PLL1

PLL2014

Graz, Austria

The first international PLL conference was held in Graz on 29-31 May 2014. The conference, which was entitled “Matters of the Mind: Psychology and Language Learning”, explored the interface between psychology and language learning and teaching.

​The conference:

Some of the topics that were covered in the conference included autonomy, beliefs, emotions, goal setting, group dynamics, motivation, the self, strategies, metacognition, willingness to communicate, individual differences.

Plenary talks were delivered by:

• Andrew Cohen, University of Minnesota, USA
  
• Zoltán Dörnyei, University of Nottingham, UK
  
• Peter MacIntyre, Cape Breton University, Canada
  
• Jean-Marc Dewaele, University of London, UK
  
• Paula Kalaja, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
  
• Ema Ushioda, University of Warwick, UK
  

Publications:

​The conference helped to connect scholars working in diverse domains of Language Learning Psychology. The collaborations that were established in the conference paved the way for the following publications:

• An edited collection entitled ‘New directions in language learning psychology’ (Christina Gkonou, Dietmar Tatzl & Sarah Mercer, eds.), published 2016 by Springer.
  
• An edited collection entitled ‘Positive Psychology in SLA’ (Tammy Gregersen, Peter MacIntyre & Sarah Mercer, eds.),  published by Multilingual Matters.
  
• Two Special Issues in  Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching (Vol. 5, Issue 2 and Issue 3), focussing on ‘Psychology and language learning’, which were guest edited by Stephen Ryan and Sarah Mercer.