JCL Online Conference 2026

We’re pleased to announce this year’s JCL Online Conference! It will be held on May 16th, from 9:15-15:00 via MS Teams, under the title Practice  Makes Progress. 

This year’s conference will explore one of the most uncomfortable truths in language teaching: progress takes time - far more time than people realize and are willing to accept.

Students want impossibly fast results. Employers want even faster ones. And as teachers, we’re stuck in the middle. In trying to keep learners motivated, we sometimes end up reinforcing unrealistic expectations about how quickly a language can actually be learned.

This conference takes a clear-eyed look at progress - what it really means, what it actually looks like, and why it so often gets misunderstood.

We’ll look into CEFR levels, which is the closest thing we have to a unit of measurement in language learning, and how they overlap with actual proficiency and mastery of the language.

As usual, after each talk there will be space for your questions or observations in a Q&A session. We have also scheduled a lunch break and we are very pleased that the conference and closing panel discussion will be led by Denis Vaníček.

We’re excited to be able to bring you our regular conference again this year, and we aim to offer topics that will include something useful and thought-provoking for teachers of all languages.

If you wish to attend, please sign up here via Doodle Poll, attendees will receive the joining information before the event. 

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!