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 Centre 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.

Plenary Speakers

Colette Despagne

Colette Despagne is a Full Professor of (Critical) Applied Linguistics and Language Education at the Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities (ICSyH) at BUAP – Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP), in Puebla, Mexico. She is member of the Mexican National Research Council (Sistema Nacional de Investigación – CONACYT) and leads the research group called “Racism, Identities, and Modes of Subjectivity” at BUAP. Colette Despagne holds a master’s degree in Applied Linguistics from the Université du Maine in France and a PhD in Educational Linguistics from Western University in Canada. She is plurilingual and lives in Mexico for nearly 30 years. She has presented in many different countries and published in several languages in international journals in Europe, Canada, the United States, Colombia and Mexico. She has been recipient of the Edmundo O’Gorman fellowship on behalf of the Institute of Latin American Studies at Columbia University in New York City in 2018. 


Presentation Resources
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Headshot of Colette Despagne.
Ryan DeCaire

Ryan DeCaire is Kanien’kehá:ka and was born and raised in Wáhta Mohawk Territory, Ontario. Ryan is a Kanien’kéha (Mohawk language) revitalization practitioner, teacher, and learner, and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the Centre for Indigenous Studies at the University of Toronto. His work focuses primarily on the role of adult language acquisition and use in Indigenous language revitalization, and specifically on best practices for developing advanced speaking proficiency in adults of Kanien’kéha.


Presentation Resources
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Headshot of Ryan DeCaire.

Friday Session Speakers

Ma Guadalupe Sanchez Sandoval

University of Toronto
Title: A proposal for a plurilingual and critical approach to CLIL in Mexican public higher education

Michael Koslowski

University of Toronto
Title: Deconstructing the Binary: Exploring the Benefits and Challenges of Plurilingual and Immersion Pedagogies

Yunjia Xie

McGill University
Title: The Possibility of Localize Plurilingual Approaches in EFL Education at Secondary Schools in Mainland China

Adriana Ortiz

University of Toronto
Title: Participative plurilingual identity construction: a reflexive model for the second language classroom

Chia-Hsin Yin & Grace J. Kim

Ohio State University & Bucknell University
Title: Multimodality and L2 Socialization in Digital Space

Dagmara Gałajda

University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
Title: Supporting students’ multiliteracy: redefining communicative competence by building upon Gen Z’s digital body language

Artemiy Kotov & Anna Zinina

Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia
Title: Perception of the social robot for learning a foreign language by Russian students

Karam Noel & Hiba Ibrahim

University of Toronto & York University
Title: The case of Q-methodology: A collaborative, CDST-informed research method in applied linguistics

Hakan Cangır

Ankara University, Erfurt University
Title: Major Sources of Lexical Errors in Second Language Writing in the Turkish Context

Zahra Heidarian

Western University
Title: Short Stories as a Bridge between Theory and Practice: Developing Reading Comprehension Skills among 4th, 5th, and 6th Grade Students in Iran

Mili Saha

Jagannath University, Bangladesh
Title: Family language policies: Bangladeshi immigrant parents’ perceptions of maintaining children’s heritage language

Rebecca Schmor

University of Toronto
Title: A Plural, Intersectional Approach to Multiethnographic Methodologies: Investigating the Relationship between Plurilingual Identities and Practices

Angelica Galante, Li Peng, & Hannah Keim

McGill University
Title: “Someone engaged in plurilingual practices with me but in a very racist way”: Exploring discrimination and plurilingualism among users non-official languages in Canada

Marika Kunnas

York University
Title: Cultural and racial representations in French immersion classes: Perspectives from racially minoritized students

Reshara Alviarez

University of Toronto
Title: A Language Friendly Approach: Bridging the linguistic divide in education in Trinidad and Tobago

Ji-young Shin

University of Toronto, Mississauga
Title: Examining important linguistic features of elicited imitation between proficiency levels: Insights from machine learning and corpus linguistics

Eunjeong Park

Sunchon National University
Title: The Corpus-Aided Instruction for EFL College Students’ Writing Improvement

Renee Davy

McGill University
Title: Writing in Secondary Schools: The Treatment of Authentic Writing in Foreign Language Curriculum

Sonia Martin

York University
Title: Resistance or maintenance? An autoethnographic reflection on the creation of an equitable language policy

Mengjiao Han, Zahra Heidarian, Chuan Liu, Haobin Liu, Filipe Malafaia Cerqueira, Julie Marion, Amanda Seabrook, Liwen Situ, Lihan Wu, & Shelley K. Taylor

