Garramilla/Darwin, 17th-19th November 2025
Applied Linguistics Association of Australia Conference 2025
Larrakia Country
Conference Program
Language and the interface of mono-/multi-/translingual mindsets
This year’s conference takes place over three days Monday, November 17 through to Wednesday November 19, 2025.
Below you will find an overview of the conference program. This page will be updated with a downloadable conference program prior to the conference.
Day 1 - Monday, November 17, 2025
| 8:30am-9:00am Conference Registration |
| 9:00am-9:45am Welcome to Country and Opening Address |
| 9:45am-10:45am Keynote Speaker Session 1 – Toni Dobinson |
| 10:45am-11:15am Morning Break |
| 11:15am-12:45pm Concurrent Sessions (1) |
| 12:45pm-2:00pm Lunch and ECR Catch-up |
| 2:00pm-3:30pm Concurrent Sessions (2) |
| 3:30pm-4:00pm Afternoon Break |
| 4:00pm-6:00pm Featured Sessions and Concurrent Sessions (3) |
| 6:00pm-8:00pm Welcome Reception |
Day 2 - Tuesday, November 18, 2025
| 8:30am-9:00am Arrival Tea and Coffee (ALAA AGM) |
| 9:00am-10:00am ALAA AGM |
| 10:00am-10:30am Morning Break and Conference Registration |
| 10:30am-12:00pm Concurrent Sessions (4) |
| 12:00pm-1:00pm Keynote Speaker Session 2 – Shoshana Dreyfus |
| 1:00pm-2:00pm Lunch and Film Screening |
| 2:00pm-3:30pm Concurrent Sessions (5) |
| 3:30pm-4:00pm Afternoon Break |
| 4:00pm-5:00pm Keynote Speaker Session 3 – Roby Marlina |
| 6:30pm Conference Dinner |
Day 3 - Wednesday, November 19, 2025
| 8:30am-9:00am Conference Registration |
| 9:00am-10:30am Concurrent Sessions (6) |
| 10:30am-11:00am Morning Break |
| 11:00am-12:00pm Keynote Speaker Session 4 – Robyn Ober |
| 12:10pm-1:10pm Concurrent Sessions (7) |
| 1:10pm-2:00pm Lunch |
| 2:00pm-3:30pm Featured Workshops |
| 3:3opm-4:00pm Afternoon Break |
| 4:00pm-5:30pm Featured Workshop and Film Screening |
| 5:30pm Conference Closing |
Over the course of the conference we will have a range of additional sessions, including workshops and colloquia.
Details of confirmed sessions are accessible below:
Colloquium/Yarn: Celebrating First Nations Languages and Language Learning in Australian Schools
Celebrating First Nations Languages and Language Learning in Australian Schools: Stories Across Generations of Language Activism, Advocacy and Allyship
Co-chairs: Carly Steele, Robyn Ober, Rhonda Oliver
Discussant: Rhonda Oliver
Time: 1 hour
Overview
At a critical time for Indigenous languages across the globe, the United Nations International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022–2032) draws attention to the endangerment of these languages and advocates for the role of education to preserve and revitalise Indigenous languages. At the same time, many new language varieties spoken by Indigenous peoples often remain unrecognised in education systems, and their English language learning needs are left unaddressed. The presentations in this colloquium yarn about the advocacy, activism, and allyship for First Nations languages and language learners undertaken by educators, education systems, and researchers in Australia. With a practical focus, the authors illustrate innovative and contemporary approaches to language learning for First Nations students.
Presentation 1: Teaching First Nations Languages in Queensland Schools, Samantha Disbray & Des Crump
Teaching First Nations languages is on the rise in Australian schools, fostering community involvement, student well-being and language revitalisation, and raising public awareness. This is an important step towards acknowledging and addressing the destructive impacts of invasion on traditional languages and their speakers. This presentation describes the broad range of language situations and contexts in Queensland. Recent top-down language policy moves in Queensland and nationally are creating space for a growing number of practitioners and communities to teach Language in Queensland schools. It explores some of these moves and foregrounds the voices of languages teachers who are leading two programs, to understand elements key to thriving and sustainable programs and languages.
