From the organizers of SICLE 2025: “We want to put community / heritage languages education on the map”
The Sydney Institute of Community Languages Education (SICLE) organised the “Heritage / Community Languages education: New directions Online Conference” which took place over several evenings in November 2025. The latest research in the field of Languages education, including Community / Heritage Languages and TESOL was shared.
Kati Varela opening the conference on November 4, 2025.
There were presentations from new and experienced researchers who talked about a range of topics including assessment, inclusivity, leadership, bilingualism, online learning, teachers’ professional learning, intercultural understanding, entrepreneurship, learner engagement, and challenges in languages education. Each presenter had 30 minutes, including question time, and there were two presentations per evening. These presentations were free and will be available online.
We asked our director, Ken Cruickshank, to talk about how the conference came about:
Dr. Ken Cruickshank closing the conference on November 27, 2025.
What did you hope to achieve in organizing this conference?
We want to put community/heritage languages on the map. There is not enough research going on considering how large this education sector is. Also, the really good researchers often move on to other areas.
The second aim was to give confidence to the researchers themselves – that they are doing something really important and we wanted to encourage others to take up research also. Most of the researchers are or were heritage languages teachers themselves and we wanted to shout out “Hey, look! You can do this too!”
How did the planning of this conference come about? Was there anything challenging?
It was all up to Kati who is a brilliant organiser. We had meetings of the researchers/presenters where we swapped ideas and they prepared abstracts and then practised their talks. It is really scary doing a presentation for the first few times. The challenge is for presenters realising that you cannot say too much in 20 minutes!
Dr. Janica Nordstrom and her presentation on November 6, 2025.
Why did you decide to hold the conference online?
It had to be online. Heritage languages are global and we have been isolated from each other. What other way can we bring together people in Europe, the Americas and Asia?
What has been the response to the presentations? How many people attended?
We had over 300 registrations and attendance of 30 to 50 at each session. This is good for a face-to-face conference! The questions were good in the sessions. Several presenters have made contact with others through these presentations.
Maggie Qoingmei Gu presenting the survey findings on November 11, 2025.
Looking forward, what events are in the pipeline?
We will do this again in 2026 with more promotion and we would like to include more researchers also. We are also planning a seminar series. We are just finishing four research projects and reports from these:
- One is on online teaching and was conducted by Kati.
- We have finished a second report on early childhood teaching in heritage language schools “Community Languages Schools and Children Under Five: Issues and Opportunities”.
- The third project was on inclusive education – learners with special needs in heritage languages schools.
- The fourth one is on Small Schools and their specific strengths and needs.
How can people follow the activities of SICLE?
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The table below contains a brief summary of the presentations at the 2025 conference: