Ofelia Garcia «Webinar»

Ofelia García is Professor Emerita at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). Her contribution in the area of bilingualism and the education of bilinguals is extensive. Among her best-known books are Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective and Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. She was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2023.

Gary Barkhuizen «Webinar»

Gary Barkhuizen is professor of applied linguistics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His teaching and research interests are focused on the areas of language teacher education, teacher and learner identity, study abroad, and narrative inquiry. His contributions are reflected in many publications, conference presentations, and books, which include Narrative Research in Applied Linguistics (2013) (Cambridge), Reflections on Language Teacher Identity Research (2017) (Routledge), Qualitative Research Topics in Language Teacher Education (2019) (Routledge), Language Teacher Educator Identity (2012) (Cambridge), and Narrative Inquiry in Language Teaching and Learning Research (2nd Edn) (2025) (Routledge). In 2017 he won the TESOL International Association’s Award for Distinguished Research.

Debra Russell

Debra Russell, PhD, is a Canadian certified interpreter, educator and researcher. She was also the previous David Peikoff Chair of Deaf Studies at the University of Alberta. Her research interests include mediated education with interpreters, interpreting in legal contexts and with legal discourse, and Deaf-hearing interpreter teams. She is well published and has performed research presentations in 65 countries. Her interpreting practice spans over thirty years, and continues to focus on medical, legal, mental health and employment settings. She is the past President of the World Association of Sign Language Interpreters (WASLI), and served as a Commissioner for the Commission on Collegiate Interpreter Education (CCIE) from 2016 to 2022.

Sandra Ximena Bonilla Medina

Sandra Ximena Bonilla Medina is a tenured professor and researcher in the Master ‘s program in Applied Linguistics for English Teaching at Francisco José de Caldas University’s Faculty of Science and Education. She holds a PhD in Education from the University of East London and a Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics to Teaching English from Universidad Distrital. She is a member of the research group ESTUPOLI. She directs the research incubator: Teaching and Learning languages, Culture and Social justice. Her research interests include language education in relation to race, interculturality, new technologies, and social justice.

José Aldemar Álvarez Valencia

José Aldemar Álvarez Valencia, PhD, is a professor of applied linguistics at the School of Language Sciences at Universidad del Valle, Colombia. He has been a language educator for more than 20 years in contexts such as the US and Colombia. He has authored/co-authored several articles and book chapters in the areas of discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, language policy, language teaching approaches, teacher education, intercultural communication, and multimodality. His publications include a co-edited book titled Interculturality in Language Teacher Education. His current research focuses on the intersection of multimodal communication and intercultural communication, decoloniality, multilingualism, and nonverbal communication.

Adriana González Moncada

Adriana González Moncada holds a doctoral degree in Linguistics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, an M.A. in Language Sciences from the Université de Nancy II (France), and a B.Ed. English-Spanish from Universidad de Antioquia (Colombia). She is a Professor at the School of Languages at Universidad de Antioquia. Her professorship activities include teaching and advising students in the undergraduate and graduate foreign language teacher education programs. Her areas of academic interest include English teachers’ professional development, language policies, English as a Lingua Franca, and World Englishes. Dr. González has served as Director of the School of Languages and Director of the Office of International Affairs at Universidad de Antioquia and as a member of the board of Education at the National Commission for the Assurance of Quality in Higher Education in Colombia.

Lourdes Rey

Lecturer and researcher at the Language Institute of the University of the North. His research interests include topics related to the foreign language learning teaching process, teacher development, curriculum design and evaluation, CLIL and EMI approaches, internationalization of higher education, and the development of international and intercultural competences in students. 

Member of the research group Language and Education (Category A1 in MinCiencias). Has participated in research projects and published articles and chapters on these projects.

Rodrigo A. Rodríguez

Rodrigo A. Rodríguez-Fuentes is Assistant Professor of the Department of Foreign Languages at Universidad del Norte in Barranquilla, Colombia. He earned his PhD degree in applied linguistics from Purdue University, United States. Roberto has taught English as a Foreign Language at all academic levels and supervised English instructors in Colombia and international college instructors across fields in the United States. His research interests include assessment and testing procedures applied to EFL, teacher training, technology applied to EFL pedagogy, and corpus linguistics. His work can be found in high impact journals, such as Language Testing, The Journal of Higher Education, English for Specific Purposes, and System.

Darío Pagel

Dario Pagel, a Brazilian professor of French from Germany, has had a remarkable academic and associative career. Holder of a PhD in General and Experimental Phonetics from the Institute of Phonetics of the University of Human Sciences of Strasbourg (1981), he has carried out post-graduate studiesPhD, the first in General and Experimental Phonetics as well as in Applied Phonetics to French in Strasbourg in 1994 and the second in 2003 at Université Paris 3 – Sorbonne Nouvelle. He taught French and francophone cultures, and directed applied didactic and phonetic research at various universities: the Federal University of Santa Catarina (1982-2005), the Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3 (2005-2008) and the Université Denis Diderot – Paris 7 (2008-2011). Currently, he teaches at the Federal University of Sergipe. Pagel was also president of the International Federation of French Teachers (2000-2008). He has received several awards, The University of Paris-Saint-Germain-des-Prés, France, awarded the title of Doctor Honoris Causa by the Université Marc Bloch and decorations from the French Ministry of Culture of France and the Conseil Supérieur de la Langue Française du Québec. He has published numerous works on pedagogy, didactics, phonetics and language policy.