Presentation 2: Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) for Learning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages, Jacquie Hunter & Helen McCarthy
In this presentation, we introduce Content Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) as a theoretical and pedagogical approach to language learning and teaching. We then describe how this approach may be effective for learning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages. Using a case study and illustrative examples from a remote Aboriginal community in Western Australia, we describe how CLIL can facilitate students’ learning of the Bardi language, Bardi Jawi culture, and science through a two-way approach to learning. We also describe how the language, skills, and understanding learned in this CLIL context have not only been taken up by the students but also transferred for use in other areas of the curriculum.
Presentation 3: Gija Curriculum at Purnululu School, Rhonda Olive (on behalf of Sophia Mung and Libby Lee-Hammond)
In this presentation I will describe the pedagogical approach used at Boornoolooloo (Purnululu) School that infuses Gija language and culture through multilingual and multimodal learning. Drawing on the wisdom of Manambarram (Elders), Dreaming Stories and local places of cultural significance, the school approaches planning, assessment documentation and reporting with Gija at the centre. Based on our belief that the Australian Curriculum is not fit for purpose for children in remote schools, the school staff are continually seeking ways to decolonise the programs and processes that have been imposed on Gija people through the institution of schooling in Australia. In this chapter we will use examples of two school wide projects, to demonstrate how we deliver a culturally responsive curriculum with Gija community.
Book Talk: Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram
Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram
Yeong-Ju Lee
Time: 1 hour
Overview
This presentation draws on my new book ‘Social Media and Language Learning: Using TikTok and Instagram’ (Lee, 2025), which explores how visual and multimodal social media technologies mediate informal language learning. The book analyses two studies: a comparative analysis of online data from Instagram and TikTok posts, and a multiple case study based on ethnographic narratives from international students in Australia. These studies show how learners creatively repurpose social media features such as hashtags, carousels, and short-form videos to engage in language learning beyond the classroom. They reveal how multimodal affordances and spatially connected digital environments enable users to practise pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary while participating in global networks of linguistic exchange. The findings highlight the agency and creativity of learners as they integrate digital content creation and reflection into their everyday lives. Based on these findings, in this presentation, I will discuss how spatial and ecological perspectives can deepen our understanding of informal, technology-mediated language learning. I will also consider pedagogical strategies for integrating social media practices into language education to foster learner autonomy, multimodal literacy, and connected classroom–community learning environments.
Lee, Y.-J. (2025). Social media and language learning: using TikTok and Instagram. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003543541
Workshop: Culturally and linguistically inclusive teaching and research
Culturally and linguistically inclusive teaching and research
Toni Dobinson, Carly Steele and Rhonda Oliver
Time: 90 minutes
Overview
Australia is diverse in its multicultural and multilingual composition. It is, therefore, incumbent upon us to teach and research in ways which are both inclusive and appropriate. In our workshop we hope to stimulate discussion about the creation and management of teaching and research environments which are culturally and linguistically inclusive. We will begin by presenting some examples of our own attempts at Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching (CLRT) in early childhood, primary, secondary and university settings. We will then turn our attentions to research and how this can be designed and managed to be culturally and linguistically appropriate. In providing examples of this we will focus on Indigenous and multilingual migrant contexts in both educational and community settings. Following this we recall experiences that we have had which have been either challenging or delightful or both in classroom teaching or research contexts. This storytelling will serve as the basis for discussion with the audience about their experiences, challenges and delights when teaching and/or researching in different cultural and linguistic settings. We will finish by involving the audience in activities designed to stimulate reflection on multilingual identities and language learning trajectories, as well as providing opportunities for collaborative tasks which involve setting up research projects in various hypothetical culturally and linguistically diverse settings.
