A teacher can know the subject, understand the methodology, prepare carefully and hold every scrap of authority the role should confer – and still be unable to lead a particular class. ELT has grown remarkably sophisticated about technique and procedure while saying remarkably little about the human relationships through which either becomes possible. Authority, it would therefore seem, is relational.

Just as the map is not the territory, a lesson is not the plan, the method, the materials or the objectives. These prepare and orient what happens, but they are not the lesson itself. The lesson is the event that actually comes into existence among the people in the room.

As a participant in that event, the teacher cannot be a passive observer responding to a classroom happening independently around them. Their language, decisions, silences and attention – what they permit, challenge, ignore or pursue – are already authoring what the classroom becomes. Not alone: everyone participates, though not from equivalent positions. The teacher is therefore not simply experiencing the classroom, but implicated in its continual creation.

It is within these relationships that a teacher’s capacity to lead is granted, sustained, challenged and sometimes lost. This is Relational Authority.

Relational Authority makes visible something that has always shaped the language classroom – felt everywhere and named nowhere.

.

This presentation focuses on making pronunciation instruction inclusive and effective for young EFL learners, especially those who are neurodiverse.

Using the Emopron approach, participants will engage in practical, multisensory activities that help children perceive and produce English vowel features that may not exist in their first language. Through storytelling, emotion, movement, and play, teachers will learn to identify potential learning barriers and implement inclusive strategies that foster phonological awareness, pronunciation, and early literacy.

.

This paper investigates the role of semantic role awareness (SRA) in the acquisition of eventive nuclearity by Spanish-speaking learners of English. SRA is defined as learners’ metalinguistic awareness of whether the syntactic subject functions as an agent or as the undergoer of a change of state, location, or position. English tonicity instruction invokes the Last Lexical Item Rule, according to which the nucleus tends to fall on the final lexical item in broad-focus utterances. Event sentences, however, depart from this tendency by assigning the nucleus to the syntactic subject. Traditional descriptions associate this pattern with intransitive verbs of appearance, disappearance, fortune, or misfortune, but such lists provide limited predictive guidance.

The proposed account assumes that lexical verb meaning is represented as a set of semantic features. Here, [+change of state] indicates that a predicate presents its argument, realized as the syntactic subject, as undergoing a change of state, location or position. Awareness of this feature and of the unaccusative–unergative distinction is proposed to support principled nuclearity decisions: whereas an unergative subject is typically agentive, a prototypical unaccusative subject is an undergoer and is predicted to receive the nucleus in a broad-focus eventive utterance.

This exploratory pretest–posttest pilot will compare two learner groups. One group will receive instruction centred on SRA, unaccusativity, and [+change of state], while the comparison group will receive a traditional treatment of event sentences. Participants will assign nuclear accents in contextualised mini-dialogues containing eventive targets, non-eventive broad-focus sentences, and narrow-focus controls, and will provide metalinguistic justifications. The analysis will combine preliminary inferential statistics on accuracy and gains with effect sizes, confidence intervals, error patterns, item-level difficulty, and a coding of participants’ justifications. Particular attention will be paid to whether SRA-consistent reasoning increases after instruction, whether it is associated with more accurate nuclearity decisions, and whether either treatment promotes overgeneralisation.

.

The introduction of automated assessment systems into the field of international English language certification has begun to reshape assessment practices. The starting premise is that, in exams with automated marking, task selection is driven not only by the need to represent spoken language use, but also by the requirement to generate reliable and quantifiable evidence. This talk will first examine how automated exams align their scoring design with measurable and quantifiable features, exploring the types of oral production evidence that these systems can reliably score on a large scale.

The presentation focuses on a case-study approach centred on a high-stakes oral examination. Drawing on Celce-Murcia’s (2007) communicative competence model and on contemporary research on automatic speech processing (Goh & Aryadoust, 2025; Handley & Wang, 2024; Xi, 2025; Zechner & Evanini, 2020), test tasks are analysed to examine the types of oral production they elicit and the dimensions of communicative competence they reflect. This analysis shows that tasks tend to favour brief, highly structured formats with tight control over input, which enables automated systems to measure features such as phonological accuracy, fluency and prosodic patterns. This demonstrates that the logic of automated assessment not only influences response scoring, but also operates as an organising principle in the design of the tasks themselves.

