Symposium 2023 new

Bridging the Gap between Theory and Practice: Challenges and Opportunities

Whether our work focuses more on practices or theories, or we are called to consider both dimensions at the same time, we all strive to bring coherence in our work by reflecting on how theory can inform our practice and how practice can feed back into theory. This year’s symposium aims specifically to elicit discussion about the complementarity of theory and practice in language and literacies education. The Symposium invites reflections on our collective experiences as scholars, practitioners, and learners navigating the ever-changing material conditions of our activities and promotes discussion about ways to decolonize both theory and practice. 

To pursue these goals we will be guided by two plenary speakers operating in the languages and literacies field: one scholar working in the Latin American world and one Indigenous scholar. Scholars and graduate students will come together, in person or at distance, to share and discuss their recent, on-going or future research across different contexts, languages and cultures. 

We invite you to submit paper presentations in which participants will discuss new research avenues such as, among others, bi-/multi-/trans-/plurilingualism in language education, multiliteracies and multimodalities, teachers’ and students’ agency, mobility, migration and inclusion, impact of language policies, innovation in language teaching methodologies and assessment, language acquisition and language use, technology-assisted language learning and teaching, and e-Learning and distance education. 

The Symposium will provide a unique opportunity for scholars (faculty members and graduate students) working in languages/literacies education to learn about each other’s work, exchange ideas, and showcase or discuss their research. It will also provide a platform to establish and expand opportunities for academic networking for future collaborations.

University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) is pleased to host and facilitate the fourth Symposium supported by the Center for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies (CERLL) and strengthen the collaborative network in languages/literacies education research across Southern Ontarian Universities that the Symposium has created over the past years. The hybrid format will ensure that the Symposium continues to reach a broader, national and international audience as was the case in the past online editions. With plenaries, panel discussions, presentations and poster sessions as well as social events, the Symposium will provide all participants, from Ontario and beyond, with a unique opportunity to become a part of the broader languages/literacies education academic community.