Note: This post refers to a call for papers associated with an event in the past. The content of this post is no longer current, but the post is retained here as part of the effort to preserve aspects of the history of language teaching in Greece and beyond. For more current publication opportunities, you might consider subscribing to this blog.
For additional content on language, diversity and language education, you may also want take a look at the volume I edited, Challenging Boundaries in Language Education (2019, Routledge).
The Rethinking Language, Diversity and Education conference will take place on 28-31 May 2015 in Rhodes, Greece. The conference, co-organised by the University of Toronto and the University of the Aegean, aims to address “social, linguistic and cultural difference” in language education through the critical examination of issues such as “globalization, difference, community, identity, democracy, ethics, politics, technology, language rights, and cultural politics”.
There will be plenary addresses by Professor Jim Cummins (University of Toronto) and Dr. Michalis Damanakis (University of Crete).
Call for papers
The conference organisers invite proposals for paper presentations (20 minutes followed by a five-minute discussion), symposia (three contributors, 90 minutes), posters and virtual presentations. Proposals should refer to original research or scholarship (i.e, work that has not been presented in any other professional setting in the past), and should they shou;d address at least one of the key strands of the conference, namely:
- Mapping language diversity: Cultures, countries, communities, and Institutions
- Languages in context: Heritage languages, languages in diaspora, immigrant, minority, indigenous languages
- Continua of language diversity: Linguistic transformations, translanguaging, biliteracy, plurilingualism
- Language policy and planning
- Language assessment, standards, and testing
- Literacy, multiliteracies, multimodalities
- Language contexts, e-contexts and hybrid contexts
- Pedagogical orientations
- Language, diversity and identity
- Research methodology
- Literacy, language diversity & technology
Author instructions
You may upload abstracts (500 words) to the conference website by 15 January 2015 [update: link no longer active]. Authors should include the following information in the abstract: (a) objectives or purposes of the research, (b) perspectives or theoretical framework, (c) methods, techniques, or modes of inquiry, (d) data sources, evidence, objects, or materials, (e) results and/or substantiated conclusions or warrants for arguments/point of view, and (f) scientific or scholarly significance of the study or work. The organisers would also like to remind authors to capitalise “the first letter of each appropriate word” and to spell out abbreviations in the title. Authors should also clearly indicate if they wish to present virtually. No word limit has been specified for the abstract, but it is likely to be 500 words.
The deadline for uploading full papers (for accepted abstracts) is 15 April 2015. The papers should be between 5,000 and 8,000 words (inclusive of bibliography and footnotes). Each contribution should begin with a cover page including the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s), and contact details for the corresponding author (postal and email addresses). The following page should repeat the title of the contribution, and it must also contain a 500-word abstract and up to six key words. The manuscripts should be double-spaced, with “standard” margins and page numbering. All pages should indicate the title of the contribution. The citation format has not been specified. You might wish to bookmark the conference website for additional instructions that might appear in the future.
Registration
The registration fees for the conference have been set at:
- 100 Euros for Faculty
- 25 Euros for Students
- 50 Euros for a Day Pass
These fees are apparently valid until 6 January 2015, which is unusual considering that this deadline is before (!) the notification of acceptance. It is unclear whether registration closes after that date, or if this is an Early-Bird fee.
Additional information
You can address any queries to Peter Trifonas (update: email no longer active). You might also follow the Facebook page for the event (update: link no longer active).
Jan Blommaert’s “Looking back: What was important?”
Shortly before his death, Jan Blommaert wrote what I consider one of the most profound accounts of what it means to be an academic — a searching reflection on ethics, knowledge, and what makes a scholarly life worth living. I am republishing it here, with full attribution, from his now-defunct blog Ctrl-Alt-Dem.
Building an Ethical Framework for AI in Language Education: The AI Lang Guidelines
What does it mean to use AI well in a language classroom, not just effectively, but ethically? This post introduces the AI Lang framework: four principles, eight guidelines, and thirty-five competence descriptors for the ethical use of AI in language education.
March 2026: Notes on academic collaboration, strain, and scholarly direction
March 2026 was a month dominated by the kick-off meeting of the LocalLing project, perhaps the most important thing I’ve done in my academic life. This is how it unfolded.
About me
Achilleas Kostoulas is an applied linguist and language teacher educator at the Department of Primary Education, University of Thessaly, Greece. He holds a PhD and an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from the University of Manchester, UK and a BA in English Studies from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
His research explores a wide range of issues connected with language (teacher) education, including language contact and plurilingualism, linguistic identities and ideologies, language policy and didactics, often using a Complex Dynamic Systems Theory to tease out connections between them. Some of his publications in the field include the research monograph The Intentional Dynamics of TESOL (2021, De Gruyter; with Juup Stelma) and the edited volume Doctoral Study and Getting Published (2025, Emerald; with Richard Fay), as well as numerous other publications.
Achilleas currently contributes to several projects that bring together his long-standing interests in language education, teacher development, and the social dimensions of language learning. As the coordinator of the expert team of AI Lang (Artificial Intelligence in Language Education), an initiative of the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe, he works on developing principles and resources to help educators make informed, pedagogically grounded use of AI in their teaching. He also leads the University of Thessaly team of ReaLiTea (Research Literacy of Teachers), a project that supports language teachers in developing the capacity to engage with, and contribute to, educational research. Alongside these, he contributes to LocalLing, a Horizon-funded initiative to preserve and strengthen heritage and minority languages globally.
In addition to the above, Achilleas is the (co)editor-in-chief of the newly established European Journal of Education and Language Review, and welcomes contributions that explore the dynamic intersections between language, education, and society.
About this post
I originally published this post on 16th December 2014, as part of the dissemination and outreach work associated with the conference. The post was last updated on 13th December 2025, to clarify that this is an event in the past.
Although every effort has been made to ensure that the content of this post was accurate at the time of publication, I cannot assume responsibility for errors by the conference organisers or changes that happened after publication. The content of this post does not suggest that the event is endorsed by the University of Thessaly, or any other entity with which I am or was affiliated.
The featured image is Hörsaal B der Alpen-Adria-Universität, by Stefano Probst (Own work) [CC BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.
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