managing them.

Global events of the last decades have brought dramatic changes to practices and policies of university language centres. While language centres have never existed in isolation from their universities (2018 Wulkow Memorandum), reflecting individual settings of their institutions, they have always performed a wide range of roles and tasks beyond pure language teaching provision (M. Ruane, 2003). The roles and tasks have changed especially once we “have entered an age of endless turmoil” (B. Clarke 1997). What this “endless turmoil” could have meant in the 1990s, however, has also changed dramatically. Today, we have been facing abrupt forced shifts from face-to-face to online teaching due to global pandemics, sudden need for educational support to thousands of refugees from war zones or extra-sensitive approaches to politically-driven changes of core structures of languages. In such contexts and despite appearances, language centres have the potential to play important roles in strategies that aim to reduce inequality and empower minoritized and vulnerable communities at universities and in society in general.

Taking the example of the Masaryk University Language Centre (Centrum jazykového vzdělávání, CJV MU) in the Czech Republic, this talk will discuss both broad institutional perspectives and language centre’s everyday practical work issues and will address fundamental organisational challenges, complexity of the services provided, and manifold factors that enhance (or indeed restrain) language centres´ work. We will take a close look at three examples of how CJV MU has coped with specific tasks and explore roles language centres can play in support of social justice and inclusion. First, we will shed light on the specific position of Swahili among other languages taught at CJV MU with the ambition to draw attention to less-widely taught languages; then, we will identify strategies that led to a successful language support of hundreds of Ukrainian refugees in 2022 with the ambition to show steps to their swift inclusion into the Masaryk University Czech speaking programmes; and finally, we will present the ESPULA project with the ambition to show how a language-focused combination of enhanced technologies, education and cultural heritage preservation skills can improve situation of vulnerable indigenous communities in remote areas of Ecuador and El Salvador in an environment-friendly and sustainable way.

The aim of this talk is to offer deeper understanding of what roles language centres can play and what challenges need to be addressed in order to position university language teaching and learning at the right place of social justice and vulnerable communities´ empowerment efforts.

The need for, and lack of translation competences applied to African languages can have serious consequences when access to information is vital. For instance, effective sanitary and humanitarian interventions in migratory and emergency contexts rely on translation, both machine-assisted and human. However, many of the languages required in such emergency contexts are under-resourced in terms of technological support and not often taught at translation institutions across Europe, despite their socio-political importance and the fact that they are spoken by tens of millions of people, either as a native language or a lingua franca (Taibi and Ozolins, 2016, Federici 2020). Recognizing the strategic importance of interpreters and translators with African language backgrounds, the EU-supported Pan-African Master’s in Conference Interpreting and Translation (PAMCIT) was set up in 2015, mirroring the European Master’s in Translation (EMT) network’s aim to establish a network of centres of excellence for translator and interpreter education.

This presentation describes an attempt to connect the two networks by the EMT-affiliated department of Translation and Interpreting of the University of Bologna (Italy) and the PAMCIT-affiliated departments of translation and interpreting of the universities of Nairobi (Kenya) and Gaston Berger de Saint-Louis (Senegal). The ultimate aim of the SLIT project (Service Learning, Innovation, and Translation) was to favour a professional and cultural exchange and the emergence of a cross-continent community of practice (Cadwell et al. 2022). Adopting a project-based learning approach (Guadec, 2005, van Egdom et al. 2020) within the (broadly defined) human rights translation domain, SLIT brought together students from the three universities in a year-long course in which they shared online classes in translation technologies, localization and sociolinguistics of African languages, and then paired up to carry out projects with NGOs active in the two African countries. At the end of the project, they took part in short mobility stays across the two continents, where they attended and delivered seminars and got closer to the local communities they contributed to with their work.