Sébastien Portelli

Attaché of educational cooperation at the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs – Embassy of France in Colombia.

Attaché of Educational Cooperation at the Embassy of France in Colombia and teacher of language training. He taught English for almost 10 years in public secondary school in France. He was also a teacher trainer (for the teaching public) at the time of the introduction of the CEFR in the modern language education programmes in France. From 2010, he joined France Education International where he specialized in the field of evaluation in foreign languages through development, the promotion and dissemination of official FLE examinations by the French Ministry of Education (DELF-DALF, etc.). He is part of the French cultural network abroad since 2018 as Attaché for Linguistic Cooperation in Spain. He now holds the position of Educational Cooperation Attaché in the Cultural Action and Cooperation Service of the Embassy of France in Colombia and is very happy about it.

Edga Uribe

Professor Edga Uribe holds a PhD in Didactics of Languages and Cultures from the Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris University 3 (France). She is a professor and graduate of the School of Languages from Universidad Industrial de Santander (Colombia), where she was the Head of School for several terms (2004-2007 and 2015-2021). She is the leader of the Research Seminar Didactics of Languages, Cultures and Language and Educational Policies (DILECPOLE in Spanish) and a member of the GLOTTA and DILTEC research groups. She is a member of the Collective of Researchers in Multilingualism, Interculturality and Francophonie of Colombia (CIPIF) and the networks EnRedELE, COLIFRI, FIPF and ACOLPROF, where she is the vice president (2022-2024). Edga is also accredited as a DELE examiner by the Cervantes Institute.

Fabio Alberto Arismendi

Fabio Arismendi is a research professor at the Language School of the University of Antioquia in Colombia. He holds a PhD in Language Sciences from the University of Grenoble Alpes, a master’s degree in Language Sciences from the Stendhal University of Grenoble III and a bachelor’s degree in Foreign Language Didactics from the University of Antioquia. He is a teacher trainer in the undergraduate programs in Foreign Language Didactics and the master’s degree in Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Antioquia. His research focuses on language teaching and initial and continuing teacher training from a multilingual and intercultural perspective. He has been recognized as a junior researcher by Minciencias. Currently he is leading two research projects. The first focuses on a panorama of French teaching in the department of Antioquia in Colombia, seeking to characterize the contexts of education and FLE teachers in the region. The second project, in cooperation with researchers from the Grenoble Alpes University, focuses on peace-building in Colombia from a sociolinguistic point of view, Analysing the voices of women leaders who are victims of conflict and in the continuing training of foreign language teachers for peace education.

Germana Carolina Soler

Germana Carolina Soler Millán is a researcher in sociolinguistics and language teaching at the University of Caldas. His research focuses on areas such as social representations, language policies, interculturality and the relationship between culture and language. It also explores notions of otherness and the cognitive development associated with bilingualism. His expertise covers a variety of survey methods, including questionnaires, interviews, content and discourse analysis, as well as advanced techniques such as lexicography. She is proficient in several specialized data analysis software, including SPHINX, LEXICO5, and TROPES. As a specialist in the field of language teaching, she has developed specific skills in applied linguistics, foreign language acquisition, learning strategies and intercultural communication. She is particularly interested in the teaching of French as a foreign language (FLE) in the Colombian academic context and the impact of language policies on teacher training.

Robert Amavi

AMAVI Robert, Messanh is Ph. D. in education and training, MBA graduate in economics and laws. Associated researcher at the CIRNEF laboratory at Normandy University. His research focuses on professionalization through adult training, organizational Care, Evaluation of Public Policies, Co-construction, and Inclusion among others He has a particular interest in questions of education, training, professionalization and co-development in Africa, France, Europe and elsewhere. massanh.amavi@univ-rouen.fr amavirobert@gmail.com Messanh AMAVI (normandie-univ.fr)

Ricardo Otheguy

Ricardo Otheguy is a Professor Emeritus at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), renowned for his contributions to both theoretical and applied linguistics. His research in theoretical linguistics focuses on language contact, functional grammar, and the Spanish of the United States. In applied linguistics, his work spans bilingual education and the teaching of Spanish to native speakers of Spanish. He is also a co-author of Avancemos, one of the most widely used high school Spanish textbooks in the United States.

Guillaume Roux

Guillaume Roux is a French linguist and writer, currently professor in the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Caldas. Doctor of Language Sciences at the Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier. His research in linguistics focuses on discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, the acquisition of French as a first and second language, prosody and phonology, and the history of ideas about language. In his literary work, he tries to develop certain current questions of psychology and human relations as well as different forms of narration and genre mixing, and questions the notion of «literary modernity».

Halyna Kutasevych

Holder of a PhD in Romance languages and a master’s degree in language and French literature; Professor Kutasevych is a pedagogical engineer in Francophonia. Professor Kutasevych has focused her experience in the field of training and research, she has offered training for FLE professionals for more than 15 years. Her training experience covers long-term and a wide international geographical area.