Introduction to the Special Issue

Abstract

Self-Directed Learning and Advising in Language Education Conference organized by IATEFL Learner Autonomy Special Interest Group (LASIG) and Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University School of Foreign Languages, Turkey (AYBU SFL) took place online on 24 April 2021. It was originally planned as a face-to-face event in 2019, yet it was postponed to a later date due to the global outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic. The conference featured two plenary talks, a total of 30 pre-recorded and live presentations in concurrent sessions, and four poster presentations. Around 200 participants from several countries registered for this international gathering. The main theme of the event was Advising in Language Learning (ALL). In this regard, it was the first academic event organized in this field in Turkey. Along with ALL, several related fields, such as Learner Autonomy, Self-Directed Learning (SDL), Self-Access Language Learning (SALL), and Individual Differences in Language Learning, were addressed and discussed by researchers, practitioners, and preservice teachers in different sessions.

Keywords

• self-access