American Association For Applied Linguistics
AAAL 2026 

March 21–24, 2026
Chicago, IL

CARLA's Social Justice in Language Education Initiative team will be presenting at AAAL 2026 in Chicago. Details will be shared at a later date when the conference program is posted.

Critical Pedagogies and Student Talk: Exploring Discourse Patterns in Postsecondary Language Classrooms

Critical pedagogies have gained prominence in postsecondary language education, yet few empirical studies detail student language development when learning through these approaches. Given the documented role of learner output and interaction in the language learning process (e.g., Swain, 1985), understanding students' language use when learning through critical pedagogies is essential to assessing their potential for advancing linguistic proficiency. The current project explores this issue by examining the amount and nature of learner talk during lessons grounded in two critical approaches (multiliteracies pedagogy; social justice education). Analyses of audio recordings from 40 intermediate-level learners of French and Spanish show that students' language use varied widely depending on the types of tasks they completed. Findings are considered with respect to the potential of critical pedagogies to develop and advance learners’ proficiency.
Presenters: Mandy Menke, Lauren Goodspeed, and Kate Paesani (University of Minnesota)

This presentation is directly related to CARLA’s Social Justice in Language Education initiative. The presenters will lead the CARLA Summer Institute Planning Social Justice Lessons: Critical Pedagogies in Action.

Past CARLA-sponsored Conference

SOLPHE 2025
Symposium on Language Pedagogy in Higher Education

SOLPHE 2025 was a great success! Over 240 language educators participated in this free, online symposium hosted by CARLA on October 3–4, 2025. The symposium featured plenary talks by Nicole Mills (Harvard University) and Joyce Wu (University of Rhode Island), and included 36 paper presentations about research and practice in postsecondary language teaching and program administration. The goal of this annual symposium is to enhance the quality of language programs and provide opportunities for inter-institutional collaboration. Kudos to the SOLPHE 2025 organizing committee—Sara Finney, Emily Groepper, Ashlie Henery, Kate Paesani, and Yao Tu—for putting together a great symposium!

The University of Alabama, with support from the American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC), will host SOLPHE 2026. Watch for details!