Fw: BAAL Language Learning and Teaching SIG Webinar - 22/01/2026
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Kevin W. H. Tai (Prof.)
Jan 19, 2026, 7:29:22 AMJan 19
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***With apologies for cross-sharing***
Dear BAAL LLT SIG members,
We warmly invite you to the first 2026 talk of our BAAL Language Learning & Teaching SIG Talks Series for 2026!!
On Thursday 22nd of January 2026 at 12:00pm GMT, we welcome Dr Constant Leung (King's College London), Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin (Education University of Hong Kong) and Dr Paul J. Thibault (Education University of Hong Kong), to present on ‘Ecological Languaging Competencies – Implications for Language Teaching and Assessment’.
This will be an online session, held on Zoom. Please register here to attend.
We look forward to seeing you!
The LLT SIG committee
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BAAL Language Learning & Teaching Special Interest Group (LLT SIG)
British Association for Applied Linguistics
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Webinar abstract
Dr Constant Leung / Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin / Dr Paul J. Thibault
Title: Ecological Languaging Competencies – Implications for Language Teaching and Assessment
Abstract:
The conceptual foundations of English as an additional/second language education are in need of expansion. The monolingually framed ‘communicative competence’ orthodoxy does not adequately accord with how people communicate in many multilingual educational and social settings today. It is widely recognized that learners, and language users generally, draw on all of their language resources as they seek to accomplish real world activities. At the same time, the conventional language educational approach of mapping pre-selected language expressions to pedagogic tasks is inherently delimiting in what can be offered to learners. In this discussion we introduce a fundamentally different perspective on the way in which we construe the concept of languaging as a constitutive part of engaging in real world activities, including that in the classroom. We emphasise how embodied languaging is
intertwined with both the actions of others, and with the affordances of the human environment. These affordances include artefacts, conventions of events and technologies in the human ecology. We will use real life examples to illustrate the concept of Ecological Languaging Competencies. We will also explore the implications of this conceptual shift for language teaching and learning, curriculum design, and language assessment.
Biographic statements:
Dr Constant Leung is Professor of Educational Linguistics in the School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London. His research interests include academic literacies, additional/second language teaching and assessment, language policy, and teacher professional development. He is Editor of Research Issues of TESOL Quarterly, and serves on a number of editorial boards, including Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, Language and Education, the Modern Language Journal and Research in the Teaching of English. He was Co-editor of Language Assessment Quarterly (2017-2021). His work in developing the English as an Additional Language Assessment Framework for schools (funded by the Bell Foundation) was the recipient of the 2018 British Council ELTons international award for innovation. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and Honorary Professor of Applied Linguistics at University College London.
Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin stands as a pioneering figure in plurilingual education and critical literacies, whose work has transformed approaches to language teaching and learning globally. Currently serving as Chair Professor of Language, Literacy and Social Semiotics in Education at the Education University of Hong Kong, she previously held the prestigious
Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education at Simon Fraser University (2018-2024). She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of Language Policy. Since the late 1990s, Dr. Lin's classroom-based research in Hong Kong schools has reshaped understanding of English language education in multilingual contexts. Her research spans several
interconnected domains, including discourse analysis, trans/languaging (TL), trans-semiotizing (TS), Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and critical media literacies. Her approach to translanguaging has been particularly influential in challenging monolingual biases in education and developing pedagogies that honor students' full linguistic
repertoires. Dr. Lin’s recent research has expanded into exploring Human-AI relationality and critical AI literacy.
Dr Paul J. Thibault is an Adjunct Professor at The Education University of Hong Kong (2024–2025), collaborating with Angel M. Y. Lin on the “Theorizing Plurilingual Assessment” project. Formerly Professor of linguistics and communication studies at the University of Agder (Norway, 2004–2023), he completed his PhD under M.A.K. Halliday at the University of Sydney (1984) and was postdoctoral researcher with Paolo Fabbri at the University of Bologna (1984-85). Thibault’s research spans distributed languaging and cognition, multimodality, language learning and assessment, social semiotics, and systemic-functional linguistics. His books include the two-volume Languaging: Distributed Language, Affective Dynamics, and the Human Ecology (Routledge, 2021) and Learning as Interactivity, Movement, Growth and Becoming (Vol. 1, 2023; Vol. 2 in press). Forthcoming projects include Education as Wayfinding (pre-submission, Cambridge University Press). He has held academic posts in Australia, China, Denmark, Italy, Norway, and Hong Kong.
