• In view of more people expecting to participate in the Conference, the deadline for online submission of abstract will be delayed until September 21, 2014. Welcome your contributions!

Hosts:
·China Computer-Assisted Language Learning Association （ChinaCALL）
·Foreign Languages and Mass Communication School of Beijing Jiaotong University
·School of Online and Continuing Education of Beijing Foreign Studies University
Partners:
·CTB/McGraw-Hill
·Cambridge English Language Assessment

·Journal of Computer-assisted Foreign Language Education
·Journal of Foreign Languages in China
·Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics
·Journal of Modern Educational Technology

·Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press
·Higher Education Press
·The Cooperative Group of science and technology universities of the National Advisory Committee on Teaching Foreign Language to the English Majors in Higher Education under the Ministry of Education
·Beijing College English Research Association

2014 International Symposium on CALL
[Nov.7-Nov. 8, 2014   Beijing, China]


 
Agnes Kukulska-Hulme

  • ◆ Introduction

Agnes Kukulska-Hulme is Professor of Learning Technology and Communication in the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University, UK. She is Past-President of the International Association for Mobile Learning, and serves on the Editorial Board of several journals including the International Journal of Mobile and Blended Learning. She has been researching mobile learning since 2001, recently as part of the European MOTILL project on mobile technologies in life-long learning, the MASELTOV project on smart and personalized technologies for social inclusion of immigrants, and a British Council project on Mobile Pedagogy for English Language Teaching. Professor Kukulska-Hulme’s expertise also encompasses distance learning, open and online education, and language learning. Her original discipline background is in linguistics and foreign language acquisition, and from this perspective she has a longstanding research interest in effective communication mediated by technology and the new possibilities for language learning and re-learning in an age of mobility. In 2013 the International Research Foundation for English Language Education published her position paper on Re-skilling Language Learners for a Mobile World.

  • ◆ Plenary speech

Title: Language Assistance in Life and Learning
Abstract:
Mobile learning multiplies opportunities to learn and practice outside the classroom, opening up education to a wider audience. At the same time, it challenges educators to consider impacts on instructional designs, in-class and out-of-class practices, language curricula and traditional assessment. In the European MASELTOV project, we work with the concept to ‘learner journeys’, and we examine instances of both planned and unplanned language learning among migrants who have access to smart phones and find themselves having to adapt to life in a new city. What kinds of language assistance can personal devices offer them in everyday communication and how does this relate to their formal educational experience? The answers lie partly in the new features, tools and services that are available on smart phones and tablets, and partly in learners’capacity to make use of them in ways that will extend and transform their learning.


Gerry Delaney
  • ◆ Introduction

Gerry Delaney is the Head of Assessment Services (East Asia) for Cambridge English Language Assessment. His early career was in teaching, where he taught English and Computer Science for twelve years in the UK and Europe. For the last seven years he has specialised in assessment and curriculum development, working and living in Bahrain, Kazakhstan and China. His research interests include bilingual teaching and learning, the assessment of listening skills, and the use of computer technology in language assessment. He lives and works in Beijing.

  • ◆ Plenary speech

Title: New Computer Technology and the Test-Taker Experience

Abstract:
This paper explores the effect of new computer technology on key aspects of the test-taking experience. It begins in the early stages with the test development process itself, asking questions about the issues of validity raised by computerisation, the design considerations demanded by the formats of different devices, and the logistics of delivery on computer platforms. It explores comparability issues between paper-based and computer-based tests and analyses learner response times in assessing speaking. The paper also discusses the interaction of test-takers with technology, including ethical, socio-cognitive and pedagogic issues. Finally, the paper concludes by offering pointers for the future direction of assessment and possible changes to the test-taker experience.



Huaqing Hong
  • ◆ Introduction

Hong Huaqing is Head of eLearning Research & Development with Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, and Research Scientist with National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Leading several government funded large-scale education research projects in the past decade, Dr Hong’s areas of interest include ICT-enabled learning, LAMS-based online education, computational linguistics, and multimodal discourse analysis.

  • ◆ Plenary speech

Title: Re-inventing the Classroom: Technology Enhanced Collaborative Online Teaching & Learning
Abstract:
The cascading effect of technology revolution is beginning to have a transformational impact on teaching and learning process in institutions. Implementing technology-enhanced learning and sophisticated instructional systems triggers a radical paradigm shift from the traditional educational approach to one in which classroom has to be re-invented to transform the pedagogy with innovative applications of high sustainability and scalability. Still there are a list of questions and issues yet to resolve related to how technology and pedagogy engage and enrich each other so as to effectively link between individual and collaborative learning, enable learner-centered instruction, create virtual collegiate community, reinforce creativity in application exercises, assess learning activities and performance, and foster appropriated deployment at workplace. With these issues in focus, this paper will bring together the latest education research outcome and our recent endeavor in building a new medical school with mobile-based learning ecosystem, and thus hope to establish an understanding of how a future classroom can be re-invented.



Yueguo Gu
  • ◆ Introduction

Yueguo Gu is a research professor of linguistics, and head of the Contemporary Linguistics Department, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is also Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Beijing Foreign Studies University, President of China Association for Computer-Assisted Language Learning (ChinaCALL), and Founding Dean of the Institute of Online Education and Guest Professor of the University of Nottingham. His research interests include pragmatics, discourse analysis, corpus linguistics, rhetoric, the philosophy of language and online education.

  • ◆ Plenary speech

Title: Online Learner Well-Being: Affectivity and Caregiving

Abstract:
This paper explores the issue of online learners’ emotional well-being and how to provide care for it in courseware and platform design. Learning is generally understood as, by definition, a matter of cognition. Mainstream theories of learning are also formulated with cognition as its pivotal building block. As a consequence the issue of learner affectivity is not only being marginalized, but also treated negatively as something to be disposed of at all costs.

Benefiting from the latest studies on emotion (e.g., Damasio 1999, 2003), this paper adopts the position that learner affectivity is primary, underlying the use of all cognitive resources for learning. Positive affectivity motivates and reinforces cognitive learning, whereas negative affectivity demotivates and undermines cognitive learning. While upholding a distinction between occurent emotion and long-term mood, it reports our latest empirical investigations of occurrent emotions of university students. Based on the findings, it makes proposals for courseware and platform design that aim at providing care for online learner affectivity, i.e., including both occurent emotion and long-term mood.