Within the analysed examination, communicative competence is operationalised in ways that privilege dimensions that can be measured consistently by automated systems, while reducing aspects of orality linked to interaction, the negotiation of meaning and discursive planning. The talk concludes by focusing on the broader implications of these shifts for the construct validity of spoken language certification.

Keywords: automated assessment; oral production; communicative competence; task design

.

Over the past decades, the global role of English has undergone profound transformation. While sociolinguistic models of the late twentieth century mapped the distribution of English, present developments require special attention to the changing ecology in which the language is learned, used and negotiated. This plenary explores the implications of these changes for programmes preparing language professionals.

It begins with the profile of today’s first-year students, as many arrive with experience of Informal Digital Learning of English (IDLE) or extramural English acquired through gaming, streaming, social media, online communities and, increasingly, interaction with generative artificial intelligence. Such learners may display fluency and confidence while presenting new pedagogical challenges involving register awareness, formal accuracy and linguistic fossilisation. The discussion then turns to pronunciation, reconsidering the continuing pedagogical dominance of Received Pronunciation and General British alongside General American, Mid-Atlantic English and intelligibility-based approaches. Questions of language standards, variation and communicative effectiveness are examined within this changing context.

Finally, the plenary revisits established models of World Englishes in the light of English as a Lingua Franca and post-native perspectives on language ownership. While earlier frameworks remain indispensable for understanding the historical distribution of English, contemporary language education must also account for the diverse pathways through which it is acquired beyond the classroom. These developments do not demand the abandonment of linguistic accuracy or systematic instruction; rather, they invite higher education to rethink how future language professionals can combine accuracy, critical language awareness, intelligibility and intercultural communicative competence in an increasingly interconnected digital world.

Keywords: Informal Digital Learning of English (IDLE); World Englishes; Language Ownership; English Language Teaching; Higher Education

.

Synthetic Phonics in EFL Contexts Evidence of Its Effectiveness in Teaching Young Learners to Read in English as a Foreign Language

Fatima Agüero

This paper presents the findings of an action research study examining the effectiveness of a Synthetic Phonics programme in improving reading accuracy and oral reading fluency (ORF) in English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Eleven Year 1 students (aged 6–7) attending a private bilingual primary school in Hurlingham, Buenos Aires, participated in the study.

Participants were first administered a phonics screening check which identified unconsolidated sounds — most notably the digraphs ie /aɪ/ and oo /uː/ and /ʊ/. Six targeted remedial sessions were then conducted over three weeks, employing a multi-sensory approach that incorporated stories, songs, gestures, video, flashcards, and worksheets. A second screening check assessed progress.

Results indicate significant improvement in decoding accuracy: all students met the established threshold of 32 correctly decoded words in the second screening check. ORF also improved, with most students decoding within the target norms for Grade 1. These findings suggest that Synthetic Phonics, even when delivered in brief, non-daily sessions, produces measurable gains in EFL reading development.

This study contributes to the limited research on Synthetic Phonics outside English-speaking countries and discusses the implications of adapting this evidence-based programme to EFL and bilingual settings in Argentina, where it remains largely unknown. It also considers the challenges posed by English’s opaque orthography for learners whose native language — Spanish — has a transparent orthographic system.

Keywords: Synthetic Phonics, EFL young learners, decoding accuracy, fluency, early literacy in EFL

.

Intra-Individual Variability in Temporal Fluency across Task Conditions A Preliminary Study with Advanced EFL Teacher Education Students

Juan Ignacio Palacio (P)

Oral fluency is one of the most widely investigated constructs in second language (L2) performance assessment. However, its operationalisation remains conceptually and methodologically challenging, particularly when fluency is viewed as a dynamic phenomenon shaped by task demands and performance conditions. Recent work in applied phonetics and L2 fluency research has highlighted the need for observable temporal measures capable of capturing variation in spoken performance.

