VicTESOL Symposium 2026

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Click here to Purchase Tickets to the 2026 VicTESOL Symposium

VicTESOL Symposium 2026

30 October 2026
8:00am – 4:30pm
Kwong Lee Dow Building (Building 263)
Melbourne Graduate School of Education
The University of Melbourne
234 Queensberry Street
Parkville VIC 3053

Ticket Prices

$140 – University of Melbourne staff and students
$140 – Presenters
$150 – VicTESOL Member
$180 – Non-member
$210 – VicTESOL 2026/27 membership and Symposium ticket package

Event Running Order

8:15 – 8:45	Registration
8:45 – 9:15	Welcome & Opening Remarks
9:15-10:00	Morning Keynote
10:00-10:30	Breakout presentations – Set 1
10:30-11:00	Morning tea
11:00-11:45	Breakout presentations – Set 2
11:50 – 12:35	Breakout presentations – Set 3
12:35 – 1:20	Lunch
1:20 – 2:05	Breakout presentations – Set 4
2:10-2:35	Breakout presentations – Set 5
2:35-3:00	Breakout presentations – Set 6
3:00 – 3:45	Afternoon Keynote
3:45 – 4:00	Thank you and Closing Remarks
4pm	Drinks

Session Information and Presenters

Open detailed session information and speaker biographies

Morning Keynote

How does learning happen? From classroom to theory (and back again)
Professor Emeritus at the University of Hong Kong and Distinguished Research Professor at Anaheim University in California, David Nunan

Breakout presentations – Set 1

Teacher-researcher collaboration within a pronunciation teaching and learning program: putting research into the classroom, putting the classroom into research
Dr Shem Macdonald + more

Translating translanguaging theory into local classroom practice
Associate Professor Naomi Wilks-Smith + more

SHIFTing Identities: From Tension to Transformation in EAL Teacher Practice
Dr Biljana Ivanova-Miloshevska+ more

Language Difference or Disorder
Anh Phan

Critical Language Pedagogy in Practice
Dr Lachlan James

Breakout presentations – Set 2

“Dimensional thinking” about grammar using AI
(Interactive Session)
Dr Chris Corbel

Science of Reading Comprehension Part 1
(Panel Discussion)
La Trobe University

Breaking the silence: Creating inclusive pathways for Deaf AMEP learners
(Interactive)
Jacky Springall + others

Teaching the noun group as a versatile tool to improve student outcomes
(Workshop)
Lynette Lingard

Breakout presentations – Set 3

Workshop: Language Remix: Write a rap and a song in one lesson
Charlie Thompson & Carmel Davies

Science of Reading Comprehension Part 2
(Panel Discussion)
La Trobe University

Creating Learner-Centred Lessons: Restoring Back to Students the Agency for Learning
(Workshop)
Ms Vidhatri Vittal

Implementing a whole-school systematic and targeted EAL/D Program from ELC to Year 12
(Presentation)
Trish Tynan

Breakout presentations – Set 4

How the Arts can turbo charge language learning
(Workshop)
Carmel Davies and Sharon Duff

Innovative Frameworks for Engaging CALD and EAL Families
Ms Helen Chan

Integrating Language and Content in the Classroom for EAL/D Students
Associate Professor Marianne Turner & Dr Kylie Bradfield

Building the Picture: Creating Holistic Learner Profiles to Explore Additional Learning Needs in EAL Learners
(Workshop)
Simone Cassidy

Breakout presentations – Set 5

Exploring community-based mentors’ diverse perspectives on their engagement in a TESOL graduate practicum
Dr Oksana Razoumova

Navigating Belonging: Immigrant Women’s Experiences of Early Childhood Education
Associate Professor Anne Keary + more

Beating the Odds: Reclaiming Engagement in a hybrid learning model
Dr Paul Li

Breakout presentations – Set 6

Workshop: Re-situating CLIL knowledge through teacher co-design: scaffolding language-for-thinking for new arrivals transitioning to mainstream subject literacies
Dannie Wang

Teachers’ voices: Stories of innocence and experience
Associate Professor Rod Neilsen

“Teaching Ageing English Language Learners: A Narrative Gerontological Inquiry into Educational Justice”
Jo Le + more

Making multilingual students’ analytical thinking visible
(Presentation)
Associate Professor Julie Choi and Kailin Liu

Afternoon Keynote

Prudence Meggitt

For detailed session information and speaker biographies click here.

Keynote Speaker

Professor Emeritus at the University of Hong Kong and Distinguished Research Professor at Anaheim University in California, David Nunan

Biography

David Nunan is Professor Emeritus at the University of Hong Kong and Distinguished Research Professor at Anaheim University. He is a Past President of TESOL International and a Trustee at The International Research Foundation for Language Education (TIRF). In 2007, he was named by Business Review Weekly as one of the 50 most influential Australians working abroad. In addition to his academic publications, he has published 14 textbook series for children, adolescents, and young adults, which have sold over 5 billion copies worldwide.

Abstract: How does learning happen? From classroom to theory (and back again)

You’ll see I’ve taken a liberty with the symposium’s title. I’ve done so because the classroom is specifically constituted to facilitate learners, which makes it a reasonable place to begin the search for insights into the question that frames the talk. The assumption is that learning – in our case, English language learning by multilingual students – happens in the classroom. But does it? I want to suggest that the classroom shows us less about what learners can do than about what its conditions allow us to see. I’ll open by addressing that claim, and by saying a few words about the nature of research, before turning to the body of the talk.

There I’ll present and analyse a framework Julie Choi and I have developed over a number of years – the three-pillars framework – which underpins and gives insight into how learning happens. Its first pillar is the integration of affect and cognition. Its second is what the learner brings: schematic knowledge, lived experience, funds of knowledge, identity, aspiration, dark funds. Its third is the constitutive conditions under which learning occurs: tools, timeframes, modes, interactional spaces. The argument that holds the three together is that the second pillar is not simply given. What a learner brings becomes visible, or stays hidden, according to the third – so an apparent deficit in the learner is often a deficit in conditions, and a question of which competences a given classroom is equipped to recognise.

I’ll conclude by suggesting ways you might apply, or contest, the framework against the realities of your own classroom.

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We look forward to seeing you there!