Themes

Conference themes

Using digital tools to re-examine established teaching practices

Theme 1 will consider the learning opportunities offered by incorporating digital tools into higher education language programmes. It will look at how these tools optimise language learning; how they cater for the individual needs in large heterogeneous groups; how they empower language learners to take control of their own language learning experiences, especially when learning languages for professional purposes. It will also consider how digital tools intertwine with new and updateable resources (corpora, authentic documents, etc).

Guiding language instructors in the creation of hybrid and distance courses

Theme 2 will focus on pedagogical concerns related to the use of digital tools in a rapidly changing university world. Communications are particularly welcomed on topics related to teacher training support with regards to curriculum design in distance learning; questioning teaching practices and linking innovative institutional policies to actual pedagogical needs.

Pooling teaching materials together

Theme 3 will welcome contributions on, but not limited to, pooling resources together;  using user feedbacks as a means of improving both content and tools and sharing pedagogical engineering.

Developing flexible and robust Open Source software

Theme 4 will look at questioning pedagogical needs as a prerequisite for creating digital tools (corpus, specialised plug-ins, platforms, etc) that will be later used by language instructors. Studies that have examined the relevance of field study before the operationalisation and implementation of distance learning platforms (such as Moodle, Dokeos, etc) are particularly welcomed.