CLaSIC : Post-Conference Communication

Dear all,

CLaSIC 2010, organized by the Centre for Language Studies (CLS) of the National University of Singapore (NUS) for the fourth time, has come to a successful conclusion. The conference has brought together academics, researchers and professionals in language teaching and related disciplines from around the world for a highly invigorating exchange of insights, experiences, views and perspectives, especially on the impact of individual differences and subject variables on foreign language teaching and learning. We had the opportunity to hear from five stimulating and informative plenary speakers, Professors Richard Schmitt, Elaine Tarone, Minglang Zhou, Karin Aguado and Naoko Aoki, as well as from so many other colleagues in the parallel and poster sessions. We hope you had enjoyed not just the academic sessions and discussions but also the social programme we had planned for you.

We are happy to announce that the CLS will be preparing a book of selected papers for publication by the international academic publishing house De Gruyter Mouton (based in Berlin and New York). We expect that 15-20 papers will be selected eventually for inclusion in the book, with the expert help of a Scientific Committee consisting of Professors Karin Aguado, Naoko Aoki, Anna Uhl Chamot, William Littlewood, Richard Schmidt, Elaine Tarone, Weiping Wu and Minglang Zhou. Presenters who have yet to submit their full papers or would like to revise them are invited to do so by 31 January 2011. Please send your (revised) papers to clasic2010@nus.edu.sg. The publication of the book is planned for the 3rd quarter of 2012.

The CLaSIC 2010 Organising Committee would like to thank all participants and presenters for their tremendous support of the conference and for their contributions which made CLaSIC 2010 a success. We will inform you in good time of the call for papers for CLaSIC 2012 and certainly hope to greet you again then as our guests and as members of our CLaSIC community.

With warm regards,
Dr Izumi Walker
Chairperson
CLaSIC 2010 Organising Committee
Centre for Language Studies
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
National University of Singapore

Information for Presenters 2

1. Conference Publications (Gentle Reminder)

As announced in the last Information for Presenters sent to you in August, all paper presenters were requested to submit the manuscript of their papers by 15 October 2010. We would like to extend the submission deadline till 31 October 2010 and would appreciate your punctual submission of the manuscript.

In addition, we would be grateful if you could adhere to the instructions given in the style sheet sent to you earlier. The reason we need your cooperation is that adherence to the instructions will help reduce the time required to produce the conference proceedings and minimise possible formatting errors. If you have installed East Asian language support for your Microsoft Word, please do not define a document grid option to ensure that the spacing will be uniform for all the manuscripts. You can access this option through the following menu/path: File > Page Setup > Document Grid > No Grid.

2. Photocopying/Handouts

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide photocopying facilities, but if needed, you may photocopy at your own cost at the Business centre of the hotel. We would thus like to advise that you bring sufficient copies of any handouts for your paper or poster presentations.

3. Presentation Time and Venue

The venue for the paper presentation and the timetable will become available at our website: http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cls/clasic2010/Conference_Programme.htm by the end of October.

The Organising Committee reserves the right to make changes to the programme closer to the conference, if required. Participants are advised to visit the webpage above from time to time to keep themselves updated about the programme.

Poster sessions are scheduled for Day 2. (i.e. 3rd December) from 13:50-15:30 and 15:45-17:25.

4. Registration of Co-author(s)

Please excuse us if you already received this information by email and responded to us.

If your paper or poster presentation is co-authored and the co-author(s) will be participating in the conference, they will need to register and pay the registration fee individually. As we will be closing the registration once the total number of the registrants reaches 200, we would appreciate your kind cooperation in relaying this information to your co-author(s).

5. Instructions for Poster Presenters

Preferably, posters should be of light paper materials as it will be difficult to affix heavy posters to the available walls and boards securely. Those who are doing an electronic poster (e.g. using a notebook computer) will have to provide their own notebook computers with a wireless network adapter, if Internet access is required. Internet access will be available for the presenters as well as for the hotel guests in their rooms. There will be a charge for Internet connection for poster presentations; you may contact us for more details about the pricing.

The size of the board for poster presentation is 2ft or 60cm (length) x 1 ½ ft or 45cm (wide).

Information for Presenters (1)

1. Registration for Presenters

We would like to thank you for your cooperation in registering for the conference by the deadline.

This deadline was necessary as we are going to draw up a detailed conference programme (including the schedule of presentations) in October. The detailed programme will be updated on the conference homepage at http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cls/clasic2010/Conference_Programme.htm by mid-October.

All presenters and co-presenters attending the conference have to register individually. We would appreciate if you could encourage your co-author(s) to register, if your paper/poster presentation is co-authored and they will attend the conference.

2. Conference Publications

There will be two publications in connection with CLaSIC 2010. The Centre for Language Studies intends to publish a book of selected papers from the conference. The selection of these papers will be made after the conference. This book will be refereed by a specially appointed committee.

In addition to this, we will also be offering you the full proceedings of the conference in a thumb-drive, on the first day of the conference.

We would like to draw all presenters’ attention to the following submission information for the manuscripts of their papers. The manuscripts should be sent to us by e-mail at clasic2010@nus.edu.sg latest by 15 October 2010 as Microsoft Word documents. We are attaching a style sheet with information for the formatting of the manuscripts and the link to the style sheet on our website: http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cls/clasic2010/Stylesheet.htm

Kindly cooperate by adhering as closely to the style sheet as possible. This will be of great assistance to us for the timely production of the proceedings. It is important that you submit your papers for the proceedings as an initial shortlisting of papers will be carried out for the book of selected papers based on these submissions.

