Plenary speaker: Dr. Samina Murad

Bridging the Digital Divide in the New Normal

Ever Since the COVID-19 crisis, pedagogy around the world has seen a complete overhaul in the transition from face-to-face to a virtual learning platform (Khatija, 2020; Teras et al., 2020). This transition has not been similar for the haves and have-nots (Ramij & Sultana, 2020). In this scenario, students of low-resource educational contexts, especially from developing or undeveloped countries, have been forced to suddenly adopt online learning environments. Although, online learning carries its long term fruits for the learners as it is a new skill in itself to learn to study virtually (Davison et al., 2017; Hardin et al., 2007); yet it has highlighted the issues of technology access and digital divide (Lloyd Morrisett, n.d.) more pungently. In this situation, inclusion and access is the key to empowerment (Graf, 2020).

Based on the post-pandemic research on the future of educational technologies in the developing world and the real life experience of the speaker, the talk will encompass the issues of technology access, empowerment through diminishing the digital divide, and the actual face of this new normal for those who have little to no access to technology. It will also briefly talk about two research projects that viewed technology access and acceptability among English language learners and teachers before and after the virtual transition due to the COVID-19. Both projects show the change in the perceptions of the participants and its possible implications for pedagogy, policymaking, and innovation design. There appears a need for a global change in treating this disruption (Davison, 2020) as an opportunity of implementing the goal of leaving no on behind and empowerment through technology for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) 2030.

Keynote speaker: Professor Lourdes Ortega

Reimagining the Future of SLA: Are We Ready for a Social Justice Turn?

We are living amidst a global pandemic that has upended our personal, public, and research lives. The world is also suffering from a dire tide of authoritarian populism that works against solidarity and respect for human diversity, including the diversity of multilinguals. How might the work of second language acquisition researchers need to change in response to these times of deep crisis? I look at the field through theoretical lenses drawn from usage-based, multilingual, and social justice perspectives, arguing that we must bridge cognitive-linguistic and social-critical dimensions of language learning. I examine accumulated research that suggests the need to explain linguistic development in light of the relative privilege versus marginalization that adults experience, because additional language learning necessarily engages individuals who bring to the task their lifeworlds and agency, their intersecting and liminal social identities, and their often contradictory affiliations to systemic structures of power and oppression. The field has already been transformed by a social turn and to some extent by a bi/multilingual turn. I invite others to reimagine the future of SLA as letting itself be transformed by a social justice turn, and striving for knowledge that supports equitable multilingualism for all.