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AILA President’s Interim Report 2020

Dear AILA Members, International Committee, and Executive Board,

More than ever, verbal and visual language have been a key to the world and social life in the past few months. While bodily locked down, we still have been able to meet one anothers’ minds and hearts by using media and, most of all, our languages.

AILA has grown this year, against all odds. Before the pandemic, we set up the AILA ASEAN regional network, and we very recently launched the AILA Ibero-American regional network. This broadens our dialogue on languages and research cultures.

In our worldwide community of language researchers and practitioners, we now engage in 28 AILA Research Networks that address key issues of language learning and language use. And we launched our AILA Research Debate on hot topics in Applied Linguistics.

By developing the AILA Endorsement Principles, we laid strong grounds for systematically engaging in global, regional, and local debates about social problems in which language matters. This fosters our strategic collaboration with UNESCO and, through AILA Europe, with the European Council.

Reaching out requires strong collaboration and effective communication. So, we launched the AILA App and upgraded the AILA Review. This helps us stay in touch, listen to the unexpected, engage in academic and professional discourse, and spread the words that matter.

We’ve also carried out the hands-on measures suggested by the AILA International Board in 2019. These include:

  • showing a world map of forthcoming Applied Linguistics events on the AILA website
  • building AILA communities on Twitter
  • creating an AILA promo video that can be shown at National Affiliates’ congresses
  • engaging in an AILA roadshow, for live Q&A with National Affiliates’ members
  • writing success stories of AILA (Tandem) collaboration
  • planning spaces on the AILA App for National Affiliates and Research Networks.

In the next twelve months, we will develop our open and inclusive AILA World Congress format, with hybrid architecture for on-site and remote participation. It will be launched at the AILA 2021 World Congress in Groningen.

Thank you for being part of the AILA family. Thank you for making Applied Linguistics matter.

Daniel Perrin, President, International Association of Applied Linguistics
July 2020