PLL Conferences
IAPLL hosts a broad range of events to provide learning and networking opportunities. Our principal event, the PLL conference, is a biennial conference that allows interdisciplinary scholars interested in psychology and language teaching and learning to connect and learn from each other. Our next conference is in Madrid, Spain.
If you're interested in hosting the PLL conference in 2026 in your area, please see the Conference Call for Bids 2026 below.
The conference theme is inspired by the physical location of PLL4, where massive ocean currents shape the seasons and the rising and falling waves affect our day-to-day lives. The psychology of language learning has its own currents and waves -- long running currents of thought shape our thinking about languages, how they are learned and used, and the ways in which movements in language, people and cultures flow with each other. We also see waves of thinking emerging from new directions in the study of languages, exciting developments that rise and fall.
The theme is meant to communicate both stability and change. Currents suggest large-scale patterns and waves implicating localized and fast changing processes. The notion of waves also suggest looking at the phenomena that are visible on the surface with currents running deep below.
The conference theme inspires broad questions such as the following:
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What are the currents of thought that influence languages and cultures?
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What are the waves of change sweeping over language education?
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How do we sustain the waves of motivation and facilitating emotion that learners experience?
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How do we alter the currents of thinking to expand our theoretical and methodological perspectives?
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How can educational institutions identify and respond to the changing tides we see all around us?