BAAL is Britain’s national organisation for scholars of Applied Linguistics, with over 800 members from universities across the UK. From the beginning, BAAL has taken a close interest in the development of educational policies on language within the UK educational system as well as providing an academic forum for ELT. True to its founders’ intentions, BAAL continues to bring together diverse constituencies concerned with ELT, with English as a mother tongue, with foreign language teaching, and with bilingualism/ multilingualism, from within the world of education, as well as diverse groups concerned with the study of “language in use” in non-educational settings. It provides an arena where those engaged in the theoretical and empirical study of language can interact with those whose interest is in the practical implications of such work. It also provides a continuing commentary on language policy matters, and represents the interests of applied linguistics research in a range of forums.
Susan Sheehan is a Learning and Teaching Consultant at the British Council and a joint author, with Brian North and Angeles Ortega Calvo, of the Core Inventory for General English.
Click here to read Susan Sheehan's conference blog
Find out more about BAAL at http://www.baal.org.uk/