LatinCALL24

In this presentation, I will dive into how artificial intelligence is reshaping language testing, with a focus on adaptive and automatic assessments. AI-powered tools go beyond traditional exams by creating personalized testing experiences and offering real-time feedback that empowers learners to improve their English skills more effectively. By harnessing the capabilities of AI, assessments can dynamically adjust to each learner’s proficiency level, ensuring not only more accurate evaluations but also turning the testing process into an active learning experience. This innovative approach transforms assessments from a simple measurement tool into an interactive, learner-centered resource that enhances both teaching outcomes and student engagement in the English language teaching field.

With the fast advent and strong release of AI tools, educators are called to explore and integrate them into their academic life, while they also level up their digital literacy skills. However, to catch up with these defies at once might be overwhelming, given the fact that educational institutions are yet learning to embrace both the immersion and normalization of AI in their strategic plans, and teachers might either lack time, knowledge or motivation to fully endorse AI in their daily life. Such integration also suggests the recognition of possibilities in which AI offers new scenarios to adaptivity and personalization of learning as well as to the optimization of research and teaching. It is also an open door to learning new ways to reduce risks and biases on content generation and text production supported by automations, keeping in mind efficient data privacy and security management procedures. Not only, should educators and researchers be equipped to design routes that facilitate a gradual and effective integration of AI technologies to enrich their practice, but also, they should be empowered and supported by their institutions to enact change, focusing on global and local standards that promote a safe policy use of AI in the classroom, facilitate an equitable access to knowledge, and foster knowledge generation and dissemination across cultures. This presentation will address how the former breaches can be reduced, illustrating real-case practices of Latin American higher institutions, and drawing essential considerations for effective AI research and teaching.

Definition

Virtual exchange has become a powerful strategy for fostering intercultural understanding and language learning. This keynote presentation will explore the multifaceted role of virtual exchange in language learning and teaching, drawing on perspectives from South American teachers' experiences. By examining virtual exchange in the region, from the perspective of the educator, we will delve into the ways in which these initiatives have impacted their professional development, the actual intercultural agents in the classroom, in the championing of global citizenship. The presentation will address key themes such as personal and professional experiences and feelings as an intercultural agent in virtual exchange programs, the responsibility for facilitating authentic intercultural interaction, cultivating cultural awareness, supporting language learning, building global citizenship, and addressing challenges. By creating opportunities for exchanging valuable experiences and meaningful cross-cultural communication, this keynote will provide valuable insights for educators, policymakers, and researchers interested in the transformative potential of virtual exchange in language education.

Dara Tafazoli holds a Ph.D. in Languages and Cultures from the University of Córdoba, Spain. He is a Research Officer on the Virtual Reality (VR) School Study and Higher Education Research Academy (HERA) at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His primary research interests are in CALL teacher education and professional development, applications of emergent technologies like XR and AI in language education, and cultural studies related to language education. 

Dr. Liliana Cuesta Medina is an Associate Professor at Universidad de La Sabana (Chía, Colombia). She is the Director of Outreach and Engagement of the School of Communication at the same university. She holds a PhD in English Philology from the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED-Madrid, Spain). Her research areas include (but do not restrict to) computer-assisted language learning (CALL), teacher education, online education, content and language integrated learning (CLIL) and intercultural and international education. She has extensively published and participated in conferences across the globe, as well as led national and international projects on these areas. Dr. Cuesta is also an active member of worldwide associations in the area of CALL, ELT, and blended learning. She serves as an evaluator for the National Council of Accreditation and various assessment boards of ELT and education programs in Colombia. 

Emerita Bañados is an associate professor of English, and Master of Educational Technology, at the Department of Foreign Languages, at the Universidad de Concepción, Chile. She founded UdeC English Online Programme, an interactive multimedia b-learning environment for communicative English teaching and learning. She led its methodological b-learning implementation, CALL interactive platform and materials design, and was the Director from 2001 to 2018. She had previously directed the creation of other internet projects such as a a Center of Web Resources, and a Language Café for learning English, French, and German. Her experience and research interests include language b-learning and e-learning environments, CALL materials design, Virtual Exchanges, task-based language teaching, collaborative work in intercultural video web interaction projects, and professional development. She started working in Virtual Exchanges in 2006 and has continued up to the present. She has presented widely at international conferences in Europe (WorldCALL, EUROCALL, IATEFL), and the United States (CALICO, TBLT); and has been invited as a Key Speaker at the APEC 2005-2006  Future Education Forum, in Busan, South Korea; at the WorldCALL 2013 Conference in Glasgow, UK; At the CALL Research Conference 2008, University of Antwerp, Belgium; at the National Society of Higher Education Language Teachers (SONAPLES, 2013), Chile, and at the APVEA Conference 2021 Virtual Exchange Association: "Making Virtual Exchange Mainstream". She was invited twice as an international expert (Beijing & Shanghai, 2009) by the UNESCO National Commission of the government of China for advising on a "Cyber ​​Network for Language Learning" (CNLL). She has also been invited by different universities in Chile as an expert adviser for their English language teaching and learning projects with the use of ICT, granted by the Chilean Ministry of Education & the World Bank. She has published in CALICO, RECALL, The European Journal of Applied Linguistics & TEFL journal, WorldCALL book, TELECOLLABORATION 2.0 book, and in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Language Learning and Technology (2024), and other journals. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the CALL Journal (Taylor & Francis); and other national and international journals. She has been coeditor of WorldCALL 2018 proceedings book, and served as  Guest Editor of a Special Issue "Post-pandemic Technology Enhanced Language Learning"(2021) for Sustainability,  She is a member of the WorldCALL Association Steering Committee and was the local Chair for WorldCALL 5 (2018), held for the first time in Latin America, in Concepción, Chile. She is the President of LatinCALL, the newly created Latin American Association of Computer-Assisted Language Learning.