As we will be publishing the conference proceedings in a thumb-drive, there is no limitation on the length of the manuscripts submitted. However, please try to keep the size of the files within 2 MB wherever possible, as e-mails with extremely large attachments may fail to arrive. Especially, please try to compress graphic images included in your manuscript.

If you wish, you may also send your manuscripts on a CD-ROM to the following person and address:

Ms Malwina Baranska

The Secretary

CLaSIC 2010 Organising Committee

Centre for Language Studies

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

National University of Singapore

AS4/02-05, 9 Arts Link

Singapore 117570

Poster presenters may send us full papers or the main gist of their presentations in point form, complete with any illustrations to be included in their poster presentations.

3. Presentation Time

Each paper presentation will be allotted a time of 30 minutes, with 20 minutes for the presentation and 10 minutes for discussion. Keynote lectures will be of 45 minutes' duration, with 35 minutes for the lecture and 10 minutes for discussion.

4. Poster Presentation

A 100-minute session on the second conference day will be allocated to poster presentations. During the 100-minutes, presenters will have to be present at their posters to answer any questions or to provide further elaborations.

Those who are doing an electronic poster (e.g. using a notebook computer) will have to provide their own notebook computers with a wireless network adapter, if Internet access is required. Internet access will be available for the presenters as well as for the hotel guests in their rooms.

The size of the board for poster presentation is 2ft (length) x 1 ½ ft (wide).

5. Photocopying/Handouts

Unfortunately, we are unable to provide photocopying facilities, but if needed, you may photocopy at your own cost at the Business centre of the hotel. We would thus like to advise that you bring sufficient copies of any handouts for your paper or poster presentations.

Formatting Information for CLaSIC 2010 Conference Proceedings (Pages 1, 2, 3, 4)

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CLaSIC 2010 : Official Conference Brochure

CLaSIC 2010 : CALL FOR PAPERS

Dear Sir or Madam,

The Centre for Language Studies (CLS) of the National University of Singapore (NUS) organises a biennial international conference on foreign language teaching and learning. The conference aims at bringing together academics, researchers and professionals from Asia and beyond for a productive and rewarding exchange of insights, experiences, views and perspectives on current and future developments in foreign language teaching and learning. The last three CLaSICs met with resounding success and a highly encouraging response, attracting many participants from all over the world.

We are pleased to announce the Fourth CLS International Conference (CLaSIC 2010) to be held from 2 to 4 December 2010. The theme of the conference is:

“INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS AND SUBJECTIVE VARIABLES IN LANGUAGE LEARNING”

We would like to invite you and your colleagues to participate in this conference and to present papers on the sub-themes listed in the Call for the Papers below. We would be most grateful if you could circulate the information about the conference within your institution and enclose a PDF copy of the conference brochure for this purpose. If you require more information, please feel free to email the CLaSIC 2010 Organising Committee at clasic2010@nus.edu.sg.

Invited Keynote Speakers

We are delighted that the following four distinguished academics, all leading researchers and educators in language education and applied linguistics, will be delivering keynote lectures at CLaSIC 2010:

Dr. Karin Aguado (University of Kassel)

Dr. Naoko Aoki (Osaka University)

Dr. Richard Schmidt (University of Hawai’i)

Dr. Minglang Zhou (University of Maryland)

Call for Papers

Over the decades, research has rejected views of learners as passive processors and highlighted instead their subject roles in learning. It is evident to researchers and practitioners that learner characteristics such as age, gender, aptitudes, motivation, beliefs, metacognition and learning strategies contribute directly or indirectly to learning processes and outcomes. In view of the vast differences between individuals, each learner biography becomes in effect an individual case study. Yet these individual characteristics and subjective variables interact with factors external to the learners, including especially the cultural background, social environment and educational context, thus underlining the fact that learners are, at the same time, social beings. In selecting this theme, CLaSIC 2010 acknowledges the undoubted importance of learners’ - and teachers’ - individual characteristics for foreign language education. It hopes to engage participants in a fruitful and rewarding discussion of these issues and to draw insightful conclusions for research and practice.

CLaSIC 2010 Organising Committee invites submissions for Paper and Poster Presentations on one of the following twelve sub-themes:

- Cognitive Factors in Language Teaching and Learning

- Affect in Language Teaching and Learning

- Language Learning Anxiety and Fear

- Teacher/Learner Beliefs, Attitudes and Assumptions

- Subjective Theories and Language Teaching and Learning

- Language Learning Motivation and Motivational Strategies

- Self-Concept and Self-Efficacy

- Metacognition and Language Learning Strategies

- Learner Characteristics and Individual Differences

- Cultural and Individual Notions of Autonomy

- Constructivist Approach to Language Learning

- Narrative and Life Story

Presentation proposals can be submitted online at the following URL, latest by 31 May 2010: http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cls/clasic2010/Proposal_Submission.htm

The language medium for all presentations at the conference is English.

Further information

To keep you informed of the latest update of the CLaSIC 2010, it is recommended to check the homepage on a regular basis.

CLaSIC 2010 homepage – http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cls/clasic2010/index.htm

Information about the CLS can be found at the following URL:

CLS homepage – http://www.fas.nus.edu.sg/cls/

Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to email the Organising Committee at clasic2010@nus.edu.sg.

Thank you very much for your kind attention and assistance. We look forward to seeing you and your colleagues at CLaSIC 2010.

With warm regards,

Dr Izumi Walker

Chairperson

CLaSIC 2010 Organising Committee

Centre for Language Studies

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

National University of Singapore