Theme: Learning Together: Sharing Practices for Belonging and Integration
Date: 30 May 2026 (Saturday)
Time: 9 am- 4 pm
Venue: Saint Mary’s University, 923 Robie St, Halifax, NS B3H 3C3
This will be an in-person conference, providing attendees with opportunities for networking, professional development, and collaboration. Virtual sessions will not be offered.
Submission deadline: 20 March 2026 (Friday)
To submit your proposal, please visit our Call for Proposals webform . If you have questions, please email info@teslns.com We will contact you with an update on your proposal’s status by the first week of April, 2026.
Conference Highlights
In an increasingly diverse and interconnected educational landscape, language education plays a vital role in fostering belonging, inclusion, and social integration. Educators, researchers, and community practitioners are continually learning with and from one another as they navigate multilingual classrooms, evolving learner needs, and complex social contexts. This conference theme, Learning Together: Sharing Practices for Belonging and Integration, emphasizes collaboration, collective knowledge-building, and the sharing of lived experiences, pedagogical practices, and research that support equitable and inclusive language learning spaces.
We welcome submissions that highlight dialogue, reflection, and shared learning across contexts, including but not limited to:
- Collaborative practices that foster belonging and integration in language learning spaces:
This includes community-based initiatives, co-learning models, peer learning, and partnerships between educators, learners, and community organizations. - Pedagogical approaches that support inclusion, identity, and intercultural engagement:
Topics may include plurilingual strategies, learner-centered and trauma-informed pedagogies, culturally responsive teaching, and practices that validate learners’ linguistic and cultural repertoires. - Research, lived experiences, and innovative practices addressing integration and access:
This may involve explorations of multilingual classrooms, settlement-focused language education, alternative and inclusive assessment practices, accessibility and universal design for learning, and policies that shape learners’ equitable pathways to participation and belonging.
Session Types
This year’s conference welcomes a variety of session formats that encourage dialogue, reflection, and shared learning. Presenters are invited to select from the format listed below that best aligns with their topic, goals, and stage of work.
1) Presentations (45 minutes including Q&A): These sessions offer an in-depth exploration of a topic, practice, or research project. Presenters may include interactive elements such as discussion, reflection, or small-group activities. This format is ideal for well-developed initiatives, pedagogical approaches, or completed research.
2) Mini-Presentations (15 minutes including Q&A): Short, focused sessions designed to share a specific idea, strategy, classroom practice, or insight. Mini-presentations are ideal for practical takeaways, innovative tools, or snapshots of successful (or challenging) experiences.
3) Pecha Kucha: A fast-paced, highly visual presentation format with 20 slides, shown for 20 seconds each (6 minutes and 40 seconds total). This format encourages concise storytelling and is well-suited for sharing creative practices, reflective narratives, or innovative ideas related to belonging and integration.
4) Provocations (30 minutes including Q&A): Provocations are thought-provoking sessions intended to spark dialogue and critical reflection. Rather than offering solutions, presenters raise questions, tensions, or challenges related to language education, integration, equity, or belonging, inviting participants to engage in collective discussion.
5) Workshops (45 minutes including Q&A): Highly interactive sessions focused on hands-on learning and collaboration. Workshops may include activities, group work, role-play, or guided reflection and are designed to actively engage participants in exploring strategies, tools, or practices they can adapt to their own contexts.
6) Research Presentations (45 minutes including Q&A): These sessions focus on completed or advanced-stage research related to language education, integration, multilingualism, policy, or assessment. Presenters share their research questions, methodology, key findings, and implications for practice and policy.
7) Work in Progress (45 minutes including Q&A): This format is intended for emerging research projects, pilot initiatives, or ideas still under development. Presenters are encouraged to share their questions, challenges, and preliminary findings and to invite feedback, dialogue, and collaborative thinking from participants.