Researching the Language and Use of Generative AI
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2024 Technology for Second Language Learning Conference October 24-26, 2024 |
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Plenary Speakers
Ron Darvin
Generative AI, digital literacies and language learning online
Dr. Ron Darvin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
His research examines digital literacies, identity, and investment in language learning, particularly as these topics intersect with issues of materiality, ideology, and inequality. He has published in Language Learning & Technology, Computer-Assisted Language Learning, and Language Teaching, and served as a Co-Editor of the 2022 Special Issue of TESOL Quarterly on digital literacies. His research on the unequal digital literacies of migrant students in Canada received the 2020 Dissertation Award of the American Association of Applied Linguistics.
Read more about Dr. Darvin here.
Melinda Dooly
Melinda Dooly holds the position of Serra Húnter Full Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is member of the Department of Language & Literature Education and Social Science Education, where she teaches and carries out research on language learning, intercultural communication, and 21st-century competences in teacher education.
With a focus on technology-enhanced project-based language learning, Melinda has published in numerous international journals, chapters and books dedicated to advancing understanding in these areas. Melinda’s work extends beyond research; as the former and founding editor of the Bellaterra Journal of Teaching & Learning Language & Literature, and as co-editor of the book series Telecollaboration in Education published by Peter Lang, she has helped foster scholarly discourse and sharing knowledge within the academic community. At the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Melinda serves as the lead researcher of GREIP: Grup de Recerca en Educació, Interacció i Plurilingüisme (Research Centre for Education, Interaction & Plurilingualism) and actively contributes to the governance and administration of her academic institution as Head of Studies and Coordinator of Doctoral Studies in the area of language and literature and Coordinator of the EFL Teaching Minor within the Department of Language, Literature & Social Science Teaching. She also serves as permanent panel member for the evaluation committee in education for the Spanish National Research Agency.
Read more about Dr. Dooly here.
Larissa Goulart
Larissa Goulart is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics at Montclair State University. Larissa holds a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Northern Arizona University. At MSU, she coordinates the Laboratory for Applied Corpus Linguistics Research.
Her research primarily focuses on undergraduate student writing, corpus-based approaches to register variation, and the applications of corpora to teaching. Her research has appeared on the Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Applied Corpus Linguistics, Corpora, Register Studies, among others. Larissa is currently associate editor of Register Studies. Her forthcoming book, “Variation in University Student Writing,” slated for release in the Fall of 2024 as part of the Studies in Corpus Linguistics series published by John Benjamins, examines how language varies across registers and disciplines in student writing. Larissa’s recent research involves a comparative analysis of undergraduate student writing and GenAI texts.
Read more about Dr. Goulart here.
Gary Ockey
Gary Ockey is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Technology at Iowa State University, USA. Professor Ockey currently teaches language assessment courses to graduate students and has previously taught English as a second or foreign language in elementary school, high school, university, and adult language schools in Asia and the US and worked at the Educational Testing Service.
He has co-authored/edited several books and has been published in various journals, including Applied Linguistics, Language Learning, Language Assessment Quarterly, Language Testing, and TESOL Quarterly, and the Modern Language Journal. He has also served as the editor of TOEFL Research Report Series and Language Assessment Quarterly. His current research interests relate to uses of technology, including AI, in second language oral communication assessment. His forthcoming publication, “Introducing second language assessment” with Cambridge University Press, emphasizes the importance of systematically evaluating technology and its effectiveness for helping to assess second language ability and learning.
Read more about Dr. Ockey here.
Kimberly Vinall & Emily Hellmich
Dr. Kimberly Vinall is the Executive Director of the Berkeley Language Center (BLC) at University of California, Berkeley.
Her research focuses on the critical potentials of digital tools and the development of learners’ and instructors’ digital literacies, with a particular interest in related questions of authorship and knowledge production. Her current research, with Dr. Emily Hellmich, is a multi-phase project to document instructor perceptions of machine translation technologies and student use of these technologies. With publications in the fields of SLA and CALL, she has published articles in the Foreign Language Annals; Language Learning & Technology; Second Language Research and Practice; and Language, Curriculum, and Culture and chapters, most recently in the Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. She was also a co-guest editor of a special issue of the L2 Journal titled Machine Translation and Language Education: Implications for Theory, Research, and Practice.
Read more about Dr. Vinall here.
Dr. Emily Hellmich (PhD, University of California, Berkeley) is the Associate Director of the Berkeley Language Center at University of California, Berkeley.
Her research focuses on the impacts of digital technologies on language, language use, and language education, with particular interest in how language learners use (and don’t use) digital technologies to support their language learning. Her work has appeared in diverse journals, including Alsic, CALICO, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Foreign Language Annals; and Language Learning & Technology. Her current research project, with Dr. Kimberly Vinall, is a multi-phase exploration of instructor perceptions of AI language technologies and student use of these technologies. She is also co-editor of L2 Journal, an open-access journal for language teaching and learning.
Read more about Dr. Hellmich here.
Eric York
Eric York is an Associate Professor of English at Iowa State University, where he teaches emerging technologies and design in the context of technical and professional communication.
Dr. York’s scholarship focuses on the social and educational impacts of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and extended reality, and his work has received funding awards from the National Institutes of Health and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. York has published in journals such as Communication Design Quarterly and Kairos: a Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, and has forthcoming publications in Computers and Composition and the Journal of Business and Technical Communication. Dr. York is also a practicing user experience designer and fullstack web developer and has authored numerous apps and websites.
Read more about Dr. York here.
Contact: tsll@iastate.edu