Editorial

Abstract

This special issue of ReCALL is composed of 17 articles selected from presentations made at the WorldCALL 2003 conference, held May 7–10 2003 in Banff, Canada. Against all odds, during the heat of the war on terrorism, in the middle of the SARS crisis, approximately 250 people gathered in a breathtakingly beautiful town in the Rocky Mountains to discuss the latest advances in the field of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Registrants came to Banff for four spring days from fifty countries to take part in 158 lectures and poster sessions. The conference was steered by an international committee composed of members from twelve countries and organized by researchers from the Faculté Saint-Jean (Edmonton, Alberta), the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta), and the University of Calgary (Calgary, Alberta). The programme committee was established at the University of Victoria (Victoria, British Columbia). The specificity of WorldCALL conferences is that they are truly international, taking place in various parts of the world and attracting specialists from all parts of the planet. One of the unique contributions of this conference is that participants from underserved regions of the world are particularly encouraged to share their experience in CALL. In this respect, the conference was very successful. This was made possible by awarding eleven scholarships to participants from selected countries. WorldCALL 2003 was particular in one respect: being held in Canada and organized by French and English speakers, the organizers decided to provide a bilingual environment where presentations could be made in either of Canada's official languages. This is reflected in the selected papers by the fact that some of the articles are in French.