This paper presents the design and preliminary findings of an ongoing study examining intra-individual variability in the temporal fluency of advanced English teacher education students. The study draws on research on utterance fluency (Segalowitz, 2010; Tavakoli & Skehan, 2005), task-based models of L2 performance (Skehan, 2009, 2022), and Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (Larsen-Freeman, 2015, 2017). A quasi-experimental within-subject design was adopted with eight participants, each completing four speaking tasks: planned and unplanned narrative tasks, and planned and unplanned argumentative tasks, yielding a corpus of 32 speech samples.

The presentation outlines the methodological rationale for task selection, planning-time manipulation, counterbalancing procedures, and acoustic analysis conducted in Praat. Temporal fluency is examined through speech rate, silent pause frequency and duration, and mean length of run. Perceptual ratings by external judges are also used to explore relationships between acoustic measures and comprehensibility.

Preliminary analyses indicate greater temporal variability in argumentative than in narrative tasks. Argumentative performances generally contain more frequent silent pauses and shorter mean lengths of run. Planning time appears to promote more continuous speech, although its effects vary across participants and task types.

These findings support a dynamic view of L2 fluency and contribute to current methodological discussions on measuring temporal fluency and understanding intra-individual variability in spoken L2 performance.

Keywords: L2 oral fluency, temporal fluency, intra-individual variability, task-based performance

.

Rethinking Materials: A Critical Intercultural Approach to EFL materials

M. Soledad Loutayf (V)

This presentation proposes to rethink English language teaching by moving beyond traditional «textbook» models where culture was often treated as a static «add-on» or limited to «national» stereotypes. Triggered by the realization that standardized materials often prioritize foreign contexts over local realities, this session explores how teachers act as social agents of cultural transformation. By approaching texts from a critical perspective, the English classroom becomes an «interstitial place» for intercultural dialogue, educating world citizens capable of managing interactions across cultural boundaries.

The session is organized into three distinct parts. First, it establishes a theoretical framework centred on Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) and Critical Language Awareness (CLA). Second, it presents the results of an analysis of sample textbooks, examining them as cultural constructions that often provide only partial representations of reality or «single stories» that exclude diverse voices. Finally, the session offers practical strategies for material adaptation to aid teachers in the development of critical and intercultural competences. This includes applying a pedagogical cycle of noticing, comparing, reflecting, and interacting to bridge the gap between global materials and local contexts. Furthermore, the presentation demonstrates how integrating 21st-century literacies—specifically digital, visual, and information literacy—assists in expanding these partial representations. By fostering essential «habits of the mind,» such as curiosity, openness, and metacognition, teachers can promote a conscious usage of technology for international communication. Ultimately, the goal is to enable learners to use English as an international language that helps them define their own identities and participate effectively in a globalized world

Keywords: Intercultural Communicative Competence, Critical Language Awareness, Material Adaptation, 21st Century Literacies, Teacher Education.

.

Unlocking Language and Culture: Digital Escape Rooms as Pedagogical Tools in Higher Education

Paloma Apesteguía (P)

As language education moves toward digitally mediated strategies to maintain student engagement, educators are tasked with designing novel experiences that support linguistic development on a par with meaningful cultural involvement. This presentation explores how a gamified learning experience can be intentionally designed to support language learning and intercultural communicative competence while fostering student participation through its engaging digital format. Specifically, this project explores the use of digital escape rooms as a gamified approach to second-language learning in higher education.

Grounded in the theoretical framework of gamification within Game-Based Learning (GBL), Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC), and Task-Based Learning (TBL), this presentation proposes that game elements be treated not as motivational add-ons but as structured pedagogical tools. Elements such as narrative progression, collaborative problem-solving, and multimodal input should be intentionally aligned with language-learning and intercultural objectives to encourage the production of output, the negotiation of meaning, and the consolidation of linguistic and cultural competencies among students.

The presentation will outline the design principles behind a digital escape room developed using the online content creation platform Genially, which will prove to be a model transferable across

second-language contexts and levels. Finally, the presentation will explore certain practical considerations for implementation, such as embedded support mechanisms and the balance between challenge and accessibility.

