The 2017 SLRF Conference was held at Ohio State in October. The four plenary speakers gave excellent talks. Dr. Brian MacWhinney (Carnegie Mellon) delivered a lecture entitled "Multidimensional SLA and e-CALL — MultiLSA.key". Dr. Kara Morgan-Short (University of Illinois at Chicago) oultined "It’s electric! Connections between language processing and second language acquisition". Dr. Patricia Duff (The University of British Columbia) dealt with "Current Approaches to Theorizing and Researching Social Dimensions of Second Language Learning". Dr. Lourdes Ortega (Georgetown) presented "The Bi/multilingual Turn in SLA: How Far Have We (Not) Come, and Why?”.

On the first day, Dr. Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm ran an inspiring workshop about interactional competence entitled "L2 Interactional Competence: What it is and how to teach and research it" (photo below). She was followed by Nic Subtirelu (Georgetown) with "Working across methodological paradigms: Mixed methods research in second language research", and David Malinowski (Center for Language Study, Yale) with "Connecting Classrooms and Communities with Technology".

Fifty papers were presented on Friday, including Kathrin Frenzel-Luke's "Through the Lens of Conversation Analysis: On the relationship between German L2 speech fluency and self-initiated self-repair". The quality of the presentations was superb into the Saturday as well (see

Friday evening, there was a reception with a dance performance by dancer and choreographer Bita Bell performing her "Banned: A Tour of Teheran in under 10 minutes." She was accompanied on the stage by some volunteers from the Department, Gina Wrobel, Carolin Müller, Alexandra Woessner, and Budimka Uskokovic. Gina was selected to receive the "Most Outstanding Volunteer" Award (photo above).

The SLRF Conference ended on Sunday with a specially organized trip to the Columbus Center of Science and Industry (COSI), Columbus' science museum, which included a special tour of the Language Pod, a dedicated section of the museum where the Ohio State Buckeye Language Network educates the public about language and linguistics.

The Department would like to thank all the presenters and volunteers for contributing to a very successful conference. Special thanks go to Dr. Carmen Taleghani-Nikazm, one of the Conference advisors, Kathrin Frenzel-Luke, one of the Conference organizors, and to Michelle Dixon, who handled the administrative side of the planning. Many professors, including Dr. Moore from the Department of Teaching and Learning, are very proud of our success. Way to go Buckeyes!