President Letter Spring 2019

To view .pdf version: CALICOPresidentLetterSpring2019

Dear CALICO members-

Happy spring! I hope you are all enjoying a great semester and looking forward to the 2019 CALICO conference, which is right around the corner.
Here’s what you’ll find in this letter:
1. Welcome and thanks 2. Conference information 3. From the CALICO Journal
4. SIG news and updates

First and foremost, I want to take a moment to recognize our incoming and outgoing officers (changes in the executive board occur at the end of the annual conference).
• Lara Lomicka will be rotating off as Past President. I’m sure you all know that Lara and I are long-time friends and collaborators, but I have also greatly enjoyed working with her and learning from her in this role. We will miss her, and thank her for her leadership.
• As I transition into the role of Past President, Jon Reinhardt will take over as President and Marta González-Lloret will come in as Vice President. I know CALICO will flourish in their capable hands, and I am looking forward to working with them both this year.
• Also cycling off the Executive Board this year are Helene Ossipov and Lawrence Williams. Thank you both for your service to CALICO.
• Finally, a warm welcome to the two new incoming board members: Julio Rodriguez and Ruslan Suvorov. We appreciate your dedication to CALICO and your willingness to serve.

As we get ready for #CALICO2019 in Montreal from May 21st-25th, here are few announcements and reminders. Rappelez-vous que nous célébrons CALICO à Montréal cette année avec un congrès bilingue. À cet effet, nous aurons des présentations en français tout au long du week-end. A bientôt à Montréal!
If you haven’t already registered to attend, you can still do so here! Also, remember that we are asking you to please plan to stay at the conference hotel, the Delta Hotel Montreal. If you’re looking to share a room with someone, check out the fabulous roommate-matching page that Esther set up for us.
Conference highlights this year include:
• Wednesday May 22nd
o Opening keynote by Paul Darvasi
o Poster Session and Opening Reception
• Thursday May 23rd
o Plenary talk by Marie-Josée Hamel o Technology Showcase
• Friday May 24th
o Mentoring lunch for graduate students
o CALICO Social Quest (*see below for more details!)
• Throughout the program
o Special strands in and about French o … so much more!
We are looking in to live-streaming some of the sessions, so check back on the website for updates. Don’t forget to share your sessions, impressions and photos on social media using the hashtag #CALICO2019!

CALICO Social Quest:
This year, CALICO is once again offering a social event on
Friday afternoon/evening. This time, in keeping with the maker theme of the conference, and with the help of a CASLS team spearheaded by Stephanie Knight and Christopher Daradics, we will play together in Montreal. Linguists and Ghost Hunters
Unite! The ghost of fur baron Simon McTavish is stirring, and it is up to the CALICO 2019 attendees to learn how to communicate with him. Join us in a mixed reality hunt, and race against the clock to save Montreal from McTavish’s impending terror.

The editors of the CALICO Journal report that the CJ is now searchable in Scopus under “Source Title.”
Additionally, the next issue of the CALICO Journal, 36(2), offers not only the usual lineup of great articles, but also a fascinating editorial coauthored by graduate student Fabrizio Fornara, along with Bryan Smith and Ana Oskoz, which focuses on what CALICO and the CALICO Journal can do to better prepare graduate students for a career in CALL. Be sure to check it out!

With the goal of creating more awareness of our Special Interest Groups, we asked each of CALICO’s eight SIGs to tell us who their current chair and associate chair are, if they have any active social media pages to follow, and what activities they have engaged in this year. That information is all reproduced below. I have also added information about when the SIG is meeting during the conference, and if the SIG is presenting any SIG-sponsored session at the conference.
If you aren’t attending the conference, or can’t be at the meeting for a SIG that interests you, feel free to contact their leadership so that you can join and/or get on their mailing lists.

