The conference has now come to an end. Thank you to everyone who made ARLE/IFTE Barcelona 2026 possible. The Unbounded Journey Continues...
On behalf of the Organising Committee,
Xavier Fontich & Andy Goodwyn
(Conference videos, pictures, and reports in here)
Welcome to the ARLE/IFTE Biannual Conference in Barcelona
The 2026 ARLE/IFTE Biennial Conference will take place at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), marking the 15th ARLE Conference and the 15th IFTE Conference. Academic sessions will be held at the UAB Faculty of Arts and Humanities, located on the picturesque Bellaterra campus, and in central Barcelona at the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), Faculty of Geography/Psychology. The main conference will run from June 25 to 27, 2026, with a dedicated PhD pre-conference day on June 24.
ARLE Conference Chair Associate Professor Xavier Fontich, IFTE President Professor Andy Goodwyn, and their colleagues warmly invite you to join them in Barcelona—an extraordinary, cosmopolitan, and dynamic city.
This unique joint international conference will gather educators from around the globe to celebrate achievements, address shared challenges, and honour the legacy of Lev Vygotsky on the 130th anniversary of his birth.
ARLE and IFTE bring different formative names to the conference. L1 is ‘First Language’; English can be referred to as ‘English in Education’ or ‘English Language Arts’. In the not-too-distant past, terms such as "mother tongue" or "native language" were commonly used.
This list tells us we are moving forward and challenging our semantic histories. We are united in our purpose to celebrate the value and significance of our field and its ongoing, emancipatory research. In the following text, we use L1 for simplicity.
Conference Theme: The Unbounded Journey - First Language and Literature Education in a Dynamic World
Post-pandemic and amidst the increasingly ubiquitous presence of AI in education, the conference will draw attention to access, language, relationality, and technology in L1 Education globally. The conference theme invites participants to consider the role and concepts of place (and displacement), storytelling, technologies, diversities, identities and agency in L1 research and practice.
Conference Format: Hybrid Asynchronous
The Conference aspires to bring participants together in person. However, given the challenges we are all facing in reducing our carbon footprint, the ARLE-Barcelona 2026 conference will run in a hybrid format, allowing participants who cannot travel to Barcelona to present in a virtual, asynchronous mode.
The virtual asynchronous mode entails that participants will have their contributions (which may include symposia, paper presentations, or posters) allocated on a platform accessible by all delegates (both online and on-site) throughout the conference. Those interested will be able to provide comments, which the authors will address in response.
Online participants will be able to attend keynote sessions in day 1 and day 3 via live streaming. So far, we have been unable to include the corridor conversations and the gala dinner in the streaming experience. We apologise!
Conference Language:
Main Language: English
Additional Languages: Spanish, Catalan, and French
The official language of the conference will be English. It will be used for the opening and closing keynote lectures, as well as in most parallel sessions, symposia, posters, and communication with the organizers.
However, in keeping with the inclusive and multilingual spirit that characterizes both ARLE and IFTE, the conference will also include three additional languages:
Spanish: As the primary additional language, it will be used in selected parallel keynote lectures, communication sessions, and symposia.
French: Will be used in communication sessions and symposia.
Catalan: Will be used in communication sessions and symposia, and will also serve as the main language for the local event aimed at teachers, held on Friday and Saturday mornings. This event will include simultaneous translation into English.
The 15th ARLE conference will take place in three different venues:
Pre-conference will be on the 24 afternoon (Wednesday) at the Rosa Sensat School, from 15:00 to 19:00. Address: Av. de les Drassanes, 3, Ciutat Vella, 08001 Barcelona
Main conference will be
on the 25 and 26 (Thursday & Friday) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Address: Campus UAB, Faculty of Arts, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona).
on the 27 (Saturday) at the Universitat de Barcelona, in the city centre, at the Faculty of Geography. Address: Carrer de Montalegre, 6, Ciutat Vella, 08001 Barcelona
Elżbieta Awramiuk, Uniwersytet w Białymstoku, Poland
Anna Bartra, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Kristina Belančić, Umeå University, Sweden
Ulrike Behrens, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Yassine Boussagui, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco
Jesper Bremholm, Danish National Centre for Reading, Denmark
Ecaterina Bulea Bronckart, Université de Genève, Switzerland
Scott Bulfin, Monash University, Australia
Eduardo Calil, Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil
Mariona Casas, Universitat de Vic-Central de Catalunya, Spain
Daniel Cassany, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona), Spain
Adriana Collado, Universidad Nacional de San Juan, Argentina
Peter-Arno Coppen, Radboud University, the Netherlands
Ana Luísa Costa, Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal, Portugal
Maria-Josep Cuenca, Universitat de València, Spain
Wiebke Dannecker, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany
Kristin Denham, Western Washington University, USA
Jeroen Dera, Radboud University, the Netherlands
Fleur Diamond, Monash University, Australia
Yamina El Kirat El Allame, Mohammed V University, Morocco
Marie-Laure Elalouf, Université de Cergy Pontoise, France
Nikolaj Elf, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Santiago Fabregat, Universidad de Jaén, Spain
Paulo Feytor Pinto, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Xavier Fontich, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Reinold Funke, Pädagogische Hochschule Heidelberg, Germany
Isabel García-Parejo, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Winnie-Karen Giera, Universität Potsdam, Germany
Andy Goodwyn, Reading University, UK
Tina Høegh, University of Southern Denmark, Denmark
Heidi Höglund, Åbo Akademi University, Sweden
Richard Hudson, University College London, UK
Marta Gràcia, Universitat de Barcelona, Spain
Francisco Javier Jaraíz-Cabanillas, Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
Rocío Jodar-Jurado, Universidad de Jaén, Spain
Cibele Krause-Lemke, Universidade Estadual do Centro-Oeste, Brazil
Stavroula Kontovourki, University of Cyprus, Cyprus
Dimitrios Koutsogiannis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Júlia Llompart, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Marco Magirius, University of Hamburg, Germany
Jenni Marjokorpi, University bof Helsinki, Finland
Dolors Masats, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Debra Myhill, University of Exeter, UK
Anna Nicolaou, Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
Seong Seog Park, Chuncheon National University of Education, South Korea
Ramón Pérez-Parejo, Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
Carmen Rodríguez-Gonzalo, Universitat de València, Spain
Manuel Francisco Romero Oliva, Universidad de Cádiz, Spain
Carmen Sánchez Morillas, Universidad de Jaén, Spain
Bernard Schneuwly, Université de Genève, Switzerland
Atle Skaftun, University of Stavanger, Norway
José Soto, Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
Nektarios Stellakis, University of Patras, Greece
Stanislav Štěpáník, Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic
Ramón Tena, Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
Jimmy van Rijt, Utrecht University, the Netherlands
Pau Bori - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain
Santiago Fabregat - Universidad de Jaén, Spain
Isabel García-Parejo - Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Francisco Jaraíz-Cabanillas - Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
Rocío Jodar-Jurado - Universidad de Jaén, Spain
Ramón Pérez-Parejo - Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
Carmen Sánchez Morillas - Universidad de Jaén, Spain
José Soto - Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
Ramón Tena - Universidad de Extremadura, Spain
IFTE
International Federation for the Teaching of English
ARLE
The International Association for Research in L1 Education
2024 ARMIF 00023
PID2020-117813RA-I00