The AILA Research Network EDISDGVE: English as a medium of education, multilingualism and the SDGS: equity, diversity, and inclusion would like to highlight the following publication which features a collection of papers from AILA 2021. “Special Issue on Virtual Exchange: Language Learning and Teaching in an Age of Complexity – Selected Papers From AILA 2021” guest edited by Carolin Fuchs and Marina Orsini-Jones, which can be found in the following link. https://www.igi-global.com/journals/open-access/table-of-contents/%20international-journal-computer-assisted-language/41023?v=12&iss=3 This Special Issue draws from papers on Virtual Exchange (VE) or Telecollaboration or Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) presented at the AILA congress 2021, with the theme ‘The dynamics of language, communication and culture in a changing world’. AILA 2021 was hosted virtually by the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. One of the strands in the conference was the theme of VE/Telecollaboration or COIL. This Special Issue focuses on this topic and includes papers delivered at two VE-based symposia. The Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics (MAAL) is delighted to inform about the 21st AILA World Congress 2024 (AILA 2024), which will be held on the 11-16 August 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We are delighted to extend the call for papers and invitation to participate in the21st AILA World Congress 2024 on Linguistic Diversity, Inclusion and Sustainability, which will be held on the 11-16 August 2024 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. AILA has reached its 60-year milestone and Malaysia has the honour of hosting the celebration of 6 decades of AILA (1964 – 2024) with the 21st AILA World Congress in 2024. In celebrating 60 years of AILA, the Kuala Lumpur programme promises an exciting hybrid of events offering an excellent platform for networking opportunities. Participants can look forward to new outlooks and innovations in research work on various topics in the field of applied linguistics from scholars, academics, professionals in the industry and government. Important Dates: Detailed information is available on the AILA 2024 World Congress website at: https://aila2024.com/ For further information, please contact: [email protected] Please take note of the deadline for abstract submission and send in your abstracts as soon as possible. Information on Solidarity Awards will be available on the conference website. We look forward to your participation at the 21st AILA World Congress 2024! AILA ReN “INCLUSIVE FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION” would like to draw your attention to the following conference: Holding the mirror of inclusion to subject content during initial and in-service foreign language teacher education in Bremen, Germany 4–7th July 2023. European educational policy makers envision the development of communicative competence as the main goal of institutionalized foreign language (FL) education (Council of Europe, 2001) and hope for the realization of the Barcelona Summit (2002) “mother tongue + 2” objective. Yet, the relatively long list of various subcompetences, types of knowledge and affective variables that communicating in a foreign language encompasses, highlights how complex and multidimensional the process of learning a foreign language can be and, therefore, how difficult it is for everyone to learn foreign languages easily, in a comparable manner and with similar success. In fact, learning a foreign language can often prove challenging for learners. Since the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN CRPD) the implementation of inclusive education systems that enable all learners to actively engage in learning and reach their potential is a goal recognized by all European Countries. However, on a practical level, not all educational systems and not all agents within them are truly ready to realize such task in practice. Especially considering the assumption that preservice teachers need to be ready to teach in inclusive school systems, it seems necessary to provide them with appropriate education and training during their studies. Yet, this is often not the case - especially the link between subject teaching methods and inclusive educational approaches is often missing, although the interlocking of these fields is highly important for the teaching practice: in a survey of student teacher's course catalogues Frohn & Moser (2021) show that while almost all universities included in the study indicated that they had courses on inclusion, these were often not focused on inclusive provision of subject content. Intersections Inclusive Project V:InD:O:W www.vindow.eu. During this conference, we would like to focus on approaches and concepts for the training and further education of (prospective) teachers, which provide inclusive approaches and concepts for the design of foreign language teaching. In terms of content, a distinction will be made between approaches to in- and pre-service teacher education. With this call we would like to invite you to participate in the current discussions around the inclusive design of foreign language teacher education and training. Contributions to this conference should be assigned to one of the two main topics and should, for example, touch on the following thematic corridors: - Frameworks for designing inclusive foreign language instruction, - Frameworks for designing the training of prospective foreign language teachers, - Education and training programs for (prospective) teachers - Best-practice examples for inclusive education. Proposals for contributions should contain for a 20-minute presentation followed by a discussion the following: - title of the presentation - keywords - abstract (400 words) - biography of the speakers (80–100 words) Participation is free of charge. Abstracts should be submitted by 31.03.2023 via the conference website (registration and submission opens on 15.03.2023). For more information, please visit the conference website: https://blogs.unibremen.de/inplus/projekte Conveners: Gale Stam, National Louis University, [email protected]; Laura Morett, University of Alabama, [email protected] Events and publications since January 2022 The ReN's application for renewal for 2022–2025 was approved on February 25, 2022. During 2022, we held six Zoom meetings with ReN members: February 14, May 9, and November 16 with members from North America, Europe, and South Africa and February 23, May 17, and November 8 with members from North America and Asia. We discussed our current research, AILA ReN renewal, plans for future symposia, and articles. We also had a ReN dinner for those attending and presenting at the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS) Conference in Chicago, Illinois in July 2022. ReN member Marianne Gullberg was elected President of the International Society for Gesture Studies (ISGS) in July 2022. Ongoing research and opportunities for collaboration Members continue to work on various topics related to gestures and multimodality including classroom instruction, pedagogical gestures, gestures and L2 learning, bilinguals' gestures, gestures in conversation analysis, gestures and L2 comprehension, gestures and L1 and L2 thinking for speaking. If you are interested in participating in or collaborating on any of these projects, please send us a brief description of research interests so that we can identify a possible collaborator. Contact information For more information about the AILA ReN, please contact the conveners Gale Stam at [email protected] or Laura Morett at [email protected] and visit ourAILAReNwebsite or ourReN'sgooglesite