[[ SAAL ]]

President's Address

SAAL 24th Annual General Meeting
by Assoc Prof Low Ee Ling

A very Good afternoon SAAL Patron and Honorary Lifelong Member Dr Ho Wah Kam, SAAL Advisor, Prof Anne Pakir, SAAL financial advisor, Dr Teng Su Ching, SAAL immediate past President Assoc Prof Chng Huang Hoon, Partners in Applied Linguistics, SAAL Exco members, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentleman, welcome to SAAL's 24th AGM.

I would like to begin my speech by referring to the four broad directional goals I had laid out for SAAL when I took over the helm as President a year ago.

Firstly, I raised the question of developing a journal for SAAL. The Exco, through our Research and Publications arm headed by Assoc Prof Rani Rubdy and a few key members like Assoc Prof Larry Zhang, Dr Ruanni Tupas and Mr Ao Ran deliberated long and hard about the competition in the field, the possible scope for our journal etc. After months of deliberation and discussion, the SAAL Exco has finally decided on exploring an annual journal of specially commissioned papers along selected themes to be locally published with an international editorial board appointed. We have also sought the expertise of Assoc Prof Berinderjeet Kaur, President of the Association of Math Educators who kick-started her association's journal through humble beginnings. To date, it is still locally published but many internationally renowned writers from highly reputable universities have chosen to publish in that journal. We feel that the SAAL Review (name yet to be confirmed) can provide a platform for regional scholars to have a voice in Applied Linguistics. At the same time, high quality papers can also be commissioned thus raising the profile of the journal. We are still at a very initial stage of planning and hope to be able to announce concrete plans and a possible launch date by our AGM next year.

Secondly, I mentioned wanting to reach out to regional partners to form the network of Applied Linguistics in the region. To further achieve this vision, we formed the Global and Local Outreach sub-committee headed by two effervescent Exco members, Assoc Prof Larry Zhang and Dr Lim Beng Soon. I will share with you their local networking prowess under point three. For now, they are still working on extending SAAL's links with Malaysia and to explore the setting up of the Malaysian Association for Applied Linguistics (MAAL). Baby steps could be taken to set up a joint symposia with our regional partners beyond Malaysia to Brunei and Vietnam for example.

Thirdly, I mentioned wanting to grow the multilingual focus of SAAL and to this end, we have been extremely successful in organising at least 1 event with a focus on Malay co-organised with the Malay Teachers Union, a talk by Emeritus Professor Asmah Haji Omar in January 2009. This was attended by 55 people. We have also consciously co-opted two Exco members in Malay and Tamil specialisations to help us to achieve this focus. Dr Seetha Lakshmi will help us to reach out to the Tamil teachers in the coming year.

The Seminar and Talks sub-committee co-chaired by Dr Beatriz Lorente and Mr Stefan Serwe have also been extremely busy organising themed seminars and talks in 2009 with a conscious effort to engage different partners in Applied Linguistics. In growing the multilingual/multicultural focus of SAAL, we offered our support by publicising a seminar on 'Multiculturalisam and the English Language' organised by Ngee Ann Polytechnic and were acknowledged as sponsors. Our signature SAAL Lecture 2009 held on 7 March 2009 and co-organised by the English Language & Literature Academic Group at NIE also focused on this topic with Professor Li Wei, world renowned bilingual specialist addressing a 75 strong crowd on 'Discursive creation of multilingual spaces'. On 20 May 2009, SAAL organised our 3rd Graduate Seminar with Denise de Souza and Mary Ellis sharing on qualititative research methods. This was attended by over 70 graduate students from various specialisations. On 21July 2009, in partnership with the Linguistics & Multilingual Studies Division of Humanities and Social Sciences at NTU, a SAAL talk by Professor Neal Norrick from Saarland University on 'Conversational Storytelling' was attended by about 30 people.

My fourth goal was to focus on growing the pedagogical aspects of SAAL. Today's talk preceding this AGM is an example of reaching out to in-service teachers to interest them in SAAL activities. It also reflects our ongoing drive to reach out to students of Applied Linguistics in our membership drive.

Moving forward, we will continue to develop SAAL along the four broad directions outlined above. I will leave my Honorary Secretary to outline SAAL's main activities when she presents her report. We are proud to announce the publication of Language as Commodity: Global structures, local marketplaces in September 2008 co-edited by Rani Rubdy and Peter Tan, both key Exco members of SAAL. This volume arose out of a 2004 SAAL Forum on 'Mother Tongue Issues in Multilingual Communities' and includes contributors from SAAL members like our immediate past president A/P Chng Huang Hoon, Dr Ruanni Tupas and A/P Lubna Alsagoff. We are also pleased to announce that AILA Review 23: Multilingual Globalising Asia: Implications for Policy and Education is currently in press with SAAL member Lisa Lim and myself serving as the guest editors of the volume and with contributions from us and from Ruanni Tupas appearing in the volume.

No speech is complete without my expression of thanks. I would first like to thank our Patron, Advisor, Financial Advisor and immediate past president who have given us their firm support , guidance and wise advice in the past year. And to my Exco members, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all for helping to translate our vision into a reality. My Vice-President Peter helps to ensure our house is in order, Bea has played her role not just as Hon Sec but as a very active co-chair of the Seminars & Talks Sub-Committee with Stefan, to both of you, I am deeply grateful. Shenfa has been careful and prudent with our funds as he will proudly convey to you later on. I thank Jackie for managing our membership database. To the co-chairs of the Research & Publications sub-committee, Rani, Ao Ran and Ruanni, thank you for your careful deliberations and well-articulated points of view which have helped us to push the dream of having our own journal several steps forward. Larry is our membership drive champ and I have him and Beng Soon to thank for their exuberance in pushing the boundaries of local and global outreach. Ludwig and Seetha, thank you for strong presence and support and active contribution this past year. SAAL Quarterly is now under the able co-editorship of Larry, Ruanni and Ludwig. We could not have walked so far without you all and I hope you will all be energised and prepared to charge ahead in the coming year!