By discussing both design principles and pedagogical reflections emerging from implementation, this presentation contributes to current conversations on digital, multimodal, and innovative approaches to language development and invites educators to rethink how cultural learning experiences can extend beyond traditional instructional formats.

Keywords: gamification; game-based learning; intercultural communicative competence; digital language learning; ESL

.

Comparative Literature: Literary Studies at the Intersection of the Fine Arts and English Literature

Gonzalo Antón (P/V)

From a historical and epistemological point of view, teacher education programmes and their syllabi have been framed in terms of a modernist disciplinary organization of knowledge. Inflexibility, rigidity, and the absence of an interdisciplinary approach are some of the features that constitute its structure for content transmission. Nonetheless, new configurations of knowledge emerged in the middle of the twentieth century, fostering the exploration of interdisciplinary methodologies. On this basis, this proposal attempts to establish a comparativist approach to literary studies, considering the Fine Arts as its complementary field for understanding and knowledge production. At first, it focuses on constructing an informed and systematic method of reading works of art, taking distance from practical and unstructured forms of seeing, and highlighting the epistemological sense of the act of seeing. Employing art reading, either on a painting or a sculpture, the learner embarks not only on a qualitative exploration of artistic expressions but also on a detailed analysis of the composition, observing how its elements relate to each other; it is a skill to be sharpened with the aim of spotting interactions in the compositions from a proactive approach that embraces a somatic experience as well as an insightful one. Secondly, concerning the articulation between these two humanistic fields, this proposal bridges disciplinary boundaries, considering the guidelines of each syllabus of Literatura de la Lengua Inglesa, to establish a meaningful interaction with the work of art, anchored in the particularities of each literature course syllabus, such as literary movements, stream of consciousness, theoretical and methodological frameworks for literary analysis—feminism, Marxism, psychoanalysis—and theme-based syllabi. Finally, to reinforce the content and method discussed, this proposal culminates with a practical activity based on a comparativist reading of Frankenstein and An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump by Joseph Wright of Derby.

Keywords: interdisciplinarity – artwork reading – literary studies – comparative literature

Beyond Words: Multimodal Meaning-Making in English-Language Internet Memes

María Herrero Prado (V)

Internet memes have become a defining form of communication in contemporary digital culture. Yet their interpretation challenges traditional text-centred understandings of meaning. While verbal content often appears to occupy a central position, the communicative effectiveness of memes frequently depends on elements that lie beyond the linguistic text itself, including visual composition, meme templates, platform conventions, intertextual references, and shared cultural knowledge.

This paper argues that English-language internet memes provide a privileged site for reconsidering where meaning resides in digital communication. Rather than being contained within verbal language, meaning emerges through the interaction of textual, visual, cultural, and contextual resources, as well as through the active participation of recipients in the interpretative process. From this perspective, memes invite a re-examination of conventional distinctions between text and paratext, revealing how elements traditionally regarded as peripheral may become essential to communication.

Drawing on multimodality studies, reception theory, and paratranslational perspectives, the presentation explores how meaning is produced, negotiated, and transformed through the interplay of multiple semiotic systems. Through the discussion of selected examples, particular attention is paid to the ways in which visual and paratextual elements guide reception, shape interpretative possibilities, and influence communicative outcomes in online environments.

By approaching memes as multimodal cultural texts, this study proposes that they are not merely examples of multimodal communication but valuable frameworks through which broader questions concerning textuality, reception, and meaning-making in digital cultures can be explored. In doing so, it highlights the relevance of paratranslational perspectives for understanding communicative practices that transcend purely linguistic approaches and challenge text-centred models of interpretation.

Keywords: Multimodality; Internet Memes; Reception Theory; Meaning-Making; Digital Discourse

.

A 3D-Printed Tool for Teaching IPA to Visually Impaired English Teacher Trainees

Irene Sentis (P)

Visually impaired students face longstanding hindrances in their access to English phonetics, as conventional instruction relies heavily on visual perception of phonemes, charts, and articulatory diagrams. This limitation is particularly significant for visually impaired trainees in English teacher education programmes, where phonetic competence is considered to be a core professional skill. Although institutions are formally mandated to accommodate these students, in practice educators lack adequate tools to help them learn. 