Notwithstanding the difficulties encountered, both cultural and technical, SLIT offered students an opportunity to experience balanced collaboration in which all involved parties contributed to filling a gap that none could fill independently. Furthermore, the project facilitated direct engagement of the students with the needs of communities in Kibera (Nairobi) and Kaffrine (Senegal), wherein they could apply their skills in specialised tasks —the translation of health-related interviews and of milk pasteurisation instruction manuals— thus providing them with first-hand experience of the vital service they provide to the well-being of society. Ultimately, this type of collaborative learning experience offers universities a means to address the challenge presented by the shortage of professionals proficient in both digital language technologies and languages which are necessarily overlooked in European translation curricula.

The presentation will describe the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of the initiative, reflecting on its implications, pitfalls and affordances, offering insights into the integration of project-based learning, international collaboration and active citizenship in translator education, and arguing for the adoption of similar approaches in other language-related degree programmes.

Based on research carried out in highly diverse communities in England’s Midlands region, we will critically discuss the manifold challenges that minoritized communities in England encounter when trying to access public health information in languages other than English. The main objective of this ongoing research and engagement project is to identify ways in which universities and in particular language as well as translation and interpreting (T&I) departments can contribute to the empower minoritized communities to remove language barriers that prevent members of these communities from accessing public health information. We posit that such community-engaged research and teaching represent a win-win situation for universities and community organizations alike.

The presentation is structured in four parts: In the first part, and based on a metanalysis of public reports as well as academic studies on language-related health outcome inequities, we will first discuss the linguistic and cultural public policy shortcomings identified in the UK during the COVID pandemic (Khan, Asif, and Jaffery 2020, Public Health England 2020, and UK Government 2021). This UK-focussed analysis will be complemented by an analysis of studies looking at the interplay of language, culture, and public health provision in a global context (Ayre et al. 2022, Kucirek 2021, Mikolič Južnič and Pokorn 2021, and Ortega, Martínez, and Diamond 2020).

Secondly, we will report on findings of focus groups interviews carried out with community organizations in Birmingham that shed light on the needs of minoritized communities in some of the city’s most deprived areas. To visualizes the social and linguistics challenges faced by minoritized communities, I will present a virtual map for selected areas to Birmingham and for the Midlands region in general based on 2021 UK Census data (Office for National Statistics 2021).

Thirdly, we will showcase ways in which university language and T&I departments can contribute to the training of community stakeholders and non-professional interpreters and translators to facilitate community-initiated translations of relevant texts. Here, particular attention will be paid to the critical and ethical application of machine translation (Bowker 2019 and Shamsi et al. 2020).

We will conclude with some recommendations on how T&I and language teaching programmes can integrate the support of minoritized communities into meaningful knowledge exchange activities, in particular in the form of community-engaged service learning and research (Bowker 2021, Braber 2023, Palpacuer, Curtis and Curran 2018, as well as Porto 2023).

Increasing intercultural communication skills in global educational and professional environments can have a major impact on student success (Matveev 2017). As well as enabling the development of personal skills (Neuliep, 2017) and having the somewhat lofty ambition of contributing to world peace (Kofi Annan, 2004; cited in United Nations, 2004), having good intercultural competence increases positive outcomes in two areas that play a significant role in current higher education discourses - employability (Halila et al., 2020) and social inclusion (Bennet 2013; Musgrave and Bradshaw 2014). This is why building transcultural communication skills is so important for university graduates. This presentation will first outline what skills and qualities constitute ‘intercultural competence’ and why they are important on personal, social and professional levels. We will then describe the evolution of intercultural competence training courses at two European university language centres, the Nottingham Institute for Languages and Intercultural communication (NILIC) at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) and the Center for Languages and Key Competences (Zessko) at the University of Potsdam (UP). We will describe differences in our courses, lessons learned from development and implementation, as well as feedback from students who have completed our programmes. Moreover, we will share insights into how our students extend their thinking about culture and develop essential attitudes and behaviours for intercultural competence, including (but not limited to): empathy, respect for otherness, tolerance for ambiguity, knowledge discovery, communicative awareness and behavioural flexibility, as defined by The INCA Project (INCA Project Team, European Commission, 2009).