PRESIDENT’S LETTER – NOVEMBER 2, 2018

Dear fellow IALLTers,

It has been a busy fall for IALLT and I wanted to share with you what is happening in the organization, the board, and the council. I am trying to keep it brief, so I am only highlighting the major developments.

We were deeply saddened by the passing away of long-time IALLT member, Thom Hammond, who was director of the Language Center at Harvard University and a friend to many in IALLT. His hosting of the FLEAT VI conference at Harvard in 2015, which also marked the 50th anniversary of IALLT, was a major milestone in IALLT’s history. We are so thankful for his service to IALLT.

Transition to a New Publications Model
After long and very careful deliberations, the board voted to discontinue the publication of the IALLT Journal. We invited dialogue with former journal editors and stakeholders with experience in academic publishing, and ultimately decided that the research focus of the Journal does not reflect the needs of the IALLT community. We see this not as an end, but as a way for us to innovate and lead in new models of academic publication. IALLT is moving to FLTMAG as the publication platform for our organization. FLTMAG has demonstrated viability for a range of CALL practitioners and faculty at a variety of institutions. We believe that FLTMAG, as an open resource focused on praxis, better reflects IALLT’s position in the field, and offers our membership a better opportunity to contribute to the discourse in our profession. We will also continue to publish edited volumes in hardcover and digital formats. If you have an idea for a publication on a specific topic, and would like to be the editor or co-editor of such a publication, please reach out to us. As an all-volunteer organization, we encourage you to get involved in the area of publications, and/or to submit an article to FLTMAG.  

https://fltmag.com

Language Center Handbook
If you haven’t already purchased it, I recommend the Language Center Handbook, which was published this summer. Edited by Betsy Lavolette and Edwige Simon, it combines updates to the Management Manual and the Language Center Design books. https://iallt.org/resources/publications/

IALLT and FLEAT Conference
We are all getting excited about our two 2019 conferences: IALLT in June at the University of Oregon, and FLEAT VII in August at Waseda University in Tokyo.

The call for proposals for IALLT  2019 just came out, and the deadline is December 3. We encourage everyone to submit a proposal! (And tell a friend or colleague.)

https://iallt.org/iallt-2019/cfp/

FLEAT VII (Foreign Language Education and Technology), jointly sponsored by the International Association for Language Learning Technology (IALLT) and the Japan Association for Language Education & Technology (J-LET), will be held at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, from August 6th (Tuesday) to August 9th (Friday), 2019. The Pre-conference events (workshops) will take place on August 6th. The main conference will begin on August 7th, 2019.

https://www.j-let.org/fleatvii/

LLTI
As you may know, LLTI has been unavailable to some of you for a while due to technical difficulties. We have moved LLTI to an independently-hosted platform, and several considerations (transferring existing user list; archive; functionalities, etc.) made this move complicated. We have finally moved everything, and I want to especially thank Tom Garbelotti, Dan Nickolai, and everyone on the board for making this happen. If you were subscribed, your account was moved to the new system. If there was an issue or if you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so here: https://iallt.org/resources/llti-listserv/

There is certainly a lot more information to pass on. But I promised you to keep it brief. I look forward to hearing from you!

Best,

Felix

—

Felix Kronenberg

President, International Association for Language Learning Technology  

November 2, 2018