The L2DL and L2ML Symposia

As digital technologies continue to radically change the social acts of communication in which we engage, boundaries once taken for granted between various modes and medialities, between consumption and production, have begun to break down. Digital, networked communication forms afford new literacies—new forms of interaction, meanings, and understandings of ourselves and the world around us; thus, they also demand new pedagogical approaches and perspectives.

CERCLL conceived the L2 Digital Literacies Symposium (L2DL) to address these needs, providing educators, practitioners, and researchers a space in which to explore the wide array of practices captured by the concept of digital literacies as they relate to particular circumstances of learning and living in a second or additional language and culture. The symposium had two primary and interrelated goals: (1) to provide a forum within which various stakeholders (teachers, administrators, researchers) could consider how to integrate digital literacies into language classrooms, study abroad programs, and other forms of structured language learning, and (2) to provide a set of resources related to digital literacies and language teaching.

At four biennial international L2DL symposia between 2014 and 2020, livestreamed and pre-recorded presentations were created by international scholars. Selected recordings are available in our YouTube channel playlists (2014 in-person presentations and posters; 2016—with AZCALL–live presentations; 2018 live presentations and digital presentations; 2020 invited presentations and virtual presentations), with further details for individual years at the tiles below.

In 2023, the Second Language Multimodal Literacies Symposium (L2ML) arose as a natural extension of the L2DL symposium. Presentations explored the role of multimodality in contexts of second or multiple language and culture learning, and demonstrated research on the multimodal practices of multilingual speakers, and research-based practices for educators to integrate and assess multimodality into their language classes. See the L2ML playlist on our YouTube channel, and further details about the event in the tile below.