Mehtap Acar's Conference Summary

    Mehtap Acar
     Ph.D. Student
     Second Language Acquisition & Teaching GIDP

     Conference Summary
     The International Society for Language Studies (ISLS) Conference 2017
     Honolulu, Hawaii

The International Society for Language Studies (ISLS) held a conference from June 15-17, 2017 at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa, Honolulu, USA. The theme of the conference, which was Intersections of Language and Peace, motivated me to meet scholars around the world with similar research interests and share my initial research ideas towards my future studies to be able to contribute to world peace through language teaching. Thanks to this motive of mine, and the Herbert E. Carter Travel Award, I gave a conceptual presentation entitled “Critical Peace Consciousness through Critically Contextualized Foreign Language Education”. I had the chance to discuss the content of my presentation with some of the attendees after the session, and I was very happy to hear that the theoretical framework and pedagogical implications I provided them with was considered to be so valuable and timely that we continued to discuss its potential implications in various contexts during the coffee and lunch breaks. In addition, I attended some really nice talks and met scholars that helped me to expand on my initial thoughts to further explore the field of language teaching in regards to peace building. Overall, it was a great experience to attend this conference and I am grateful for being granted the Herbert E. Carter Travel Award, without which I would not be able to travel.