ACLL 2016 - Asian Conference on Language Learning 2016

This open and exploratory theme of “covergence|divergence” asks at us to look at the various collisions and frictions involved in the coming together of different individuals, cultures, ideas, as well as teaching and learning mediums and styles, that we negotiate as educators.
In language education we also have best practices that could be seen as a type of convergence. As teachers we want to have a solid foundation to our teaching that will help us understand important principles. But, we also see so many areas where beliefs diverge or where areas of interests are different. For example, over the years some teachers focussed on task based language education, others are doing motivation research, and still others have looked at critical pedagogy. These are examples of divergence, but they are overlaid on converging values such as creating a safe space for learners, respecting all in our classes, or have a deep commitment to our profession.
Take the changes in digital communication over the past 20 years. We have moved from the open World Wide Web and Internet of Tim Berners-Lee to a more contained online experience that is found in mobile phone apps or social media. Some have decried this filtering into “walled gardens” as stultifying and robbing the future of open inquiry because when everyone accessed the same Internet, they could roam widely and make discoveries. However, as we are funneled into application silos that do not interact with each other we become separated from each other and from the open bazaar of the Internet and are?dare we say?forced to gather in niche communities.
Moreover, at each convergence and divergence is the possibility of connection. The connection or connector is the human intelligence that we apply to our creative work. It is our humanness that ultimately connects us whether we are converging or diverging. Are you on the inside of a supportive community that wants to make itself understood to those outside? Or, are you on the outside watching as schools of thought and competing values seem to draw colleagues in different directions? The reality is many of us find ourselves in both situations?continuously converging and then diverging.
This International Academic Forum can be the medium that brings us together to negotiate the vibrant appeal of openness and the power of a concentrated coherent view. Through an interdisciplinary approach, we can embrace the ebb and flow of these contradictions to better understand our way forward as we develop as educators.
We look forward to converging on Kobe in 2016, and to an exciting divergence of ideas!