WorldCALL2023: Official Conference Proceedings
WorldCALL official conference proceedings · 2024
The VI WorldCALL Conference brought us together for four intense days, from 9 th to 13 th November 2023, onsite at the Khum Phucome Hotel and Convention Hall in Chiang Mai, Thailand, as well as online.WorldCALL is an umbrella association for organizations that focus on Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) around the world.It aims to enhance CALL in the global community by bringing educators from all five continents together.As an international association, WorldCALL provides a worldwide focus for the promulgation of innovative research, development and practice in all sectors of education; it enhances opportunities for knowledge and skills transfer to those nations currently underserved and serves as a forum for exchanging information and forging professional relationships among educators, researchers, and industry leaders across the world.As the worldwide organisation that is concerned with CALL in all its manifestations, WorldCALL is ideally placed to highlight the benefits of new technological developments.It plays a leading role in providing a forum for discussing the application of state-of-the-art technologies -including artificial intelligence-for language learning and teaching, supplying professional training and development for teachers and, significantly, giving developing countries, through sponsorship, the opportunity to project their culture worldwide and to become involved in the application of technology in language learning.Since its foundation in the mid-nineties, WorldCALL has visited four continents: Melbourne, Australia (1998); Banff, Canada (2003); Fukuoka, Japan (2008), Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom (2013), and Concepción, Chile (2018).As you can see, the WorldCALL Conference takes place every 5 years so we could call it the "Olympic Games" or the "World Cup" of Computer-Assisted Language Learning!In 2023, WorldCALL continued its Scholarships Programme to enable postgraduate students and junior academics to attend the Conference.The Scholarships Programme, first introduced in 1998, is a way in which WorldCALL brings the experiences of language professionals to colleagues working in less developed nations.This exchange of ideas and practices also promotes the development of international networks that bridge the gap between technologically advanced countries and those underserved in technology and CALL.I was particularly delighted, therefore, to welcome the six WorldCALL scholarship awardees who, through a competitive process, proved their academic excellence and passion for CALL.They joined us from Bangladesh, Brazil, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.Congratulations to them!This year, the scholarships programme was coordinated by colleagues Tom Robb and Siew-Ming Thang, to whom I would like to express my gratitude.Many thanks are also due to David Barr and Emerita Bañados for leading the Programme Committee and putting together such an out-reaching high quality academic programme.This would not have been possible without the help of our team of international reviewers who diligently put their expertise at our service.My most sincere gratitude also goes to Mike Levy, from whom I picked up the baton in 2016, and who led the Keynote Speakers Selection Committee.Last, but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to Joseph Haldane, Chairman and CEO of IAFOR and his staff members Alexander Pratt, Matthew Chima, and Amina Batbold for their courage in taking on the commitment of organising such a challenging event, a conference that creates enormous expectation among the CALL community worldwide, at such short notice due to unexpected dire international circumstances.You did a