The Coordinator and Partners of the Erasmus+ “English as a Lingua Franca Practices for Inclusive Multilingual Classrooms – ENRICH” Project (2018-2021;  http://enrichproject.eu) and the Hellenic Open University, as the Coordinating Organisation of the Project, are pleased to announce the 1st International Conference on ELF-Aware Practices for Inclusive Multilingual Classrooms, or ENRICH-2021.

The Conference will be held on 3-4-5, December 2021 fully online, via a teleconference platform.

Participation in ENRICH-2021 is free of charge. Certificates of attendance and/or presentation will be provided at the end of the conference.

ENRICH-2021 aims at celebrating, disseminating and building upon the processes and research outcomes of the ENRICH Project. Based on a comprehensive study of teachers’ and learners’ needs, ENRICH has developed and implemented a high-quality online Continuous Professional Development Course that systematically guided teachers in understanding the principles and challenges of raising their learners’ ELF-awareness, and prompted them to design, teach and reflect upon original lessons for their teaching context that incorporated the principles and processes of ELF-awareness. In 2021, the CPD Course will be freely available online and will be accompanied by a Handbook, with key information for interested parties.

ELF awareness has been put forward as a comprehensive framework for integrating the observations, concerns and issues that arise in the research of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in different English language teaching and teacher education contexts. The process of raising teachers’ and learners’ ELF awareness focuses on three essential components: (a) language use, including languaging and translanguaging (the process of using multiple linguistic and non-linguistic resources to ensure efficient communication between multilingual interlocutors), (b) instructional practice, including perceptions about normativity and the notion of error, and (c) the major impact ELF use has on language learning.