This paper presents a low-cost, replicable solution: a set of 3D-printed tactile blocks specifically designed to introduce the IPA English phonemes and support phonemic transcription. Each block displays a phoneme symbol on one face, while the opposite face shows, in both standard spelling and Braille, the keyboard shortcut needed to type that symbol. All information is embossed for tactile recognition and colour-coded to support collaborative use with sighted peers and instructors. 

The tool was developed for a visually impaired student beginning an English Teacher Training programme and implemented collaboratively in class. Over the course of a month, the student progressed from tactile recognition of phonemes to typing them independently, having already internalised the keyboard shortcuts through repeated handling of the blocks, and was even able to self-check autonomous transcription through auditory feedback using an online tool. Classmates and the instructor took part in this process by transcribing wordswith the same set of blocks, reinforcing its role as a shared classroom resource rather than an individual accommodation. The paper describes the design rationale, classroom implementation, and early outcomes of this intervention. It also offers guidance for replicating the tool, with the aim of extending its use to other visually impaired learners and teacher trainees internationally.

Keywords: inclusive phonetics, visual impairment, tactile learning materials, assistive technology, teacher training

.

Between performance and assessment Operationalising communicative competence in language testing

Marina Grasso y Carolina Ferrari (V)

In language assessment, it is essential to critically examine how communicative competence is represented in international oral proficiency examinations. This paper explores how the IELTS Speaking test operationalises communicative competence into an assessable construct through a set of tasks that generate evidence for different dimensions of spoken language ability. 

The analysis is grounded in Celce-Murcia’s (2007) model of communicative competence and Harding’s (2023) construct-oriented perspective on language assessment. To examine how this construct is operationalised across the IELTS Speaking tasks, the study draws on Kormos’ (2006) bilingual speech production model and Skehan’s (2024) theory of task demands to analyse the cognitive, discourse, and interactional demands associated with each test section. Adopting a socio-cognitive and discourse-oriented approach, the three parts are examined through analytical matrices that relate these demands to communicative competence. The analysis draws on official assessment descriptors, task specifications, and technical reports (Nakatsuhara, 2017; Albarqi, 2025), complemented by empirical studies on grammatical performance (Roothooft & Breeze, 2019), discourse and linguistic complexity (Yan & Staples, 2023), and interactional competence (Roever & Dai, 2021). 

Rather than treating the tasks as simple samples of language use, the analysis examines how each of them configures specific performance conditions by distributing cognitive, discourse, and interactional demands. This makes it possible to identify which aspects of communicative competence become observable and assessable under each set of task conditions. The findings show that the IELTS Speaking test constructs a necessarily partial yet assessable representation of communicative competence through the complementary contribution of its three components, each providing different forms of evidence about oral ability. More broadly, the study argues that construct representation in speaking assessment depends not only on rating criteria but also on the performance conditions created by test tasks. Understanding these conditions is therefore essential for interpreting what speaking test scores can and cannot claim to represent. 

Keywords: communicative competence, speaking, assessment

.

Teacher Criteria for Model Accent Selection in English Phonetics and Phonology Courses: An Exploratory Study

Carlos Rafael Buadas (P), Edgardo Rafael Coronel (V) y Carolina Ferraresi Curotto (V)  

Decisions made when designing a pronunciation course are fundamental to the development of a syllabus. Among them, one of the most significant is the selection of the English variety to be adopted as the pronunciation model. Historically, the Phonetics and Phonology I course offered by the English Department of the Faculty of Humanities, National University of Catamarca (UNCa), has followed two internationally recognised varieties: Received Pronunciation (RP) during its initial stage and, more recently, BBC English. Both varieties are supported by prestigious institutions and have a long-standing tradition in the teaching of English as a foreign language, largely because they are among the most extensively studied and documented accents. A substantial body of literature, which includes textbooks, dictionaries, courses, and other specialised resources, has contributed to establishing them as reference models across a wide range of academic contexts and educational levels. However, the dynamic nature of the language requires that teachers and researchers periodically re-examine the criteria underlying these choices in order to determine whether they continue to meet current educational needs and reflect the natural evolution of the language. Within this context, the present study analyses the results of a survey conducted at higher education institutions in the province of Catamarca offering degree programmes in English Language Teaching and Translation. The study seeks to identify the pronunciation models currently adopted, the bibliography used, and selected features of the curricula related to pronunciation teaching. It is expected that the findings will provide these institutions and their chairs with an overview of the current state of pronunciation instruction and contribute to future curriculum review processes as well as to ongoing reflection on the criteria guiding the selection of pronunciation models.

