The low quality of many online classes during the recent pandemic disillusioned numerous technology enthusiasts; it led them to realize that educational technology is not a panacea, and that there was more to digital courses than being connected to the Internet.  The term Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) was coined during this period, in order to differentiate between such substandard classes and those with a sound pedagogical foundation.  Nonetheless, most language teachers are still largely unaware of the differences, and even more disappointing, they do not even have regular, appropriate access to in-service or pre-service Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) teacher training.  This is currently true in Iran, as well, disregarding the recent establishment of a master’s degree in CALL at Alzahra University in 2020.  Therefore, Iranian language teachers need to learn how they can further their own CALL professional development self-reliantly, in order to keep abreast of recent fast-tracked technology and CALL developments, and learn when and how to apply them to their own classes. This talk will briefly cover some of the most noteworthy CALL teacher education topics, so that participants will learn which issues they need to focus on most, and where to look for further guidance.

Professional development is crucial to improving teachers' quality of teaching, their professional identity and sustained motivation, and their retention on the one hand and students' outcomes on the other. As such, continued professional development (CPD) during the career span has received the attention of managers, teacher educators, and supervisors. This speech aims to address the need for CPD among school teachers through a critical lens framed by the educational ambiance of the school context in Iran. First, I will delineate the meanings of CPD and its multidimensionality. Next, I will describe the methods for unpacking teachers' needs for CPD. Against this backdrop, types of self-directed and school-scaffolded programs and their enactment for teachers' CPD will be discussed. Further, I will suggest multiple criteria for the evaluation of the effectiveness and impacts of these programs on teachers' CPD and students' gains. I will conclude the speech by highlighting the exigency for concerted investment in teachers' CPD, school-university partnership for more effective CPD, and space to be created by all stakeholders from the micro- and macro-ecologies to improve the CPD of teachers in the school context.

This workshop aims to explore the fundamental concepts and principles of sociolinguistics, recent developments and how they relate to language education. The participants are expected to gain practical knowledge of research methods, data collection, and analysis techniques relevant to ELT sociolinguistic inquiries. Moreover, they are likely to learn about classroom strategies and activities that leverage sociolinguistic awareness to enhance language instruction.

Given the effectiveness of the use of tasks in ELT classes and the importance of task design, the purpose of the workshop is to familiarize ELT practitioners with the fundamental principles of task design and implementation. In this workshop, first, a thorough introduction to the concept of task and its classification(s) will be made. Then, the basic issues and principles regarding task design will be reviewed. In the final phase, the addresses will be engaged to practice designing tasks.