CMC SIG
• Leadership: Se Jeong Yang (syang2@fsmail.bradley.edu), Paul Lyddon (palyddon@u- shizuoka-ken.ac.jp)
• Social media: (Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CalicosCmcSig/)
• Ongoing activities: “Given that we have had some changes in leadership in the
middle of the year, we have not completed big events yet. However, we are planning to have a meeting in upcoming CALICO conference to discuss possible events for the following year.”
• Meeting: Friday, May 24th, 8:15am-8:45am

Gaming SIG
• Leadership: Samantha Kirby (samkm@email.arizona.edu), Stephanie Knight (knights@uoregon.edu)
• Social media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/455360024551457/
• Ongoing activities: “We send out newsletters every month and have a book club. Additionally, we stream game play so that fellow members can join as audience or in the actual games.”
• Meeting: Thursday, May 23rd, 12:15-12:45pm

Graduate Student SIG
• Leadership: Farhana Ahmed (farhanaahmed.ruma@gmail.com), Kris Johnson (Krispierjohnston@gmail.com)
• Social media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/CALICOgrad/
• Ongoing activities: “We have put together a panel proposal for the upcoming CALICO’2019 conference…. We are also working on gathering information for
publishing of our Grad SIG annual newsletter, and we are working towards making our issues more graduate-student centered and making it a platform for their voices.”
• Meeting: Friday, May 24th, 1:30-2:00pm
• SIG sessions at #CALICO2019: 21st century language instruction: Balancing the
digital-linguistic divide [Thursday May 23rd, 10:00am]

iCALL SIG
• Leadership: Rob Reynolds (robert_reynolds@byu.edu), Haiyang Ai (haiyang.ai@uc.edu)
• Meeting: Saturday, May 25th, 8:15-8:45am

LTLT SIG
• Leadership: Tuvi Voorhees (tvoorhees@bmcc.cuny.edu), Denise Gokcora (sgokcora@bmcc.cuny.edu)
• Social media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LTLTsig/about/
• Ongoing activities: “We sent out requests for member input for workshops,
activities, and a panel for the conference.”
• Meeting: Thursday, May 23rd, 12:45-1:15pm
• SIG sessions at #CALICO2019: Advances and “Make-it” Moments in Research on
Language Teaching and Learning Technologies” [Friday May 24th, 9:00 a.m.]

SLAT SIG
• Leadership: Oksana Vorobel (ovorobel@bmcc.cuny.edu), Tuvi Voorhees (tvoorhees@bmcc.cuny.edu)
• Social media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/306769710110782/
• Meeting: Friday, May 24th, 12:30-1:00pm
• SIG sessions at #CALICO2019: Second Language Writing and Technology [Friday
May 24th, 3:00 p.m.], Using DIIGO, SLACK, and Google Sites in Language Classrooms (workshop) [Wednesday May 22nd, 9:00 am – 12:00 noon]

Teacher Education SIG
• Leadership: Robert Elliot (robert@uoregon.edu), Se Jeong Yang (syang2@fsmail.bradley.edu)
• Social media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TeacherEducationSIG/
• Meeting: Friday, May 24th, 1:00-1:30pm
• Ongoing activities: “Organized a panel, working on ways to better platform for communication with members, and looking into ways to mentor new teacher
educators.”
• SIG sessions at #CALICO2019: 21st Century Skills For All: Social Justice, Maker
Culture and Teacher Education. [Thursday, May 23rd, 3:15 p.m]

Virtual Worlds SIG
• Leadership: Peggy Hartwick (peggy.hartwick@carleton.ca), Lisa Frumkes (lfrumkes@gmail.com)
• Social media: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SIGvw.gamesEuroCALL/
• Meeting: Friday, May 24th, 12:00-12:30pm
• Ongoing activities: “We’ve piggybacked on the Eurocall VW group’s activities and presentations, such as Margherita Berti’s talk on Teaching in Virtual Reality, which took place in February 26, 2019. It was a great talk, and a recording is available here: http://connect.uclan.ac.uk/p7sqoiprnvd/.”

Thanks for reading, and best wishes for a happy, healthy and productive remainder of the semester. If you have any questions about this letter or about CALICO in general, please don’t hesitate to ask.
I look forward to seeing you all in Montreal!
Gillian Lord, CALICO President, 2018-2019
The CALICO Executive Board: Lara Lomicka Anderson (Past President), Jon Reinhardt (Vice President); Kathryn Murphy-Judy (Secretary); Helene Ossipov (through 2019), Lawrence Williams (through 2019), Merica McNeil (2020), Sébastien Dubreil (2020), D. Joseph Cunningham (through 2021), Nina Vyatkina (through 2021)
CALICO Manager: Esther Horn
CALICO Journal Editors: Bryan Smith and Ana Oskoz, Editors, Mathias Shulze, Associate Editor