Just got back to the office today after some post-conference travel. Overall, the conference was an outstanding experience for me, both for the content of the projects presented, as well as the people I met. The format for this conference was basically six rooms with 6 different 25-minute presentations running simultaneously; as an attendee, you chose from this “menu” which of the 6 presentations was most interesting for you, attended, then switched to your next selected presentation, etc. We had two full days and one half day, for a total of about 150 presentations, of which you could attend 25. This format had advantages (a wide selection of interesting topics) and drawbacks (with only 25 minutes, it was difficult for many speakers to communicate their topic effectively - more on this later).

Over the next few days I’ll post on some conference highlights - here’s what’s coming:

+ Using corpora (resources) and concordancing for language learning and teaching. I attended an excellent full-day pre-conference workshop on this topic, led by Ylva Berglund and Sabine Braun, and was also able to attend some very interesting presentations on using corpora during the conference, including one by Ide O’Sullivan of CALS at the University of Limerick.

+ Using an “integrated language learning environment” that connects classroom-based learning with e-learning. One of the lead designers Piet Desmet presented this software platform. It’s great…and the closest thing I’ve seen to what we’re building here at English360.

+ Joan-Tomas Pujola of the University of Barcelona presented some excellent ideas on CALL application features that support learner autonomy.

+ Nurturing autonomy through tandem learning. This was an interesting case study presented by Katia Carraro from the RZB Language Resource Center (link in German) at Vienna University.

+ An analysis of conversational negotiation strategies in oral communication in an immersive virtual environment. This is some very cool research by Therese Örnberg from Umeå University, Sweden. (Therese has also blogged on her experience at the conference.)