Children and languages today

The conference proceedings Child and Language Today – From Listening and Speaking to Reading and Writing bring together papers presented at the conference of the same name, held on 28 and 29 November 2025 at the Faculty of Education. The papers are organised into four thematic sections: Language Development and Emergent Literacy Skills; Reading and Writing as Language Skills; Multilingualism and Foreign Language Teaching; and Children’s Literature, Media, and Contemporary Contexts of Language Development.

The proceedings have been published online and are available in open access: https://repozitorij.foozos.hr/object/foozos:3736

On the occasion of Croatian Book Month, a presentation of the conference proceedings Children and Languages Today – From Listening and Speaking to Reading and Writing will be held at Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek on Wednesday, 11 November 2026, at 10:00 a.m. The event will take place in Ceremonial Hall 21.

The proceedings are the result of the conference of the same name, held on 28 and 29 November 2025 at the Faculty of Education. The contributions are organised into four thematic sections.

The first section, Language Development and Emergent Literacy Skills, brings together papers focusing on early language development, communication difficulties, vocabulary acquisition and the development of pre-reading skills.

The second section, Reading and Writing as Language Skills, focuses on the development of reading literacy, the relationship between reading and writing, the influence of the school environment, and contemporary challenges related to children’s reading habits.

The third section, Multilingualism and Foreign Language Teaching, features papers addressing multilingualism and foreign language education, exploring issues such as language mediation, grammar instruction, corpus-based approaches and the development of bilingualism.

The final section, Children’s Literature, Media and Contemporary Contexts of Language Development, examines literary, psycholinguistic and social aspects of childhood, including the influence of digital media and other contemporary challenges affecting language development and literacy.

The proceedings will be presented by reviewer Associate Professor Maja Glušac, PhD, andeditors Associate Professor Ivana Trtanj, PhD, and Associate Professor Vedrana Živković Zebec, PhD. The event will be moderated byTeaching Assistant Teuta Kraljević.

The book of abstracts from the conference Children and Languages Today – From Listening and Speaking to Reading and Writing is available here.

Download your copy of the conference programme here. We are looking forward to seeing you!

We would like to inform you that the deadline for submitting abstracts for the 12th International Scientific Conference CHILDREN AND LANGUAGES TODAY has been extended until September 15, 2025.

Here you can download the submission form.

From Listening and Speaking to Reading and Writing

The conference will take place on November 28–29, 2025, and is organised by the Department of Croatian Studies and the Department of English and German Studies at the Faculty of Education, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek.

Language development is fundamental to successful and effective education as it enables the comprehension and mastery of academic content. Moreover, the development of language skills is closely tied to the growth of communicative competence – one of the key skills for lifelong learning. Since language acquisition and learning are deeply intertwined with cognitive, emotional, and social development, studying children’s speech, reading, and writing provides valuable insights into the cognitive, affective, and social mechanisms involved in learning, thinking, and problem-solving. Understanding these processes helps us deepen our insight into the dynamic nature of knowledge and skill development throughout childhood. We invite researchers to explore the topic of language skills in the context of contemporary trends in theoretical and applied linguistics and literature. We encourage contributions that will expand existing knowledge on children’s communicative competence.
The topic is both challenging and thought-provoking, inviting diverse research and scientific approaches. We encourage participants to explore linguistic activities within the suggested subtopics:

1. Language skills and communicative competence
2. Language skills and different aspects of linguistic knowledge
3. Language skills and individual differences in children
4. Language skills in various social contexts:
   a) wider social and cultural environment (traditional and digital media, children’s literature, multimodality, language policy in education, linguistic landscapes, etc.)
   b) educational environment (teaching methods and approaches, assessment of student achievements in formal education)
   c) family environment (parental education, socio-economic status, attitudes toward language learning, academic socialization, etc.)
5. Interplay of language skills and cross-linguistic influences

Please submit your registration, an abstract of up to 300 words, and up to five keywords in both Croatian and English by September 1, 2025, to dijeteijezik@gmail.com.
Notification of abstract acceptance will be sent by September 20, 2025.
The official languages of the conference are Croatian and English.

We look forward to meeting in Osijek.

Ivana Trtanj, chair of Programme committee

Vedrana Živković Zebec, chair of Organizing committee

the 11th International Scientific Conference

CHILDREN AND LANGUAGES TODAY

Language (of the) textbooks

The Conference will be held on October 12 and 13, 2023 in Osijek, organized by the Department of Croatian Studies and the Department of English Studies of the Faculty of Education, Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek.

By starting school, children’s communicative competence (the ability to produce clear, meaningful and comprehensible sentences)  continues to develop and is complemented by metalinguistic competence (knowledge of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics of the mother and second languages). Encouraging children’s language development in institutional learning is significantly influenced by the textbook, that is, the language used in the textbook. In order to fulfill the basic function of a book intended for a child to successfully learn and acquire knowledge, the textbook should support children’s language development. Previous research into the language  used textbooks has shown that the language of instruction is often not adapted to children’s psychophysical and linguistic development. Furthermore, the question arises as to what extent the language of the textbook is highly standardized at all language levels, in other words, whether there is a deviation from the standard language norms and whether it is there (un)consciously and for what purpose.

Therefore, the aim of the Children and Languages Today Conference, the central topic of which is the language of textbooks, is to bring together scientists who will complete the previous knowledge about the mother tongue and second language textbooks’ role, as well as textbooks as incentives for children’s language development. Given the challenges and motivation for different research and scientific approaches offered by the central theme, scientists of different profiles can contribute to the theme within the framework of the proposed sub-themes:

1.            Textbooks’ linguistic level of mother tongue and second languages

2.            Teaching methodology level of native and second language textbooks

Language of the subject textbooks and fundamental science

Teaching methodology principles for designing language textbooks

Contemporary teaching strategies and the concept of language textbooks

Texts in textbooks / Genre diversity of textbooks / Textbook and non-textbook texts

Language textbooks and students with disabilities / Adaptation of language textbooks to differences among students (disabled, gifted, blind, visually impaired, deaf, etc.)

3.            Literature, culture and identity in textbooks

Ethical and ideological characteristics of language textbooks (culture, civic values and political correctness)

Multiculturalism and interculturality in the language of textbooks / The role of language textbooks in a multilingual environment / Minority language textbooks / The influence of language policies on the language of textbooks

Multimedia level of language textbooks / Digital contents in language textbooks / Functions and effects of multimodality of language textbooks on learning

Due to numerous inquiries about the paper submission deadline for the 9th International Scientific Conference Children and Languages Today, we have decided to extend it until June 15, 2019. The central Conference theme is Children and linguistic identity. The Conference will be held from 12th to 14th June 2019 in Osijek. It is organized by the Department of philology, Faculty of Education, University of Osijek.
The publications from the last Conference will be presented at this year’s conference.

It is our honour to announce the confirmed plenary speakers, Prof. Marianne Nikolov, University of Pecs, and Prof. Anitka Skelin Horvat, University of Zagreb.