Dr Constant Leung / Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin / Dr Paul J. Thibault
Title: Ecological Languaging Competencies – Implications for Language Teaching and Assessment
Abstract:
The conceptual foundations of English as an additional/second language education are in need of expansion. The monolingually framed ‘communicative competence’ orthodoxy does not adequately accord with how people communicate in many multilingual educational and social settings today. It is widely recognized that learners, and language users generally, draw on all of their language resources as they seek to accomplish real world activities. At the same time, the conventional language educational approach of mapping pre-selected language expressions to pedagogic tasks is inherently delimiting in what can be offered to learners. In this discussion we introduce a fundamentally different perspective on the way in which we construe the concept of languaging as a constitutive part of engaging in real world activities, including that in the classroom. We emphasise how embodied languaging is
intertwined with both the actions of others, and with the affordances of the human environment. These affordances include artefacts, conventions of events and technologies in the human ecology. We will use real life examples to illustrate the concept of Ecological Languaging Competencies. We will also explore the implications of this conceptual shift for language teaching and learning, curriculum design, and language assessment.
Biographic statements:
Dr Constant Leung is Professor of Educational Linguistics in the School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London. His research interests include academic literacies, additional/second language teaching and assessment, language policy, and teacher professional development. He is Editor of Research Issues of TESOL Quarterly, and serves on a number of editorial boards, including Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, Language and Education, the Modern Language Journal and Research in the Teaching of English. He was Co-editor of Language Assessment Quarterly (2017-2021). His work in developing the English as an Additional Language Assessment Framework for schools (funded by the Bell Foundation) was the recipient of the 2018 British Council ELTons international award for innovation. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and Honorary Professor of Applied Linguistics at University College London.
Dr. Angel M. Y. Lin stands as a pioneering figure in plurilingual education and critical literacies, whose work has transformed approaches to language teaching and learning globally. Currently serving as Chair Professor of Language, Literacy and Social Semiotics in Education at the Education University of Hong Kong, she previously held the prestigious
Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education at Simon Fraser University (2018-2024). She is also Co-Editor-in-Chief of Language Policy. Since the late 1990s, Dr. Lin's classroom-based research in Hong Kong schools has reshaped understanding of English language education in multilingual contexts. Her research spans several
interconnected domains, including discourse analysis, trans/languaging (TL), trans-semiotizing (TS), Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), and critical media literacies. Her approach to translanguaging has been particularly influential in challenging monolingual biases in education and developing pedagogies that honor students' full linguistic
repertoires. Dr. Lin’s recent research has expanded into exploring Human-AI relationality and critical AI literacy.
Dr Paul J. Thibault is an Adjunct Professor at The Education University of Hong Kong (2024–2025), collaborating with Angel M. Y. Lin on the “Theorizing Plurilingual Assessment” project. Formerly Professor of linguistics and communication studies at the University of Agder (Norway, 2004–2023), he completed his PhD under M.A.K. Halliday at the University of Sydney (1984) and was postdoctoral researcher with Paolo Fabbri at the University of Bologna (1984-85). Thibault’s research spans distributed languaging and cognition, multimodality, language learning and assessment, social semiotics, and systemic-functional linguistics. His books include the two-volume Languaging: Distributed Language, Affective Dynamics, and the Human Ecology (Routledge, 2021) and Learning as Interactivity, Movement, Growth and Becoming (Vol. 1, 2023; Vol. 2 in press). Forthcoming projects include Education as Wayfinding (pre-submission, Cambridge University Press). He has held academic posts in Australia, China, Denmark, Italy, Norway, and Hong Kong.
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