Conferences

TESL NS Spring 2026 Conference

Learning Together: Sharing Practices for Belonging and Integration

Date: 30 May 2026 (Saturday)
Time: 9:00am – 4:00pm
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.

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.

Call for Proposals

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.

Submission deadline: 20 March 2026 (Friday)

Please visit our Proposal Submission Guidelines page for more information and to submit your proposal.

Conference Sponsorship

Why partner with TESL NS?

  • Gain direct access to a highly engaged network of language professionals.
  • Build authentic relationships in an interactive, community-centered setting
  • Increase brand visibility through event, print, and digital recognition
  • Position your organization as a supporter of professional development and educational impact
  • Align your brand with inclusion, innovation, and lifelong learning

Please read about our Sponsorship Packages here.

Past Conference Program Archive