The 2021 International Conference on CALL was held from Oct 16 to 17. It was co-hosted by the China Computer-Assisted Language Learning Association (ChinaCALL) of the China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese (CACSEC), Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU), Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA), the Institute of Online Education at BFSU, the BFSU Artificial Intelligence and Human Languages Lab and the College of Foreign Languages at NUAA.

Scholars and experts from renowned universities attend the online conference and exchange views at the 2021 International Conference on CALL.

With the theme “educational technology and moral education”, the online forum attracted hundreds of experts and scholars from home and abroad to discuss frontier topics of computer-assisted language learning as well as the challenges and responsibilities faced by education and teaching in the pandemic and post-pandemic era.

Zhao Gang, a member of the standing committee of the CPC BFSU committee and vice-president of the university, delivered an opening speech and extended a warm welcome to all experts and scholars. 

“Under the rapid development of educational modernization characterized by intellectualization and informatization, the conference has attracted talents from the fields of liberal arts and sciences. It adheres to the spirit of academic inheritance and innovation and will dig deep into the current situation and future development of new technology and foreign language teaching, and draw up a blueprint for the construction of the disciplines of liberal arts and engineering in the new era,” Zhao said.

Fan Xiangtao, dean of the College of Foreign Languages at NUAA, presented the speech by Song Yingdong, a member of the standing committee of the CPC NUAA committee and vice-president of the university. 

Song said that NUAA is a research university with strong characteristics of aeronautics, astronautics and civil aviation. It values the coordinated development of various disciplines, including engineering, science, economics, management and arts. BFSU is the first foreign language university founded by the Communist Party of China. It is the cradle of foreign-related talents in diplomacy, translation, education, economy and trade, journalism, law and finance. He hopes that the two universities can work together and expand cooperation in the future.

Luo Xuanmin, president of the CACSEC and a professor at Tsinghua University, spoke highly of “Innovating Pedagogy 2021”, which was jointly complied by BFSU and the UK’s Open University and the “Journal of China Computer-Assisted Language Learning”, which was published by BFSU in April 2021. He also confirmed the accomplishments achieved by BFSU and NUAA in computer-assisted language learning and expressed his hopes that the conference would achieve outstanding results with the joint efforts of all parties.

Those who delivered keynote speeches were Gu Yueguo, chairman of the ChinaCALL at the CACSEC, Yu Xinji, a professor of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Tsinghua University and secretary of the CPC committee of the department, Ma Qing, an associate professor of the Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong, Marcin Opacki, an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw, Zong Chengqing, a research fellow from the National Laboratory of Pattern Recognition of the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mark Warschauer, a professor of the Department of Education at the University of California, Irvine and the founder and director of the Digital Learning Lab at the university, Wang Haixiao, a professor at Nanjing University and vice-chairman of the ChinaCALL, Li Zuowen, director of the BFSU Artificial Intelligence and Human Languages Lab, and Elena Errico, an associate professor of the Department of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Genoa. 

The topics included “iCALL: does it make us smart or stupid?”, “key issues on blended learning”, “ from corpus literacy to corpus-based language pedagogy: an effective integration of corpus-based teaching and classroom teaching”, “perfunctory gamification in the world of second language learning”, “research on human language technology in the era of artificial intelligence”, “dialogue system and language development: new areas of learning in early childhood”, “the connotation of college English teachers’ information literacy and the construction of an evaluation system in the context of new guidelines ”, “language intelligence: discipline construction and talent training”, “teaching remotely and interpreting remotely”, and “how to make a virtue out of necessity”. 

Following the speeches, experts and professionals exchanged views on computer-assisted language teaching and new technological support in language studies. A roundtable forum was also held afterwards in which professors from renowned universities shared their successful experience in foreign language education.

Tang Jinlan, dean of the Institute of Online Education at BFSU, said since the launch of the pilot work following artificial intelligence boosting teacher team construction initiated by the Ministry of Education, BFSU has made concrete achievements in this field and will continue to build a new paradigm for online education and implement the fundamental task of moral education.

The conference was broadcast through WeChat channels, Sina Weibo and TTV platform, attracting 35,000 viewers. So far the hashtag of “2021 International Conference on CALL” has been viewed 142,000 times, and the conference has drawn 81,000 readers on Weibo.