The Academic Writing and English Language Learners (AWELL) conference is a two-day conference designed for faculty, instructors, and writing centre professionals who teach and tutor ELL students. The goal of the conference is to provide tools and approaches that may be used directly in classrooms and tutoring sessions. This year’s conference will be held on November 1 and 2, 2019 at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

This conference will provide an open forum to all those interested in any area of additional language studies and academic writing, including digital writing pedagogies, multiliteracies, plurilingualism, and intercultural writing supports. Questions for consideration may include, but are not limited to:

• Pedagogy and practice for multilingual classrooms
• ELL pedagogy relating to globalized students
• Learning community writing practice
• Technology in writing practice relating to ELLs
• Multimodal and digital approaches to ELL writing instruction and practice
• Considerations of general teaching and learning practice to ELLs.

Proposals are due July 22, 2019

Keynotes: 

Suresh Canagarajah, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Applied Linguistics, English, and Asian Studies, Pennsylvania State University

Dr. Canagarajah, named as one of the top 50 scholars who have shaped the field of TESOL by TESOL International, is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor in the Departments of Applied Linguistics and English at Pennsylvania State University, as well as the Director of the Migration Studies Project. Among many other awards, Dr. Canagarajah is a recipient of the Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award by the American Association of Applied Linguistics; the Mina P. Shaughnessy Award (2015) by the Modern Language Association for the Outstanding Scholarly Book in the Fields of Language, Culture, Literacy, or Literature for his book Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations (2013); Best Book Award (2016) from the American Association of Applied Linguistics for Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations (2013). He is the author of more than 10 books and dozens of book chapters, academic articles, and other publications, both in English and Tamil. His book, Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students (2002), is required reading in the field of academic writing and multilingual instruction.

Stephanie Bell, Writing Centre Director, York University

Dr. Bell is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies and Director of the Writing Centre at York University. She has delivered multiple presentations on digital writing and production at conferences for the International Writing Centres Association, Canadian Writing Centres Association, and Canadian Association for the Study of Discourse and Writing. She is a board member of the Canadian Writing Centres Association. Her innovative digital student production forum, Scratch Media, features student podcasts and other media produced through her writing courses. A co-authored monograph proposal, “Bring a hard copy to your appointment”: Tooled-up, networked, multimodal writing at the Writing Centre, is in submission to with Inkshed Publications.