Keynote Speakers

ALT 15th Anniversary Conference

Keynote Speakers

The ALT Program at Iowa State University: The Founding Story

Carol Chapelle, Iowa State University, Dan Douglas, Iowa State University

Abstract

There is only one Ph.D. program in Applied Linguistics & Technology in the world, according to Google. Sixteen years ago, there were not any. How did the founders of the program in Applied Linguistics & Technology know that this program was needed? What convinced others at the beginning of this century that such a program at Iowa State University would fill an important role in in higher education globally? In our presentation, we will recall the founding story of the Applied Linguistics & Technology program at Iowa State University within the overall context of applied linguistics at the beginning of the century. We will recall the social, academic, and technical changes occurring in the late 1900s that prompted the need for the proposal for a new program, the process for program acceptance culminating with the 2004 memo informing the Department of English Chair of the approval, the welcoming of our pioneer classes of students, and finally our 15th anniversary celebrating our new faculty in the program and experienced former students doing applied linguistics and technology in the world.

Video Recording

Biography

Carol A. Chapelle is Distinguished Professor in Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University. Recent books are Argument-Based Validation in Testing and Assessment (Sage, 2021) and The Handbook of Technology and Language Learning and Teaching (Wiley, 2017; with S. Sauro). She is editor of the Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics (Wiley, 2013) as well as co-editor of the Cambridge Applied Linguistics Series. She is past president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and former co-editor of Language Testing and editor of TESOL Quarterly. Her awards include the 2012 Cambridge-ILTA Lifetime Achievement Award in Language Testing, the American Association for Applied Linguistics 2015 Distinguished Service and Scholarship Award, and the 2020 Test Validity Research and Evaluation SIG Senior Scholar Award from the American Educational Research Association.

Dan Douglas is a Professor Emeritus in the Applied Linguistics and Technology program at Iowa State University, specializing in assessing language ability in specific academic and professional contexts. He came to Iowa State in 1985, along with Carol Chapelle, and with her was one of the founding faculty members of the ALT program. His books include Understanding Language Testing (Routledge 2010) and Assessing Languages for Specific Purposes (Cambridge 2000). He was President of the International Language Testing Association from 2005 to 2006 and again from 2013 to 2015, and Editor of the journal Language Testing from 2002 to 2007.

 

From the PhD to the Career: Suggestions for Success

John Levis, Iowa State University

Abstract

Finishing an advanced degree, especially a PhD, inevitably includes immense relief combined with tremendous uncertainty. Even when starting a secure and desired job, everyone has the need to demonstrate again your expertise and skills to new colleagues in a new context. Any career path brings with it new opportunities, new challenges, and changes in how you see yourself and how others see you. In this presentation, I talk about lessons I have learned from many years of such changes, and offer suggestions that hopefully will help with many futures. Looking back, there are five particularly important lessons that have contributed to my success: make myself and my work visible, saying “yes,” keeping the pipeline full, building up others, and creating new opportunities. Each of these has been critical to my career, and I hope they will be useful to you in your futures.

Video Recording

Biography

John Levis is Angela B. Pavitt Professor of English. He co-edited Social Dynamics in Second Language Accent (De Gruyter Mouton), the Handbook of English Pronunciation (Wiley-Blackwell), and Pronunciation: Critical Concepts in Linguistics (Taylor & Francis). He is the author of Intelligibility, Oral Communication, and the Teaching of Pronunciation (Cambridge University Press). He initiated the Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching Conference and is founding editor of the Journal of Second Language Pronunciation.

 

ALT Doctoral Program’s 15th Anniversary: Coming of Age in the Virtual Era and Covid Times (or the New Normal)

Viviana Cortes, Georgia State University

Abstract

Many things happened in the United States and around the world in 2005 that will be forever remembered for different reasons by different people. If we look back at some of the most important events of 2005, we realize that Pope John Paul II died, Germans had their first female chancellor, and in the United States summer ended with hurricane Katrina, which brought about terrible devastation to New Orleans and the surrounding areas. But somewhere in the Midwest, in Cyclone country, a new adventure was about to start for many at Iowa State University. After years of exhausting work and efforts by their senior faculty, the Board of Regents approved a new doctoral program in Applied Linguistics and Technology (ALT). The purpose of this presentation is twofold: first, I would like to reminiscence on what the new program meant to me as junior faculty in the Applied Linguistics program in the Department of English and what the new ALT doctoral program meant to the Applied Linguistics field. The second objective is to review the program from its origins until this coming-of-age anniversary, comparing and contrasting it to other top quality programs in the field, starting by reviewing the needs that originated it, studying its goals and objectives, and following its development and growth, to finally assess its outcomes and imagine the future of the program in this new normal we are all living.

Video Recording

Biography

Viviana Cortes received her PhD in Applied Linguistics from Northern Arizona University in 2002 and she worked for the Program of Applied Linguistics and TESL at Iowa State University for six years before going to Georgia State in the fall of 2008. At Iowa State she taught Descriptive Grammar, Discourse Analysis, English for Specific Purposes, and Advanced Academic Writing for international graduate Students. Her research interests include the analysis of recurrent word combinations, such as lexical bundles, in different academic registers, and different types of corpus-based grammatical studies as well as the use of corpora in the teaching of academic writing. She has presented her research at numerous local conferences and in conferences and symposiums in Spain, Mexico, and Argentina. Her research articles can be found in journals such as English for Specific Purpose, Applied Linguistics, the Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Linguistics and Education, and Corpora, and in several edited books.