Key words: accent, criteria, model, pronunciation, teaching

.

On Fractals & Narratives Rethinking the Pedagogy of Planning in ELT

Myrian Casamassima (P)

Most teaching in ELT revolves around long-standing conceptions of planning that have pervaded teacher training and classrooms at all levels of education. Rethinking the pedagogy of planning is an invitation to consider current approaches to planning in a new light to accept present constraints and, therefore, make room for novel insights. The onset of the rethinking process is questioning, which in turn leads to the search for novelty. With the power of analogy, it is feasible to not only describe the elements that compose planning, but also, and even more importantly, to visualize their interrelationships in a systemic framework. Thus, fractals will empower us to understand the overall system, with its various levels of planning interacting to construct educational processes at any level of education and in diverse contexts. Concurrently, Narrative will unlock the true potential of the learning process by allowing us to generate the multiple paths along which planning may be shaped. Together, both analogies work on cognitive foundations to create novel mental representations that seek to provide an alternative route for those teachers who wish to engage in rethinking the pedagogy of planning. In this workshop, we will explore fractals and narratives and, within their scaffold, we will attempt to redefine some of the constituents of planning as we demonstrate how to construct processes. We will foster a special focus on content in order to connect the present workshop with the two major pillars of the conference, English Phonetics and Phonology, and English Language Development. Finally, we will acknowledge the fact that what has been proposed should be understood as a possible synergy to broaden our perspectives on the pedagogy of planning. We will conclude that it is desirable to generate dialogue and convergence between long-standing views and novel conceptions, thus leaving the rethinking process open for continuous assessment. 

Keywords:

Planning, Pedagogy, Fractals, Narrative, ELT

.

Redefining Language Development Through Meaningful Learning

Marcela Villan (P/V)

Language development flourishes when learners use English as a tool to build meaning rather than simply practise its forms. This session challenges traditional approaches that prioritise language accuracy in isolation by exploring how meaningful learning experiences can foster deeper linguistic growth alongside cognitive development. Rather than asking students to learn language first and apply it later, this approach positions language as the medium through which learners explore authentic issues, build understanding, and engage with the world.

Grounded in inquiry-based learning, visible thinking routines and systems thinking, the session demonstrates how thoughtfully designed learning experiences create rich opportunities for purposeful communication. Participants will discover how thinking skills such as observing, questioning, comparing, connecting, analysing, interpreting evidence, identifying patterns, recognising relationships, evaluating multiple perspectives, synthesising ideas, making informed decisions, and reflecting on learning can be intentionally embedded into language lessons while at the same time help them become aware of the world around them. These cognitive processes naturally promote richer classroom dialogue, more sophisticated vocabulary, greater grammatical accuracy, stronger academic writing, and more confident oral communication.

Through practical classroom examples, participants will explore how meaningful challenges encourage learners to negotiate meaning, justify opinions, collaborate effectively, and communicate with authenticity. As students investigate complex problems and develop solution-oriented responses, language learning becomes purposeful, engaging, and intellectually stimulating rather than an end in itself.

The session also highlights the teacher’s role as a designer of learning experiences that integrate language objectives with opportunities for critical, creative, systems, and reflective thinking. Participants will leave with adaptable strategies, classroom routines, and planning principles that can be applied across a wide range of educational contexts to promote meaningful language development. By placing thinking at the heart of pedagogy, educators can cultivate learners who are not only more proficient users of English but also curious, reflective, and empowered individuals prepared to communicate thoughtfully and act responsibly in an increasingly interconnected world.

keywords #thinkingskills #meaningfullearning #languagedevelopment

.

