Abstract: In the wake of the UNCRC, a growing number of scholars have called for a stronger inclusion of children in research, in which they take on meaningful roles as participants and decision makers. However, applied linguistics, which is the research area and tradition that we all come from, children have – apart from a few notable exceptions -- mainly been regarded as objects of research. Whilst research in applied linguistics has provided knowledge about how children learn languages, their attitudes to language learning, how languages can best be taught, etc., it is only more recently that scholars have called for engaging children more actively in the research processes (e.g. Pinter, 2023). Furthermore, from the perspective of education, the UNCRC is clearly integrated into teaching policies in Norway. For instance, the Education Act, with its revised version coming into effect in August 2024, states that children should be involved in matters concerning them, including their school's professional development work. Similarly, the national curriculum states that all learners should experience democratic participation and involvement, both in day-to-day affairs of the school and within the individual subjects. However, through working closely with schools in our region, we have identified a vast knowledge gap in how to involve children: school leaders and teachers are aware of their responsibilities, but do not have the tools to include learners in meaningful ways. This is an issue that is both of a practical and legal nature, and something that we wish to address in a project, PARELT - Participation in English Language Teaching. The objectives of PARELT are: 1) to explore the affordances of learner participation for learning, teaching, and researching English as a foreign language (EFL); and 2) to develop a model for incorporating learner participation in teacher professional development. Our presentation will focus on the methodological design of PARELT.

Speakers:

Milica Savić is Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at the University of Stavanger, Norway. Her main research interests include L2 pragmatics, especially children’s (meta)pragmatic development, email communication in English, and, more recently, critical literacy, and participatory research approaches with children. She has published a monograph entitled ‘Politeness through the Prism of Requests, Apologies and Refusals. A Case of Advanced Serbian EFL Learners’ (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014) and co-edited the volume ‘Email Pragmatics and Second Language Learners’ (John Benjamins, 2021). Most recently, she has co-authored the book entitled ‘Researching and Teaching Speech Acts with Young L2 Learners: Beneath the Linguistic Surface’ (Multilingual Matters, 2025). Her research papers have been published in a number of edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals, such as Journal of Pragmatics, Intercultural Pragmatics and ELT Journal.

Cecilie Waallann Brown is Associate Professor of English Language Teaching methodology at the Department of Education and Sports Science, University of Stavanger. Her research on the topics of critical (visual) literacy and intercultural competence has been disseminated through a number of research publications. Her most recent publications include:

Brown, C. W. (2024). Enacting Critical Visual Literacy in Norwegian Secondary School EFL Classrooms: Opportunities and Challenges. Nordic Journal of Literacy Research, 10(3), 21-38.

Brown, C. W., & Alford, J. (2023). Critical Literacy in the Language Classroom: Possibilities for Intercultural Learning through Symbolic Competence. Intercultural Communication Education, 6(2), 36-52.

Anders Myrset is Associate Professor of English Language Teaching Methodology at the University of Stavanger, Norway. His main research interests are the teaching and development of second language pragmatics, and issues related to conducting research with children. Myrset has recently co-authored the book entitled ‘Researching and Teaching Speech Acts with Young L2 Learners: Beneath the Linguistic Surface’ (2025). His research has been published in a number of peer-reviewed journals, such as Journal of Pragmatics, Language Learning Journal and Applied Pragmatics, and edited volumes. Myrset is an executive board member of the International Association for Teaching Pragmatics (ITAP) and a co-author of ELT textbooks for young English as a foreign language learners (grades 1-4).

To attend, RSVP Evie Heard: evie.heard@qub.ac.uk