Workshop: How to analyse language used to build solidarity around an important cause: Appraisal and bonding
How to analyse language used to build solidarity around an important cause
Shoshana Dreyfus and Awni Etaywe
Time: 90 minutes
Overview
In our interconnected yet increasingly divided world, exposure to hate, fear, authoritarian discourse, climate denial, and adversarial language and communication has become commonplace. This reality, however, underscores the crucial role of language in nurturing positive discourses of compassion and solidarity. This workshop introduces participants to a dual-layered method for analysing solidarity in discourse, drawing on the Appraisal framework and Bonding Analysis, both grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics.
Co-led by Associate Professor Shoshana Dreyfus and Dr Awni Etaywe, the session offers a critical yet practical approach to uncovering how texts cultivate collective sentiment and moral alignment. Focusing on one solidarity-oriented media text, participants will first apply Appraisal analysis to identify patterns of Attitude and their role in positioning readers through values and emotions. We will then build on this analysis to demonstrate how Bonding analysis works with clusters of evaluative couplings and axiologically loaded language to model affiliative dynamics at a higher level of discourse organisation.
Rather than treating solidarity as a given, the workshop interrogates how it is constructed, layered, and mobilised through linguistic patterning. Participants will work through pre-coded excerpts using a structured worksheet, followed by guided interpretation and discussion. The workshop aims to demystify these tools, highlight methodological affordances and limitations, and provoke reflection on how evaluative language mediates moral affiliation in pro-social communication. It will be of particular interest to discourse analysts, educators, and researchers in digital activism and social justice communication seeking a transparent method for analysing values and alignment in text.
Facilitator Profiles
Shoshana Dreyfus is Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She specialises in discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics and academic literacy, and has over 20 years research and teaching experience in functional and applied linguistics. She has an additional background in education, in particular literacy education. Her research focuses on a diverse range of objects of study including non-verbal communication and language disorder in intellectual disability; families who have a family member with disability; activist discourse; discipline-specific academic literacy; as well as developments in systemic functional linguistic theory and discourse semantics. She also regularly speaks on ABC radio about language and linguistics and advocates for the rights of people living with severe intellectual disabilities.
Awni Etaywe is a linguist whose research aligns with UNSDG 16, specialising in the discourses of violence and social justice. His work bridges counter-extremism and peacebuilding by analysing threats, incitement, and radical messaging, while advancing social semiotics on the language of peace, solidarity, and compassion in digital media and activism. This dual focus critiques manipulative tactics and fosters strategies for positive change. His work appears in esteemed journals such as Discourse & Society and Language & Society.
Workshop: Academic Publishing for PhD students and Early Career Academics
Academic Publishing for PhD students and Early Career Academics
Solène Inceoglu and Elke Stracke
Time: 90 minutes
Overview
This workshop is designed to support PhD students and Early Career Researchers in navigating the publishing landscape in applied linguistics with greater confidence. Through practical, research-informed guidance, participants will learn how to frame their arguments clearly, choose suitable journals for their work, and respond strategically to reviewer feedback. The session will also highlight common pitfalls in the submission and revision process, offering concrete strategies for refining your manuscript and understanding editorial expectations. Whether you are preparing your first article or seeking to strengthen a resubmission, this workshop will provide tools to help you develop a strong academic voice and communicate your research with greater clarity and impact.
Facilitator Profiles
Solène Inceoglu is a Senior Lecturer in French and Applied Linguistics at the Australian National University. She received her Ph.D. in Second Language Studies from Michigan State University (USA). She currently serves as Vice President for ALAA. Her research interests include L2 speech perception/production, individual differences, and language learning and technology.
Elke Stracke is a professor in applied linguistics and TESOL in the Faculty of Education at the University of Canberra, Australia. Her current research interests focus on motivation, autonomy, blended language learning, curriculum development, and feedback and assessment in doctoral education.
For any queries regarding the conference program, please contact the ALAA 2025 Conference Committee.