On How to Deliver a Lesson without Teaching. Redifining the English Teacher’s Role in Contemporary ELT

Patricia Policastro (V)  y Karina Fontana (V) 

The landscape of English language teaching (ELT) has changed dramatically over the past decade. Artificial intelligence (AI), quick/instant access to information, increasingly diverse classrooms, short attention spans, and evolving learner expectations have been challenging long-established assumptions about teaching and learning. In this rapidly changing educational environment, the traditional image of the teacher as the primary source of knowledge is gradually giving way to a more complex and dynamic professional role. These transformations invite English language educators to rethink not only how to teach, but also what it means to teach a foreign language in contemporary contexts. This shift is consistent with Paulo Freire’s (1998) conception of teaching as creating opportunities for knowledge construction rather than merely transmitting information. This view is further reinforced by Harmer (2015), with his characterization of the English language teacher as a facilitator of learning. Also, Richards (2015) called for reflective, adaptive, and context-sensitive teaching practices in contemporary ELT. Together, these three perspectives provide a solid framework for reconsidering the teacher’s role in a context where information is always available. Rather than advocating less teaching, this paper calls for more intentional one. It puts forward “Teaching without Teaching” as a pedagogical mindset that redefines the English teacher’s role from a mere knowledge provider to an intentional designer of significant learning experiences. In fact, the future of ELT lies not in competing with technology, but in reaffirming the teacher’s unique pedagogical value as a facilitator of  meaningful long-lasting learning.

Key words: English Language Teaching (ELT); teacher’s role; meaningful learning; artificial intelligence (IA)

.

Political (Inter)Subjectivities in preservice English teachers: Ideological shaping at a Public University

Jhooni Albeiro Quintero Gonzalez (V) y Deisy Lorena Caviedes Cadena (V)

Despite existing research on pre-service English teachers’ identity configuration, little attention has been paid to how their political dimension and their (inter)subjectivity intersect during their formation years, nor have they considered the implications of said dimensions in their professional becoming. This phenomenon is even more latent in Colombia, a country that has been marked by historical inequality, armed conflict, and ongoing struggles for social and economic equity. This exploratory case study analyzes how three pre-service language teachers from a public university in Bogotá, Colombia configure their political (inter)subjectivity (Gillespie & Cornish, 2010) while exploring their own identity as future teachers of English. Their experiences were collected through in-depth interviews and focus groups; these sessions were later transcribed and analyzed from an interpretivist epistemology and a socio-constructivist ontology. Findings reveal that the participants have gone under a discursive interpellation process (Althusser, 1971) that have led them to shape an egalitarian ideological structure (Rawls, 2005) with moral values aligned with the pursuit of equal educational opportunities and institutional equity. Their political values create tensions when being confronted with material, institutional, and ethical constraints that mediate their teaching practice. Thus, their political (inter)subjectivities unfold as a dialectical and context-bound process in which resistance and adaptation coexist, and where becoming a critically committed educator entails continuous negotiation within overlapping ideological and structural conditions that vary according to educational contexts. Conclusions suggest that Teacher Education Programs (TEPs) must acknowledge the political dimension of the profession in their curriculums since language teaching is not neutral but rather an ideological site of interpellation that shapes the political arena of contextualized milieus. 

Keywords: Political intersubjectivity, teacher identity formation, pre-service language teachers, ideological structures, ELT

.

Standard ideology and explicit and implicit attitudes toward English varieties in an academic context

Florencia Giménez (V), Andrea Canavosio (V) y María Garay (V) 