University of Western Ontario
Title: Critically Reflecting on Identity Texts: Equity-Based Praxes and Teacher Education

Katherine Rehner, John Ippolito, Daya Alderfer, Claire Costaris, Gabrielle Forget, Sarah Jones, Ivan Lasan, & Yifan Liu

University of Toronto Mississauga, York University, & University of Toronto
Title: Interconnections and Repertoires: Exploring the Linguistic and Social Integration of Adult Migrants across International Contexts

Saturday Session Speakers

Yuliya Desyatova

University of Toronto
Title: Meta-tasks as an Operationalization of the Action-oriented Approach

Gloria Romero

Universidad de Santiago de Chile
Title: Bringing Together Theory and Practice through an Inclusive TESOL Research Community in Chile

Amy Parker

Waterloo Rainbow District School Board
Title: Developing agency in the practice of supply teaching

Meihan Li

University of Regina
Title: Plurilingualism as an Intrinsic Capacity: Exploring Chinese EFL Teachers’ Classroom Language Practices

Ömer Genç & Dr. Hasan Mesut Meral

Yıldız Technical University
Title: A Lesson Model for the Teaching of Turkish Verbal Participles via the Pedagogical Grammar

Leanne Adegbonmire & Emmanuelle Le Pichon

University of Toronto
Title: Building a Network of Support: Conversations with Teachers and School Leadership on the Introduction of a New Multilingual Digital Tool

Patrícia Ferreira de Brito & Ulisses Tadeu Vaz de Oliveira

Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul
Title: The “Hand Talk” app and teaching English to Brazilian deaf students

Mili Saha

Jagannath University
Title: Language teachers’ professional stress and emotions in online teaching

Richard Martinez, Ana García-Allén, Dewi Heru, & Arameh Khadjevand

Western University
Title: Principles of Self-Efficacy and Students as Partners in Spanish as a Foreign Language Classrooms

Paweł Andrejczuk

University of Valencia
Title: Telecollaboration: A 21st century language teaching approach?

Enrica Piccardo, Danielle Hunter, Sanzana Rahman, & José Luis Ortiz Soria

University of Toronto & York University
Title: Promoting language teachers’ agency through plurilingual, action-oriented, and technology-mediated approaches

Enrica Piccardo, Rebecca Schmor, Andre Scholze, & Giacomo Folinazzo

University of Toronto
Title: Authentic and inclusive language education through plurilingual action-oriented scenarios: Lessons from an international partnership

Poster Sessions

Friday Session I
  • April Passi
  • Gabrielle Forget
  • Paddy Watson
  • Leonie Hölderle
Friday Session II
  • Lu Xi
  • Karen Andrews
  • Li Peng
  • Stephen Bahry/Zhe Chen
Friday Session III
  • Esther Hye-Min Yoon
  • Irma Alarcon
  • Rui Dong Chen
  • Anna V. Sokolova Grinovievkaya
  • Kevin Martens Wong
Friday Session IV
  • Olga Tararova
  • Ian McCallum
  • Adriana Williams
  • Xiaoyue Chen
Saturday Poster Session I
  • Esther Hye-Min Yoon
  • Irma Alarcon
  • Rui Dong Chen
  • Anna V. Sokolova Grinovievkaya
  • Kevin Martens Wong
Saturday Poster Session II
  • Olga Tararova
  • Ian McCallum
  • Adriana Williams
  • Xiaoyue Chen

Committees

Organizing Committee

Dr. Pablo Robles García

University of Toronto Mississauga

Dr. Ibtissem Knouzi

York University

Dr. Marie-Paule Lory

University of Toronto Mississauga

Dr. Enrica Piccardo

OISE, University of Toronto

Dr. Barbara Schmenk

 University of Waterloo

Dr. Olga Tararova

Western University

Dr. Shelley K. Taylor

Western University

Dr. Zhaozhe Wang

 University of Toronto Mississauga

Graduate Student Organizers & Volunteers

Aisha Adebayo

Graduate Student Organizer, OISE

Lisa Lackner

Graduate Student Organizer, OISE

Presented By

The Symposium 2023 is presented by the University of Toronto, Mississauga, and the Centre for Educational Research in Languages and Literacies (CERLL) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. It is in collaboration with the Graduate Program in Linguistics & Applied Linguistics of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics at York University, the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies at the University of Waterloo, and the Faculty of Education at Western University.