The study of linguistic attitudes makes it possible to understand how language representations and the standard language ideology, that is processes that tend to systematically privilege certain varieties over others, have become naturalized. Within the global spread of English, different varieties coexist and are exposed to these tensions. The aim of this study is to analyze the linguistic attitudes of university students in the city of Córdoba towards different varieties of English. Specifically, the participants were exposed to Argentine English, an Expanding Circle variety (Kachru, 1985), and General American English, an Inner Circle variety. Adopting Garrett’s (2010) multidimensional approach, attitudes are conceived as a psychological construct whose cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions may diverge. In order to overcome the social desirability bias characteristic of traditional direct methods, an Implicit Association Test (IAT) based on timed cognitive classification tasks was implemented. The sample consists of 50 university students, who completed a computer-based task requiring them to associate auditory stimuli from both varieties with words of positive valence (e.g., “beautiful,” “pleasure,” “joy”) and negative valence (e.g., “horrible,” “failure,” “terror”). Data on explicit attitudes were also collected through a questionnaire. Preliminary analyses suggest complex discrepancies between implicit and explicit attitudes. One subgroup explicitly preferred Inner Circle accents but demonstrated implicit facilitation toward Argentine English, potentially reflecting a strong connection to local identity. Conversely, other participants projected an egalitarian explicit discourse while displaying an automatic implicit bias toward Inner Circle varieties. These tentative trends may highlight the friction between internalized standard ideologies and conscious beliefs, indicating that implicit biases might operate covertly even when explicit discourse projects neutrality.

Key words: Linguistic attitudes, Language ideology, World Englishes, Implicit Association Test

.

Translanguaging Beyond English Acquisition Reframing Language Development in Multilingual Classrooms

Maria Alejandra Mareco (P)

Translanguaging has most often been theorized in relation to emergent bilingual students who draw on their home languages while acquiring English. While this framing has been essential for contesting English-only ideologies, it does not exhaust the pedagogical reach of translanguaging in multilingual classrooms. Building on the work of García and Li Wei and on Canagarajah’s view of language as a mobile resource, this theoretical and pedagogical discussion argues that translanguaging operates as a language development principle for all learners, including English-dominant students learning an additional language such as Spanish.

Drawing on classroom-based reflection in elementary multilingual settings, the presentation examines how learners mobilize their full linguistic repertoire to compare structures, negotiate meaning, expand vocabulary, and build metalinguistic awareness. When English-dominant students notice that «the red house» becomes «la casa roja,» for instance, they are not translating word for word; they are reading one language through another and registering a morphosyntactic difference in order and agreement. Bilingual and multilingual peers, in turn, move across English, Spanish, and other resources to clarify concepts, support classmates, and participate with greater confidence.

Extending translanguaging to majority-language learners raises a real tension, since the construct emerged as a critical, equity-driven response to the marginalization of minoritized bilinguals. This discussion takes that tension seriously: widening the scope is not meant to dilute the critical stance but to test it in a new configuration. Reframed this way, translanguaging benefits English learners, heritage speakers, English-dominant learners, and multilingual students alike, inviting educators and teacher educators to rethink how language development, learner identity, and critical language awareness are conceived across diverse settings.

Keywords: translanguaging, language development, multilingual classrooms, Spanish language learning, critical language awareness

.

Beyond Communicative Competence-The skills language learners need in 2026

Marcela Cecilia Danowski (P/V)

For decades, communicative competence has been regarded as one of the primary goals of language education. While the ability to communicate effectively remains essential, the realities of 2026 require learners to develop a broader set of competencies. Today’s students are expected not only to use language accurately and fluently, but also to think critically, collaborate effectively, generate innovative ideas, solve complex problems, and engage meaningfully with diverse perspectives.

This presentation argues that English language classrooms must move beyond a sole focus on communication and become spaces where learners develop the skills and dispositions needed to thrive in an increasingly interconnected and rapidly changing world. Drawing on examples from primary, secondary, and teacher education contexts, the session explores how educators can intentionally cultivate critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, curiosity, and learner agency through purposeful classroom design.

Particular attention will be given to the role of Visible Thinking, Thinking Routines, Visual Thinking Strategies, Design Thinking, and Hexagonal Thinking as practical approaches that promote deeper learning while simultaneously supporting language development. These frameworks encourage learners to make their thinking visible, build connections between ideas, consider multiple perspectives, ask meaningful questions, and construct understanding collaboratively.

Rather than viewing English merely as a subject to be mastered, this presentation positions language as a vehicle for exploration, reflection, and intellectual engagement. By rethinking the goals of language education, educators can create learning experiences that prepare students not only to communicate, but also to think, create, collaborate, and contribute meaningfully in contemporary contexts.

Keywords: critical thinking, visible thinking, creativity, language pedagogy, future-ready learners

.